The look that passed between the two men chilled Parker.

Oh, no…

"Well, sir-"

Inside the house the phone started to ring. He saw Mrs. Cavanaugh answer it.

"The shooter, he got on board a party yacht on the Potomac. Killed eleven, wounded more than twenty. I thought you knew."

Oh, God. No…

Nausea churned inside him.

Here I was reading children's books while people were dying. You've been living life on Sesame Street…

He asked, "Agent Lukas… she's all right? And Agent Cage?"

"Yessir. They weren't anywhere near the boat. They found some clue that said 'Ritz,' so they thought the Digger was going to hit one of the Ritz hotels. But that wasn't it. The name of the boat was the Ritzy Lady. Bad luck, huh?"

The other agent said, "Security guard got off a couple shots and that scared the shooter off. So it wasn't as bad as it might've been. But they didn't hit him, they don't think."

Bad luck, huh?

No, not luck at all. When you don't solve the puzzle it's not because of luck.

Three hawks…

He heard Mrs. Cavanaugh's voice, "Mr. Kincaid?"

He glanced into the house.

Eleven dead…

"Phone for you."

Parker walked into the kitchen. He picked up the phone, expecting to hear Lukas or Cage.

But it was a smooth-sounding, pleasant baritone he didn't recognize. "Mr. Kincaid?"

"Yes? Who's this?"

"My names Slade Phillips, WPLT News. Mr. Kincaid, we're doing a special report on the New Years Eve shootings. We have an unnamed source reporting that you've been instrumental in the investigation and may be responsible for the mix-up in sending the FBI to the Ritz-Carlton Hotel when in fact the killer had targeted another location. We're going on the air with that story at nine. We want to give you the chance to tell your side. Do you have anything to say?"

Parker inhaled sharply. He believed his heart stopped beating momentarily.

This was it… Joan would find out. Everyone would find out.

"Mr. Kincaid?"

"I have no comment." He hung up, missing the cradle. He watched the phone spiral downward and hit the floor with a resounding crack.

The Digger returns to his comfy motel room.

Thinking of the boat-where he spun around like… click… like a whirligig among red and yellow leaves and fired his Uzi and fired and fired and fired…

And watched the people fall and scream and run. Things like that.

It wasn't like the theater. No, no, he got a lot of them this time. Which will make the man who tells him things happy.

The Digger locks the motel door and the first thing he does is walk to the couch and look at Tye. The boy is still asleep. The blanket has slipped off him and the Digger replaces it.

The Digger turns the TV on and sees pictures of the Ritzy Lady boat. Once again he sees that man he recognizes-the… click… the mayor. Mayor Kennedy. He's standing in front of the boat. He's wearing a nice suit and a nice tie and it looks odd to see him wearing such a fancy suit with all the yellow bags of bodies behind him. He's speaking into a microphone but the Digger can't hear what he's saying because he doesn't have the TV volume on because he doesn't want to wake up Tye.

He continues to watch for a while but no commercials come on and he's disappointed so he shuts off the TV, thinking, "Good night, Mayor."

He begins to pack his belongings, taking his time.

Motels are nice, motels are fun.

They come and clean up the room every day. Even Pamela didn't do that. She was good with flowers and good with that stuff you did in bed. That… click, click… that stuff.

Mind jumping, bullets rattling around the cra… crane… cranium.

Thinking, for some reason, about Ruth.

"Oh, God, no," Ruth said. "Don't do it!"

But he'd been told to do it-to put the long piece of glass in her throat-and so he did. She shivered as she died. He remembers that. Ruth, shivering.

Shivering like on Christmas day, twelve twenty-five, one two two five, when he made soup for Pamela and then gave her her present.

He looks at Tye. He'll take the boy out… click… West with him. The man who tells him things told him he'd call after they finished in Washington, D.C., and tell him where they'd go next.

"Where will that be?" the Digger asked.

"I don't know. Maybe out West."

"Where's the West?" he asked.

"California. Maybe Oregon."

"Oh," responded the Digger, who had no idea where those places were.

But sometimes, late at night, full of soup and smiling at the funny commercials, he thinks about going out West and imagines what he'll do out there.

Now, as he packs, he decides he'll definitely take the boy with him. Out West out… click.

Out West.

Yes, that would be good. That would be nice. That would be fun.

They could eat soup and chili and they could watch TV. He could tell the boy about TV commercials.

Pamela, the Digger's wife, with a flower in her hand and a gold cross in between her breasts, used to watch commercials with him.

But they never had a child like Tye to watch commercials with.

"Me?" Pamela asked. "Have a baby with you? Are you mad crazy nuts fucked…" Click. "… fucked up? Why don't you go away? Why are you still here? Take your fucking present and get out. Go away. Do you…"

Click…

But I love you all the…

"Do you need me to spell it out for you? I've been fucking William for a year. Is this news to you? Everybody in town knows except you. If I were going to have a baby I'd have his baby."

But I love you all the more.

"What are you doing? Oh Je-

Click.

– sus. Put it down!"

The memories are running like lemmings through the Digger's cranium.

"No, don't!" she screamed, staring at the knife in his hand. "Don't!"

But he did.

He put the knife into her chest, just below the gold cross he'd given her that morning, Christmas morning. What a beautiful red rose blossoms on her blouse! He put the knife in her chest once more and the rose got bigger.

And bleeding bleeding bleeding, Pamela ran for… where? Where? The closet, yes, the closet upstairs. Bleeding and screaming, "Oh Jesus Jesus Jesus… "

Pamela screaming, lifting the gun, pointing it at his head, her hand blossoming into a beautiful yellow flower as he felt a thud on his temple. I love you all the…

The Digger woke up sometime later.

The first thing he saw was the kind face of the man who would tell him things.

Click, click…

He now calls his voice mail. No messages.

Where is he, the man who tells him things?

But there's no time to think about it, about being happy or sad, whatever they are. There's only time to get ready for the last attack.

The Digger unlocks the closet. He takes out a second machine pistol, also an Uzi. He puts on the smelly latex gloves and starts to load the clips.

Two guns this time. And no shopping bags. Two guns and lots and lots of bullets. The man who tells him things told him that this time he has to shoot more people than he's ever shot before.

Because this will be the last minute of the last hour of the last night of the year.