In 1989, an old woman called Wagner a common slut, and got the water cure. Afterward, the angels were drinking in a tavern, laughing and mimicking the old woman's convulsions and the look on her face. A doctor sitting nearby overheard.

By then, the Vienna health authorities estimate that almost three hundred people had been cured. Wagner got life in prison. The other angels got lesser sentences.

"We could decide whether these old fogies lived or died," Wagner said at her trial. "Their ticket to God was long overdue in any case."

The story Helen Hoover Boyle told me is true.

Power corrupts. And absolute power corrupts absolutely.

So just relax, Helen Boyle told me, and just enjoy the ride.

She said, "Even absolute corruption has its perks."

She said to think of all the people you'd like out of your life. Think of all the loose ends you could tie up. The revenge. Think how easy it would be.

And still echoing in my head was Nash. Nash was there, drooling over the idea of any woman, anywhere, cooperative and beautiful for at least a few hours before things start to cool down and fall apart.

"Tell me," he said, "how would that be different than most love relationships?"

Anyone and everyone could become your next sex zombie.

But just because this Austrian nurse and Helen Boyle and John Nash can't control themselves, that doesn't mean I'll become a reckless, impulsive killer.

Henderson comes to the library doorway and shouts, "Streator! Did you turn off your pager? We just got a call about another cold baby."

The editor is dead, long live the editor. Here's the new boss, same as the old boss.

And, sure, the world just might be a better place without certain people. Yeah, the world could be just perfect, with a little trimming here and there. A little housecleaning. Some unnatural selection.

But, no, I'm never going to use the culling song again.

Never again.

But even if I did use it, I wouldn't use it for revenge.

I wouldn't use it for convenience.

I certainly wouldn't use it for sex.

No, I'd only ever use it for good.

And Henderson yells, "Streator! Did you ever call about the first-class crab lice? Did you call about the health club's butt-eating fungus? You need to pester those people at the Treeline or you'll never get anything."

And fast as a flinch, me flinching the other way down the hall, the culling song spools through my head while I grab my coat and head out the door.

But, no, I'm never going to use it. That's that. I'm just not. Ever.

Chapter 11

These noise-oholics. These quiet-ophobics.

There's the stomp and stomp and stomp of a drum coming down through the ceiling. Through the walls, you hear the laughter and applause of dead people.

Even in the bathroom, even taking a shower, you can hear talk radio over the hiss of the showerhead, the splash of water in the tub and blasting against the plastic curtain. It's not that you want everybody dead, but it would be nice to unleash the culling spell on the world. Just to enjoy the fear. After people outlawed loud sounds, any sounds that could harbor a spell, any music or noise that might mask a deadly poem, after that the world would be silent. Dangerous and frightened, but silent.

The tile beats a tiny rhythm under my fingertips. The bathtub vibrates with shouts coming through the floor. Either a prehistoric flying dinosaur awakened by a nuclear test is about to destroy the people downstairs or their television's too loud.

In a world where vows are worthless. Where making a pledge means nothing. Where promises are made to be broken, it would be nice to see words come back into power.

In a world where the culling song was common knowledge, there would be sound blackouts. Like during wartime, wardens would patrol. But instead of hunting for light, they'd listen for noise and tell people to shut up. The way governments look for air and water pollution, these same governments would pinpoint anything above a whisper, then make an arrest. There would be helicopters, special muffled helicopters, of course, to search for noise the way they search for marijuana now. People would tiptoe around in rubber-soled shoes. Informers would listen at every keyhole.

It would be a dangerous, frightened world, but at least you could sleep with your windows open. It would be a world where each word was worth a thousand pictures.

It's hard to say if that world would be any worse than this, the pounding music, the roar of television, the squawk of radio.

Maybe without Big Brother filling us, people could think.

The upside is maybe our minds would become our own.

It's harmless so I say the first line of the culling poem. There's no one here to kill. No way could anyone hear it.

And Helen Hoover Boyle is right. I haven't forgot it. The first word generates the second. The first line generates the next. My voice booms as big as an opera. The words thunder with the deep rolling sound of a bowling alley. The thunder echoes against the tile and linoleum.

In my big opera voice, the culling song doesn't sound silly the way it did in Duncan's office. It sounds heavy and rich. It's the sound of doom. It's the doom of my upstairs neighbor. It's my end to his life, and I've said the whole poem.

Even wet, the hair's bristling on the back of my neck. My breathing's stopped.

And, nothing.

From upstairs, there's the stomp of music. From every direction, there's radio and television talk, tiny gunshots, laughter, bombs, sirens. A dog barks. This is what passes for prime time.

I turn off the water. I shake my hair. I pull back the shower curtain and reach for a towel. And then I see it.

The vent.

The air shaft, it connects every apartment. The vent, it's always open. It carries steam from the bathrooms, cooking smells from the kitchens. It carries every sound.

Dripping on the bathroom floor, I just stare at the vent.

It could be I've just killed the whole building.

Chapter 12

Nash is at the bar on Third, eating onion dip with his fingers. He sticks two shiny fingers into his mouth, sucking so hard his cheeks cave in. He pulls the fingers out and pinches some more onion dip out of a plastic tub.

I ask if that's breakfast.

"You got a question," he says, "you need to show me the money first." And he puts the fingers in his mouth.

On the other side of Nash, down the bar is some young guy with sideburns, wearing a good pin-striped suit. Next to him is a gal, standing on the bar rail so she can kiss him. He tosses the cherry from his cocktail into his mouth. They kiss. Then she's chewing. The radio behind the bar is still announcing the school lunch menus.

Nash keeps turning his head to watch them.

This is what passes for love.

I put a ten-dollar bill on the bar.

His fingers still in his mouth, his eyes look down at it. Then his eyebrows come up.

I ask, did anybody die in my building last night?

It's the apartments at Seventeenth and Loomis Place. The Loomis Place Apartments, eight stories, a kind of kidney-colored brick. Maybe somebody on the fifth floor? Near the back? A young guy. This morning, there's a weird stain on my ceiling.

The sideburns guy, his cell phone starts ringing.

And Nash pulls his fingers out, his lips dragged out around them in a tight pucker. Nash looks at his fingernails, close-up, cross-eyed.

The dead guy was into drugs, I tell him. A lot of people in that building are into drugs. I ask if there were any other dead people there. By any chance did a whole bunch of people die in the Loomis Place Apartments last night?

And the sideburns guy grabs the gal by a handful of hair and pulls her away from his mouth. With his other hand, he takes a phone from inside his coat and flips it open, saying, "Hello?"