I looked at the tug again.

  I walked out on the dock, crossed the sagging plank, went to the cabin door, pulled it open, and went inside.

  At the galley table, Honey-Pie sat on a chair with her bare feet wrapped behind the rungs and her fists in the lap of her dress. She looked at me, blinking.

  On the window sill, the radio was still going:"... have been other mass murderers—indeed, man has committed atrocities against man, even in this decade, that render the terror here insignificant; yet the concentration of all this violence into a single day, in a single town, coupled with the alleged youth of the assassin—" Sawyers' voice was interrupted by another, further away: "Oh my God!" Then, louder: "I found it! Hey, I found it right here!" There were murmurs, whispers, shouts; then, one shout among them: "What you got?" And Whitey's bawling reply: "I found the—" Bleep!—"baby!" Sawyers' voice returned in an intense whisper: "Wait a minute ... Wait...! I think they've found something. Yes. I think they've got the . . . Everyone is running toward the water. I'm moving with the crowd. I'm moving. Fishermen, policemen, and those who are simply curious onlookers are clustered at the water's edge, crowding onto the docks to see, staring down into the ...! What? No, we're trying to find out for you if he's all right. Hello? Hey... ? Is he all... ? One of the orderlies has just pushed by me, making for the ambulance. Now he's getting out the stretcher. People are making so much noise, you couldn't hear the sound of a baby crying even if—What's that . . . ? Two of the policemen now, with grapple-hooks, I can see from here, are reaching down into the— Yes... ? Oh my God, folks, the poor thing

  The cup of coffee sat in front of Honey-Pie. I thought she was going to pick it up and drink it. But when I walked around the table, I saw there was a ring inside it, half an inch above the liquid, on which gray skin quivered and wrinkled. It was maybe two, three days old.

  There was a mattress, folded over on itself once and stained over the narrow blue and white stripes. I went to it and sat down.

  Honey-Pie watched me as I hunkered back against the wall. I pulled my sneaker heels back against my ass and wrapped my arms around my knees. One knee was coming through. I was breathing hard, and my belly, pressing again and again against my thighs, felt funny. I shook back hair that was tickling my forehead; it fell again, still wet.

  Sawyers was saying: "... makes at least thirty-one people dead today: by gunshot, rifle and pistol; by stabbing—knife, screwdriver, broken fire poker; by clubbing, with a rifle butt, with a pair of wire-clippers; by strangulation, with jumper cables, bailing wire—and now the latest victims include a pregnant mother and her year-old child. That thirty-one does not include Michael Rhomer, tragically killed in the street because someone mistook him for the murderer. There are over half a dozen people in severe condition at Frontwater District Memorial Hospital. This city, I think it is safe to say, has never seen a day like this before. And we all hope it never sees one like it again. I'm going to be talking to Police Inspector Haley in a few seconds. Inspector Haley is going to explain what the police will be—Oh, yes. That's right. Yes, this is Inspector Haley. Inspector?"

  "Yeah? Well, we're all agreed this has been pretty terrible." It was the voice of the man in the rumpled suit. "Anyway, we're sure he hasn't gotten too far away. He's only had minutes to run, this time. And the place is surrounded with just about everything we have. We got it from a couple of people at the bar where he did the first bunch in—people who knew him there—that the kid don't even know how to drive. We've already done some checkin' on him. We're gonna catch him, soon now."

  "Can you tell us why you're so sure the capture is imminent, Inspector?"

  "Well, there's that thing he always writes Is that all right to

  talk about? Do they know about that?"

  "If they've been listening to their radios, Inspector. Ladies and gentlemen, Harkner—or the killer alleged to be Dennis Harkner—

  at the scene of each crime has written 'All right/ somewhere on the floor or a wall or a window. This time, it's on the front of the barge cabin where the murder was committed. Would you tell us something about how he writes it, Inspector?"

  "Huh?—well, in these big... Eh, with blood... Eh... blood. The murder victims' blood. That's pretty—you know—grim."

  "Yes, Inspector. And you were saying?"

  "Oh, yeah. Well, he didn't get a chance to finish it this time. He wrote 'All' and the first four letters of 'Right.' Then there's this smear—you can see it over there on the cabin wall of the barge."

