After a while, Talley went out to sit on the porch. His head buzzed like he was drunk. Across the street, police officers milled by their cars. Talley lit a cigarette, then replayed the past eleven hours, looking for clues that should have told him what was real. He could not find them. Maybe there weren't any, but he didn't believe that. He had blown it. He had made mistakes. The boy had been here the entire time, curled at the feet of his murdered mother like a loyal and faithful dog.

Murray Leifitz put a hand on his shoulder and told him to go home.

Jeff Talley had been a Los Angeles SWAT officer for thirteen years, serving as a Crisis Response Team negotiator for six. Today was his third crisis call in five days.

He tried to recall the boy's eyes, but had already forgotten if they were brown or blue.

Talley crushed his cigarette, walked down the street to his car, and went home. He had an eleven-year-old daughter named Amanda. He wanted to check her eyes. He couldn't remember their color and was scared that he no longer cared.

Bristo Camino, California

Friday, 2:47 P.M.

It was one of those high-desert days in the suburban communities north of Los Angeles with the air so dry it was like breathing sand; the sun licked their skin with fire. They were eating hamburgers from the In-N-out, riding along in Dennis's truck, a red Nissan pickup that he'd bought for six hundred dollars from a Bolivian he'd met working construction two weeks before he had been arrested; Dennis Rooney driving, twenty-two years old and eleven days out of the Antelope Valley Correctional Facility, what the inmates called the Ant Farm; his younger brother, Kevin, wedged in the middle; and a guy named Mars filling the shotgun seat. Dennis had known Mars for only four days.

Later, in the coming hours when Dennis would frantically reconsider his actions, he would decide that it hadn't been the saw-toothed heat that had put him in the mood to do crime: It was fear. Fear that something special was waiting for him that he would never find, and that this special thing would disappear around some curve in his life, and with it his one shot at being more than nothing.

Dennis decided that they should rob the minimart.

'Hey, I know. Let's rob that fuckin' minimart, the one on the other side of Bristo where the road goes up toward Santa Clarita.'

'I thought we were going to the movie.'

That being Kevin, wearing his chickenshit face: Eyebrows crawling over the top of his head, darting eyeballs, and quivering punkass lips. In the movie of Dennis's life, he saw himself as the brooding outsider all the cheerleaders wanted to fuck; his brother was the geekass cripple holding him back.

'This is a better idea, chickenshit. We'll go to the movie after.'

'You just got back from the Farm, Dennis, Jesus. You want to go back?'

Dennis flicked his cigarette out the window, ignoring the blowback of sparks and ash as he considered himself in the Nissan's sideview. By his own estimation, he had moody deep-set eyes the color of thunderstorms, dramatic cheekbones, and sensuous lips. Looking at himself, which he did, often, he knew that it was only a matter of time before his destiny arrived, before the special thing waiting for him presented itself and he could bag the minimum-wage jobs and life in a shithole apartment with his chickenshit brother.

Dennis adjusted the.32-caliber automatic wedged in his pants, then glanced past Kevin to Mars.

'What do you think, dude?'

Mars was a big guy, heavy across the shoulders and ass. He had a tattoo on the back of his shaved head that said BURN IT. Dennis had met him at the construction site where he and Kevin were pulling day work for a cement contractor. He didn't know Mars's last name. He had not asked.

'Dude? Whattaya think?'

'I think let's go see.'

That was all it took.

The minimart was on Flanders Road, a rural boulevard that linked several expensive housing tracts. Four pump islands framed a bunkerlike market that sold toiletries, soft drinks, booze, and convenience items. Dennis pulled up behind the building so they couldn't be seen from inside, the Nissan bucking as he downshifted. The transmission was a piece of shit.

'Look at this, man. The fuckin' place is dead. It's perfect.'

'C'mon, Dennis, this is stupid. We'll get caught.'

'I'm just gonna see, is all. Don't give yourself a piss enema.'

The parking lot was empty except for a black Beemer at the pumps and two bicycles by the front door. Dennis's heart was pounding, his underarms clammy even in the awful dry heat that sapped his spit. He would never admit it, but he was nervous. Fresh off the Farm, he didn't want to go back, but he didn't see how they could get caught, or what could go wrong. It was like being swept along by a mindless urge. Resistance was futile.

Cold air rolled over him as Dennis pushed inside. Two kids were at the magazine rack by the door. A fat Chinaman was hunkered behind the counter, so low that all Dennis could see was his head poking up like a frog playing submarine in a mud puddle.

The minimart was two aisles and a cold case packed with beer, yogurt, and Cokes. Dennis had a flash of uncertainty, and thought about telling Mars and Kevin that a whole pile of Chinamen were behind the counter so he could get out of having to rob the place, but he didn't. He went to the cold case, then along the rear wall to make sure no one was in the aisles, his heart pounding because he knew he was going to do it. He was going to rob this fucking place. As he was walking back to the truck, the Beemer pulled away. He went to the passenger window. To Mars.

'There's nothing but two kids and a Chinaman in there, the Chinaman behind the counter, a fat guy.'

Kevin said, 'They're Korean.'

'What?'

'The sign says "Kim." Kim is a Korean name.'

That was Kevin, always with something to say like that. Dennis wanted to reach across Mars and grab Kevin by the fucking neck. He pulled up his T-shirt to flash the butt of his pistol.

'Who gives a shit, Kevin? That Chinaman is gonna shit his pants when he sees this. I won't even have to take it out, goddamnit. Thirty seconds, we'll be down the road. He'll have to wipe himself before he calls the cops.'

Kevin squirmed with a case of the chicken-shits, his nerves making his eyes dance around like beans in hot grease.

'Dennis, please. What are we going to get here, a couple of hundred bucks? Jesus, let's go to the movie.'

Dennis told himself that he might have driven away if Kevin wasn't such a whiner, but, no, Kevin had to put on the goddamned pussy face, putting Dennis on the spot.

Mars was watching. Dennis felt himself flush, and wondered if Mars was judging him. Mars was a boulder of a guy; dense and quiet, watchful, with the patience of a rock. Dennis had noticed that about Mars on the job site; Mars considered people. He would watch a conversation, say, like when two of the Mexicans hammered a third to throw in with them on buying some tamales. Mars would watch, not really part of it but above it, as if he could see all the way back to when they were born, see them wetting the bed when they were five or jerking off when they thought they were alone. Then he would make a vacant smile like he knew everything they might do now or in the future, even about the goddamned tamales. It was creepy, sometimes, that expression on his face, but Mars thought that Dennis had good ideas and usually went along. First time they met, four days ago, Dennis felt that his destiny was finally at hand. Here was Mars, charged with some dangerous electrical potential that crackled under his skin, and he did whatever Dennis told him.