The salespeople were running around in agitated circles. The commercial video crew members were equally nonplussed, arguing with each other over portable radios even though they were standing only twenty feet apart. The commercial director appeared to be about nineteen years old and wore a ball cap, a ponytail, an attempt at a goatee, and a pale, shocked expression.

The chicken cannon was relatively imposing: a thirty-foot barrel mounted on a tractor-trailer platform that could be raised on a hydraulic scissors hoist—Dar immediately thought of poor Counselor Esposito—with a jury-rigged breech mechanism that looked like an air lock for a chicken-sized space shuttle. The compressor was still humming away, the cannon aimed at a brand-new Saturn coupe sitting about fifteen meters from the muzzle.

Dar walked through the milling, babbling crowds and took a look at the coupe. The chicken had passed through the windshield like a bullet, taken off the head restraint on the top of the driver’s seat, punched a chicken-sized hole in the rear window of the coupe, and embedded itself in the cement-block wall of the dealership about fifty feet away.

The dealer, Up Front Sam, a skinny liberal-arts major gone bad but still given to wearing nubbly Harris tweed jackets—even on this broiling summer day—had no clue as to who Lawrence and Dar were, but he was babbling away at them as if confessing to his parish priest. “We had no idea…I had no idea…My brother-in-law’s FAA experts…. experts…said that the windshield would befine in impacts up to two hundred and fifty miles per hour…The dial was set at two hundred…I’m sure of that…Sister Martha was in the driver’s seat…we were ready to roll tape…then the director suggested one test run…I didn’t want to waste the time and money, they charge by the second, you know…but Sister Martha insisted, so she got out of the car…We figured it would just take a few minutes to clean up the mess on the windshield and then we could shoot for real…”

“Where’s Sister Martha?” interrupted Lawrence.

“In her sales cubicle,” said the dealer, close to tears. “The paramedics are giving her oxygen.”

Lawrence led the way into the showroom, sniffing appreciatively at the new-car-temple incense of new-car smell. Dar thought they’d be lucky to be on their way before Larry bought a new car just for the hell of it.

Sister Martha, in full nun uniform, had finished her intake of oxygen but was sobbing uncontrollably. Two female paramedics, Martha’s family, and a herd of curious bystanders stood around trying to comfort her.

“It w-w-w-w-w-was the ha-ha-ha-bit,” she said. “I’ve never w-w-w-worn it on any of these com-com-commercials b-b-b-before, never. It’s the L-L-L-Lord’s way of telling me that I c-c-crossed the line this time.”

“She’s all right,” said Lawrence. He and Dar went back outside to inspect the tail end of the chicken still visible in the impact crater in the wall. They headed for Dar’s Land Cruiser.

“Whose insurance brought you out here?” asked Dar as they passed the video crew.

“None. No involvement at all,” Lawrence said. “Trudy just heard it on the police scanner and I thought it might brighten your day.”

Suddenly Up Front Sam was beside them again. Evidently someone had told him that they were accident investigators. “I talked to my brother-in-law,” he said. “The engineers insist that if the specifications for the windshield were accurate, the chicken should have just bounced off.” He looked back at the hole in the windshield. “Mother of God, what did we do wrong? Did Saturn lie to us?”

“No,” said Lawrence. “That windshield could probably take an ostrich strike at two hundred miles per hour.”

“Then what…how did we…why…how in God’s name…” said the dealer.

Dar decided to be succinct.

“Next time,” he said, “defrost the chicken.”

They were two thirds of the way back to San Diego when Dar saw the huge traffic tie-up ahead of them. Emergency lights were flashing. All but one lane was closed heading into the city. Cars were backing up to the last exit ramp or illegally crossing the median to head back north to avoid the tie-up. Dar drove the Land Cruiser onto the breakdown lane and then far out onto the grassy shoulder to get as close to the mess as possible.

A CHP officer angrily flagged them down fifty yards from the actual scene. Dar saw at least three ambulances, a fire truck, and half a dozen CHP vehicles around the jackknifed trailer truck and the heap of automobiles in the right lane. He and Lawrence showed their credentials—Larry had legitimate press-photographer credentials as well as his insurance investigator’s ID and an honorary membership in the CHP.

Even with all of the vehicles blocking the scene, Dar could see what had happened. The truck was a car-carrier hauling new Mercedeses—E 500s from the look of those still on the bottom layer of the carrier and those in the heap on the highway. There were striated skid marks across all three lanes of traffic. The hood and windshield of an old Pontiac Firebird were just visible, squashed under a heap of tumbled silver Mercedeses. When the trailer had jackknifed and finally struck the Pontiac, the impact had torn loose all of the new cars on the top level. Not all of them had fallen on the old Pontiac—Dar could see one new Mercedes upside down on the breakdown lane and another battered but on its wheels two hundred feet down the highway—but at least four of the heavy vehicles had dropped on the Firebird. Tow trucks and a small crane were carefully lifting the Mercedeses off the Pontiac. Firefighters and rescue crews were using the Jaws of Life to cut through the A-pillars of the smashed Firebird, and at least one medic was on all fours, shouting encouragement to someone still in the wreck. The occupants of the Firebird obviously had not yet been extricated.

Dar and Lawrence walked back to the cab of the trailer where the driver—a big man with a beard and beer belly who was shaking and weeping much harder than Sister Martha had been—was trying to talk to the CHP. The state patrolmen started to push Dar and Lawrence away, but CHP Sergeant Paul Cameron saw them and waved them forward. The trooper’s face was set in grim lines as he leaned forward, gently patting the trucker’s shoulder and waiting for more description. Dar looked beyond the accident scene and saw young Patrolman Elroy on his knees amidst the flares and all the broken glass, vomiting into the grass.

“…and I swear to Christ, I did everything I could to avoid the Pontiac,” the trucker was saying, oblivious of his own shaking or the tears pouring down his sunburned cheeks. “I was just trying to get around the poor bastard, but there were cars on either side of me. Boxing me in. They didn’t stop. Every time I changed lanes, the driver of the Firebird changed lanes…When I braked, he braked harder…We must have crossed five lanes like that. Then I hit him and jackknifed. Couldn’t hold it…all the load…Jesus.”

“How did you get out?” asked Sergeant Cameron, gripping the trucker’s heaving shoulder tightly with his huge hand.

“The impact popped the windshield of the cab right out,” said the trucker, pointing. “I crawled out onto the top of the wreckage and managed to get down…That’s when I heard all the screaming…the screaming…”

Cameron gripped harder. “You’re sure it was the adult male who was driving, son?”

“Yeah,” the trucker said, and lowered his eyes, his huge frame shaking.

Dar and Lawrence walked back to the wreckage, being careful to stay out of the way of the rescue workers. They had managed to pull all but one of the heaped Mercedeses off the flattened Firebird and now they were busy cutting away the A-pillars and peeling back the roof to get to the victims in the front seat.

The driver was still alive, but covered with blood as the paramedics gingerly lifted him out, immediately getting him strapped onto a litter and bracing his neck. He was an overweight Hispanic man, groaning and saying over and over, “Los niños…los niños.”