  "Yes, I do, Inspector. Ladies and gentlemen, the spotlights are illuminating the front wall of the barge's cabin where the victims, Harry and Mona Bunim, with their year-old son, Chuck, worked and lived. Next to the door, across the torn tarpaper, you can read, plainly and clearly, the gruesome words the Inspector has described."

  "Well, see," the Inspector repeated, "he didn't have time to finish. So he must not have had time to get too far away." In the background whispers and talk, someone playing a harmonica passed close to the microphone. "Somebody, Inspector, just told me ... I just was handed a note that the officer who, minutes ago, discovered the mutilated body of little Chuck, floating in the water, was also the first to hear the gunshots and shouts of the victims and to come running to their aid, apparently scaring Harkner—the alleged killer—away. And that it was he, not Officer Pelham, who was first to enter the cabin, to be greeted by the horrendous sight."

  "Yeah," the Inspector said. "He's one of the regular Crawhole fellas. Whitey's a good old boy."

  "Thank you, Inspector. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Edward Sawyers, and we've been talking to Inspector Haley, here at the Crawhole docks, not thirty feet from the barge on which, perhaps half an hour ago, occurred another in the series of slayings that have branded this day as one of the blackest in the annals of mass murder. The Inspector has assured us that the capture of the killer, alleged to be seventeen-year-old Dennis Harkner, is imminent. A net of police has been set around and throughout Crawhole. From evidence at the scene of the murder, we have been assured that the killer is somewhere in the—" Then the door crashed back. Honey-Pie's fists jumped onto the table and she jerked her chair

  half a foot, without standing.

  "Aw, shit," Hogg drawled. Grinning, he lowered his booted foot to the floor, and let go of the jambs. His bare foot was gun-colored with filth, to the frayed cuff. On the sill, his club-like toes, the nails picked back like they were bitten bad as the ones of his dirty, sausage-thick thumbs, flattened. The workboot, crusted with dirt, flexed with the foot inside. He grinned, wide enough for me to see, as well as his big, yellow front teeth, some of the side, rotten ones. His close green eyes were bright in his grimy face. Greasy hair clawed his forehead. Chin, cheek, and upper lip were dark with stubble like sand. He looked around the galley. When his eyes went from me to Honey-Pie and back, his grin got even looser.

  Hogg stepped inside, real slow. The slab of his hand slid up to his belly. He furrowed the matted yellow around the creased pit of his navel, between the hanging shirt edges. Then he dropped it, to hook the scuffed belt with his thumb, pulling the brass buckle down his gut. Things inside the hammy, hairy forearm moved. "Cocksucker, you wouldn't believe the shit I just been through, tryin' to find your ass." He barked out one syllable of rough laughter. "You know them two cocksuckin' bastards, Nigg and Hawk, had the nerve to come back to the bar? Well, like I was goin' up to save them a run-in with all the police that was still hangin' around after all Denny's shit—I mean, I seen 'em hustlin' you out the goddamn door; they must've thought I was asleep or something—anyway, I just took 'em back around in the alley, you see, explainin' to them why all the cops was there and all about what Denny had done and then, soon as I got 'em out of sight of anybody—well, I began to bang heads. Couldn't bang Nigg's too hard 'cause he works with me too often and probably will again, but I did in the white boy! He told me where you were."

  From the radio, Sawyers said: "... loading the sheet-covered bodies into the ambulance for that final..." and outside, along the docks, a siren made Hogg glance toward the window; red light swept the bottom corner of the screening."... while the tiny, towel-covered figure—one of the orderlies nearly dropped his side of the stretcher, but now he catches it up, and they move on to the ambulance's open doors. Yes, the tiny, draped figure is now inside. The orderlies are climbing in. Inspector Haley is over, talking to the driver. One of the orderlies looks out the back door—has he forgotten something? No, he's just taking a last look at the scene

  here, as we shall be doing shortly, with its floodlights, its police cars, and the dozens of police officers still checking the barge for evidence. Now the door is being locked. The ambulance, starting slowly at first among the crowd of fishermen and other locals who are wandering around it, is beginning to drive off." And from the radio speaker came the sound of the siren—thirty seconds old. "Momentarily, we'll be switching you back to the studio for a final rundown on the search for Dennis Harkner, a wrap-up of the local and national news, and music till midnight with ..."

