•     •     •

Two days later, I pulled the rented car up to the gate. The sun was just making its move, dawn coming fast. I slipped the leather gloves on my hands. They were lined with a fine chain mesh. I knelt, pointed the Polaroid camera at the plant. Waited.

I heard his car coming. Didn't look up. A squeal of rubber as his white Caddy pulled across the front of my car, blocking any escape. He charged out, waving the tire iron.

"What the hell you think you're doings'

I tried to hide the camera under my jacket, sneak back toward my car. He cut me off. His face was twisted into frightened hate, white foam on his lips.

"You son of a bitch! You're not taking what's mine. I worked for this! You tell those bastards I'm never paying!"

"Hey! I don't know what you're talking about. I just wanted to take a picture of the dogs."

He was past talking. Charged at me, whipping the tire iron at my head. I dropped the camera, caught the first shot with my left hand, spun to face him, my back to the gate. The dogs went mad. The switchblade popped open in my hand. I dropped into a crouch, working my way to him, one hand in front to take his next blow with the tire iron.

He was a big man, block-shouldered. He'd seen knives before. He backed away from me, parallel to the gate. Raised his right hand, bluffed a swing with the tire iron, and rammed his shoulder against the gate, forcing a narrow slot open. "Get him!" he screamed. And the Doberman flowed through the opening past him in one bound, heading for me.

"Devil!" I yelled. "Hit! Hit him, boy!"

The Doberman whirled and turned on the big man like a tornado swooping up a farmhouse. Buried his teeth deep into the man's upper thigh. The man's scream hit a past-human octave as he raised the tire iron to smash down on the dog's head. I hooked him hard in the belly and he went to his knees. The Doberman ripped at his throat. A chunk of red-and-white flew into the air.

It was over fast. "Devil! Out!" I shouted. The big dog backed away, his muzzle bathed in blood. I opened the back door of my car, gave the dog the signal and he jumped inside. I slammed my shoulder against the gate, shoving the man's body inside, face first. The other dogs tore at the body. I left it where it was.

It's all in the way you raise them.

Statute of Limitations

1

I watched her coming down the stairs to the basement pool–room. Watched her in the bank–security mirror the old man keeps just inside the door. All in black, she was–but dressed for mourning, not for style.

She threaded her way through the maze of tables, a dark, slender wraith, not even drawing a glance from the men playing their various games. I was where I said I'd be—back corner, away from the windows. She was wearing a black pillbox hat with a black half–veil. Her face was anemia–pale under the mesh.

"Mister…Cross?"

"Sit down," I told her, pointing toward a small round table with the tip of my cue stick.

She took one of the two wooden chairs, took off her gloves, fumbled in her purse for a cigarette. I pocketed the last ball on the table, left my cue on the felt and sat down. Two men detached themselves from the wall and moved into my spot, racking the balls and starting a game. The woman and I were invisible behind their shield.

I took a seat, lit a smoke of my own. Waited.

It took her two more cigarettes to realize I wasn't going to say anything.

She had a chemotherapy voice, juiceless and resigned. "You have to make him stop," she said. "He's never going to stop."

I'd expected a battered wife, from what the old man had told me. But this woman's soul was carrying the scars, not her body.

"Just tell me," I said.

"I can pay. Whatever it costs, I can get it."

"This is part of what it costs."

"I thought…"

"I don't know you."

"And you don't trust me."

"That too."

She lit another cigarette with the glowing butt of her last one.

"I could lie to you," she said. Like she knew all about lying.

"No. No, you can't."

"You have a lie detector somewhere around here?"

"I am one," I said, holding her eyes so she'd understand, get down to it.

2

My…stepfather," she finally said, the last word a mucus–coated maggot. A dangerous, deadly maggot.

"What?"

"He…had me. When I was a baby. When I was a girl. When I was a teenager. Now I'm away. But I'll never be free from him. I'll never have a boyfriend, never have a husband. I'll never have a baby–he burned me inside."

"There's people who can fix that. Therapists…"

Her eyes were corpses. "He burned me with a soldering iron. Right after I had my first period. He put it inside me and pushed the switch."

"What do you want?"

"I went to the police," she said, like she hadn't heard me. "They told me I came to them too late. Too much time had passed since the last time he had me. The statute of limitations, they said. He can't be prosecuted. So I went to a lawyer. He has money. I thought, if I could sue him, take his money, it would take his power. The lawyer told me I was too late too."

"Okay, so…?"

"The prosecutor, he was very kind. He told me I couldn't even get an Order of Protection. You can only get one if there's an ongoing criminal case. But he said if he…my stepfather…ever bothered me again, he'd lock him up. He said they know about him…from other things. He wouldn't tell me what."

"Would that be enough?"

"Nothing would ever be enough. For him to die, that wouldn't be enough. But if he could lose his power, if he could be in prison, that would…I don't know, give me a chance, maybe. To be free."

"What did you think I could do?"

"Hurt him," she whispered.

"Felonious assault, that's a big–time rap in this state. If you've got a record, you could pull twenty years inside."

"He has a record," she said.

"For what?"

"Rape. Before he married my mother. A long time ago. My mother didn't find out about it until much later. He told me first. When I was just a little girl. He raped a girl and he went to prison. He told me he'd never rape a girl again. He hated prison. That's why he married my mother. So he could do what he does and not go to prison again. He was like some kind of…gangster, maybe. He'd talk real hard on the phone sometimes. And other times, he'd grovel. Crawl on his knees to whoever was on the other end of the line. I heard him doing it once and he…hurt me very ugly that night."

I lit another smoke, watching her. "You want this bad?" "It's all I want," she said, holding my eyes.

Then I told her what it would cost.

3

He lived alone. In a nice house in the suburbs. Neighbors on both sides, but he had a high fence all around the property. Solid cedar. It wouldn't keep out an amateur.

A hard, slanting rain wasn't doing much to break the summer heat as I rang his bell just before midnight. No dog barked. We didn't expect any, not after a week of watching and waiting.

I didn't hear footsteps before he threw the door open. A big man, paunchy, hair combed to one side exaggerating the baldness he was trying to conceal. Wearing a white T–shirt over baggy black pants, barefoot.