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winking and drooling and touching her arm and generally trying to cozy up in a none-too-subtle way. Wally saw what was going on, marched over, stepped between them (cutting the jerk off), and just stared at her. He didn’t say a word; he just stared. But man, his was a stare that could chill Death himself. It had given Harvey shivers all up and down his spine.
    That worried him.
    Harvey watched television for a while, but found he couldn’t concentrate on it. There was something odd about this business today, though Harvey couldn’t quite put his finger on what. He pushed off the sofa and returned to the kitchen. He stood by the window for a while, but didn’t hear a peep. That was it—that was what was odd. Earlier he’d heard such a terrific hullabaloo, and now he heard nothing. How long ago was it he heard the big noise? An hour? But now he heard nothing. Less than nothing, actually. It was absolutely silent over there. Deathly silent.
    That should be good, shouldn’t it? That should mean the fight was over. So why was his skin crawling?
    Harvey put the empty beer bottle in the trash and strolled out onto his front lawn. It was no different. No sign of activity at the house next door, or anywhere else, for that matter. He should’ve been relieved by that. This was supposed to be a nice, upper-class neighborhood, but lately, he’d noticed people he didn’t much like the looks of. Not that he sat around all night peering out the windows or anything, but still. Occasionally there were vagrants. The last several nights he’d seen what he called the Odd Couple: some grungy-looking man wearing fatigues and a young girl—mid to late teens, he’d guess—wearing a tank top and big hoop earrings and a blue headband. They walked up and down the street, real casually, looking the neighborhood over. Or casing it, he suspected. Let those druggies in and you might as well move out.
    The eerie silence was shattered by a piercing, howling noise. What the hell? He eased across the lawn toward the Barretts’ house. Suddenly, as if in answer to his question, Harvey saw Wallace Barrett race out the front door.
    “Wally!” Harvey shouted.
    Barrett didn’t answer, didn’t even seem to hear, as far as Harvey could tell, even though they were less than twenty-five feet apart. Barrett was running at top speed, flexing those leg muscles that made him the best rushing quarterback OU had ever seen. His shirt seemed to be torn, and there was something bright smeared across one side of his face.
    “Wally!”
    No use. Barrett leaped into his Porsche parked on the curb—had that been there before?—and slid into the driver’s seat. In a few seconds the car was powered up and Barrett was halfway down the street.
    Now that was very odd, Harvey thought. Odd, and worrisome.
    I need to get in that house, he told himself. I need to know … what? He wasn’t sure. But the short hairs on the back of his neck told him something unusual was happening. Or had happened.
    It was so quiet over there.
    The window on the side of the Barrett home was still open. Maybe if he just sidled up to it casually …
    No. What would he say, after all, if they saw him? He didn’t have his tools and he didn’t have a kachina doll. The place was probably a mess. The kids were probably upset. It would just be an embarrassment to everyone.
    Well, he told himself, the police were supposed to handle this sort of thing, weren’t they? So let them. He could call in a domestic disturbance anonymously. The cops had to answer, even if they didn’t think there was anything to it; he’d read about that in the paper. They could check on Caroline and the kids, and no one need know he had called them in.
    It was tempting just to go in now, to march in there and make sure everything was fine. That’s what he would’ve done back in Dill City.
    Hmph. And these big-city types thought they were so much more sophisticated. Sometimes he thought they didn’t know anything at