  "Hey—!" Hogg jammed a thumb at the window sill—"how you like that shit, huh? I guess Denny's just about the most famous person we know, hey, cocksucker?" He scratched his belly again and ambled forward, like a huge blond ape. "I'd a' thought the goddamn infection would a' laid him too low for that kind of mess. But I guess there's some spunk in the little jack-off yet." He scratched down under his belt. "I guess tomorrow we gonna hear about how twenty or thirty big, brave pigs done finally smoked him from some outhouse with mace and what-all and machine-gunned his ass down. But, shit, the cocksucker ain't no more'n seventeen!" Hogg laughed. "I just sort of wish I'll get a chance to see him once more and maybe shake his hand 'fore they kill him. Man, you should've seen him in the bar, there, clubbin' them bikeys and shootin' old Ray in the belly— Wham/The wop and his old lady and me was just a-laughin' and applaudin'—dangerous? My syphilitic left nut! Before he cut out of there, he give me a big grin. I gave him one right back. 'Go on, motherfucker,' I told him. 'It's all right. Go on!'" A puzzled look broke, here and there, through Hogg's grin to pull together on top of it. "I don't know why he's doin' it. Don't expect I ever will. But it sure is something, huh?" He pulled his hand out from his belt and reached down to dig at his crotch. Down on his greens where the head of his dick would be was a wet spot the size of a water-glass bottom from the drip his work got him, I guess.

  Thinking about it in there, thick as my wrist and long as a flashlight, with an inch of foreskin swinging off it (I was still breathing hard), I felt my own dick move in my pants.

  Hogg turned to close the door—the latch didn't quite catch and it drifted open an inch as he turned back. Once more he looked around the room, at Honey-Pie, at me, at Honey-Pie. "Motherfucker," he said. The grin was back on his face. He moved his feet apart and, at his thighs, flexed his hairy hands. "Well, looks like we got some

  nigger meat here." Hogg shook his head a little. "Hey, baby... Ain't nothin' like sweet young nigger meat! Maybe you didn't land yourself in such a bad place after all, cocksucker. Come here, nigger meat."

  Honey-Pie stood up so fast the chair overturned. She stepped back, looking serious and blinking.

  "Come here. ..." Hogg stepped forward.

  She took another step back.

  "Come on, honey. Lemme see some of that chocolate pussy. Go on, pull up that skirt and let me see some sweet, brown, nigger pussy." Mouth wide open, Hogg stuck out his tongue and wobbled it like a wet fish. A drop of gray spit hung from his lower lip. "Hey, cocksucker, you gonna help me fuck this little black bitch. ..." One hand got into his fly; on the other a single hairy finger bent, beckoning. "Come here, nigger meat. Lemme see some pussy..."

  Her next step back, Honey-Pie's heel landed on the mattress. I wasn't sure, from behind her, but it looked like she started to bunch her skirt up.

  "Shit..." Hogg whispered, came around the table, pushed her. "Lay down—!"

  She grunted when she hit the mattress, rocked back against me; I caught her from hitting her head on the wall.

  Hogg's hand did something inside his pants; another fly button hit the floor, rolled under the table, clicked against one of the iron braces, and fell over.

  His wormy cock came out, hard as a pipe, dangling its rag of skin. His knees hit the mattress, and I caught his stench. I tried to remember how many times his clothes had been soiled since I'd met him. With his thumb, he jabbed at the fleshy petals of Honey-Pie's cunt. She jerked against me.

  I let go and scrambled around to get my face between them. I licked her pussy around where his thumb dug—she didn't have much hair. Then I tried to get at his cock—the rim of his fist beat at my mouth—but he wanted to get it in her. Hogg shoved forward and my head got caught between his fleshy gut, his wrinkled jeans, her bunched-up dress and smooth brown belly. I pulled out. Hogg was already humping her, hard. His knees were on the floor and he was grunting like a pig. She was gasping like one.

  I crawled down his legs, and for a while I gnawed on his bare,

  black, cracked heel.

  Then I got up again, crawled onto the mattress again, and pulled at the back of his pants. They came down over his heaving ass; coming up, the buttocks opened, shit-stuck either side. They fell, clamping, then rose, the hair pulling apart the half-dried paste. The sphincter, discolored and wrinkled, suddenly puckered, then bubbled. I stuck my tongue in it. His buttocks ground my face. "Yeah," Hogg growled, "you finally eatin' shit, you little bastard." His hand came back and pushed my head further down. With a palm on one cheek, I ate out his asshole. I put my other hand between his legs. Sweat ran down his balls. When I fingered the fat, sliding cock and the rolling edges of Honey-Pie's pussy, he humped harder. I licked and thought about the way, when he finished fucking a woman or a girl, right afterward he would sink his scummy pole into my mouth and loose another load or fill my belly with pee. Thinking about that and eating out his asshole while he fucked Honey-Pie made it better than eating shit out of—

  —Big Sambo bellowed: "MOTHERFUCKER!"

