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thanks to the Bitch, but he could damn sure get a good close-up look with his glasses.
        So he'd hurried away to get them. Hurried so fast that he'd ended up with three nicks from the rose bush thorns. No more than four minutes later, he'd returned to the wall, binoculars in hand, ready and eager. No Sheila. She was gone. Her book was gone. Her plastic bottle suntan oil was gone. She had gotten up, and he would never know whether or not she'd been careless about her top. He'd missed it. Gone for the binoculars and missed it! In a rage, he had slammed the binoculars against the wall. Pounded them, smashed them.
        Now, he realized that he had missed more than a chance to see Sheila rise from the lounger, possibly revealing her breasts. He had missed his last chance. Because now she was somewhere under all that rubble. Crushed, ruined, dead. Stanley walked over to the lounger. Its green cushion, faded in places so it was almost white, showed yellow and brown stains in the rough shape of a body. Run-off from Sheila, he thought. Some from Barbara, too, he supposed. Crouching, he sniffed the cushion. Its dry, sweet aroma whispered to him of long summer days and sweltering beaches, the squeal of gulls, the rush of combers washing over the sand. It's her suntan oil, he realized. Suntan oil and sweat. He pressed his face into the cushion. Eyes shut, he felt the warm fabric against his lids and against his lips as he sucked, filling himself with the air from the cushion. Sheila was right here. He licked the cloth. And sucked.
        And thought he heard a voice. The voice didn't startle him, didn't worry him. It hadn't come from someone near enough to observe what he was doing. He hadn't been caught. And he didn't intend to get caught, so he raised his head. A dark patch of wetness on the cloth showed where his mouth had been. Glancing all around, he saw no one. He heard no voice. Maybe he hadn't heard a voice at all. It might've something different. No telling what he had really heard through the awful clutter of noises: the wailing, hooting alarms from cars or houses; the sirens nearby and far away; the car horns beeping over on Robertson Boulevard; the whup-whup-whup of a helicopter that was out of sight but not very far away; the bangs and pops and blasts, some alarmingly loud that might be backfires or slams, but were probably gunshots; a scream of car brakes; the sound of a crash; various other clamors and roars. A regular chaos of noises.
        Stanley heard such noises every day, but not so many of them, not all at once. One of the neighborhood's normal sounds was missing, though. Probably the worst of all. The leaf-blowers. This morning, they were silent. All the little crews of lawn workers must've decided to take the day off on account of the Big One. Just three days ago, Mother had demanded that Stanley 'do something' about the Mexican gardeners who'd shown up across the street at seven-thirty and demolished the morning peace. First, they'd slammed the tailgate of their antique pickup truck. Then they'd gone into action with the power mower and the leaf-blower. The din of the blower had destroyed the last of Mother's restraint.
        'You go out there right this minute and do something, Stanley!'
        'What am supposed to do?'
        'Have a word with them. They've no right, no right in the world, to be raising such a Godawful racket at an hour like this.'
        'They'll be done in a while.'
        'Stanley!'
        'It won't do any good, anyway. They won't understand a word say.'
        Behind her glasses, her eyes narrowed. 'I suppose you're right. Damn wetbacks. They've got no business coming to this country if they can't learn to speak…'
        'I know, know.'
        'Call the police.'
        'The police? I'm not gonna call the police about a leafblower.'
        'I will.' Scowling, she had wheeled herself toward the telephone. After passing Stanley, she'd looked back at him.