  The door crashed back.

  I heard Big Sambo's boots bang across the floor; the nigger roared, "What the flick you—!"

  Hogg came up off Honey-Pie, rising in one movement—I got pushed aside onto the mattress—to turn, crouching, his cock still up and gleaming. He was grinning like a yellow-headed gorilla.

  Honey-Pie rolled against the wall, terrified. The way she curled up made me think of a brown beetle somebody had stuck with a pin and then just pulled it loose.

  "Oh, man," Big Sambo said, beside the table, real low. He was crouched too. "Oh, man, you fuckin' on my daughter!" His fists came up like slow cannonballs. "I'm gonna kill you, motherfucker. . ."

  "Aw, shit," Hogg drawled; in the same tone as when he'd come in. He hefted up his trousers, enough to close the top button. His belt still swung. His cock still hung out, glistening. But it was pretty much down. "Try, nigger."

  Big Sambo's face snarled up like a prune. One black workboot stamped forward. One of those cannonballs swung by his hip. When it stopped, there was a knife in it; I'm damned if I know where he'd hidden it.

  Hogg grabbed the edge of the galley table. It came up, the clamps

  on three legs yanking loose nests of splinters. The fourth leg just broke. Hogg brought the table back with both hands and heaved. The cup crashed, splashing tan and splattering pieces. The table corner hit Big Sambo's chest. The nigger grunted and went back. Both fists hit the wall over his head—he didn't drop the knife, though. The table landed upside down. The nigger came forward, among the upright legs (and one stump), stumbling against the brace across the underside.

  Hogg was already at the sink, though. He snatched the ten-inch skillet from its nail—the nail pulled loose, clinked on the stained aluminum drainboard, rolled into the basin—lumbered around, fast, and swung.

  It gonged the left side of Big Sambo's head. Clutching his face, Big Sambo staggered right and right into the pan as Hogg brought it back again. This time the knife fell on the floor.

  Three seconds later, so did Big Sambo.

  Feet wide—the bare one in spilled coffee—Hogg rubbed at the arm from which the pan dangled. It looked like he'd wrenched it. Then the pan clanked to the floor and wobbled around with a sound like somebody swallowing it. Breathing hard, Hogg looked first at Big Sambo, then back at the mattress.

  Honey-Pie sat, her cheek pressed to the wall, one wrist against her mouth, one hand spread on the wood. She was blinking at Big Sambo.

  "Come on, cocksucker," Hogg said. "Let's get outta here 'fore somebody comes around to see about the noise."

  He wasn't even thinking about Honey-Pie at all, now.

  I got up but, as I stepped over the nigger, I looked back at her. She was staring at me ... I felt my face trying to mimic hers, as though that would let me know what was going on inside her.

  "Come on!" Hogg's hand just caught my ear; it stung so hard I almost fell. If he'd caught me full in the head, he might've knocked me out.

  I got to the door—scraped my shin against the broken table leg, but not bad—and pushed it open. I looked back at Hogg, who was rubbing his arm again. He wiped his mouth on his shoulder, kneaded his bleep, bent his elbow a couple of times, then kneaded his forearm.

  Behind Hogg, taking her hand from the wall now, Honey-Pie was still looking at me.

  "Go on, go on," Hogg said.

  I crossed the deck. Hogg came on behind me. I heard him laugh. "Shit, cocksucker—" I glanced back. Stuffing his meat back into his pants, immediately he gestured me to go on—"but I sure like to beat up a nigger. Can't beat on old Nigg too much 'cause we always on jobs together." I heard him buckling his belt. "Beatin' on the bikey was fun. But it ain't like a nigger." At the head of the gangplank, Hogg stopped me with a hand on my shoulder.

  From the deck we could see down where the police cars were still parked by the barge. The red light was off now. The van from the radio station was pulling out. Police were all up and down the dock. There was still a crowd. There were still spotlights.