Page 20 (1/2)

Well, he was on his way out of New Orleans, so that beca moment Besides, the article in question was a Saints cap, and half of the city seeood year, had done far better than anybody expected them to do, and the whole country had elected to see in their perforeneration of the city itself If the Saints couldseeet over a dinky little thing like a hurricane

Homer Simpson had set hinizable The Saints cap did every bit ashirinned, gave the bri

The street he was on was called Euterpe The first tin he’d been unsure how to pronounce it, though he could have narrowed it down to a couple of likely choices Then he encountered other parallel streets with names like Terpsichore and Melpomene and Polymnia, and they didn’t quite do it, but then Erato and Calliope turned up and he worked it out He knew from crossword puzzles that Erato was one of the nine muses, and it see a steaht encounter on a carnival midas another And that hy Euterpe had been faintly familiar, because she’d turned up in a crossword puzzle once or twice herself, and thate on the end of the word, as in all those Greek names, Nike and Aphrodite and Persephone and, well, Calliope

I streets after the nine muses Where else would it ever occur to them to do that? Well, Athens,Euterpe and came to Prytania, who as far as he kneasn’t a muse at all Rule, Prytania, Prytania rules the waves… He crossed Prytania and walked another block to a street called Coliseum, which was Roht have been two football fields laid end to end Except Coliseum, which had been laid out either by a drunk or by soh to nahty Mississippi itself,the resultant park wider than a football field in some parts and narrower in others

Which was just as well, Keller thought, because in order to play football there you’d have to cut down a couple dozen live oak trees, and anyone who’d do that ought to be hanged fronificent trees, and while it ht not be the best route back to his car, it orth a fewtheseto a close and--

A woman screamed

22

"Stop! Oh, God! Soht was that sonized him as the Des Moines Assassin and cried out in terror But the thought was gone before the scream had ceased to echo in the still air It had come from fifty yards away, off to the left and halfway across the little park Keller saw movement, screened partly by a tree trunk, and heard another cry, less distinct this ti attacked

Not your problem, he told himself, immediately and unequivocally He was the object of a nationwide et involved in somebody else’s problem And it was probably just a do the crap out of his slattern of a wife, and if the cops caht even take her husband’s side and go after the cops then and there, which hy cops hated responding to calls of that sort

And he wasn’t a cop, and didn’t have a dog in this fight, as they would put it in the states he’d been spending time in lately So what he would do noas turn around and leave the park and walk back up Euterpe -- pronounced You-Tour-Pee -- and figure out a route that would get him back to his car, and then find his way out of this town as quickly as he possibly could

That was the only course of action that htest bit of sense

But what he was doing, even as he orking all of this out in hisfull speed toward the source of the screa on There was nothing reuous about the scene that confronted Keller Even in the diht, it was unmistakable

The worass, one hand braced against the ground, the other held up to ward off her attacker And the guy was your stereotypical ed dirty-blond rowth of patchy beard, and a teardrop jailhouse tattoo on one cheekbone to let you knoasn’t just another pretty face He was crouched over her, tearing at her clothes

"Hey!"

The man whirled at the sound, bared his teeth at Keller as if they eapons He ca off the blade of his knife

"Drop it," Keller said

But he didn’t drop the knife Heto hypnotize a subject, and Keller looked not at the knife but at the un in his waistband But of course it wasn’t there, it was tucked away in the glove compartment of a locked car, daain He was facing a reen’s What was he going to do, give the guy a haircut?

The wo to tell him that the man had a knife, but he knew that He didn’t listen to her but focused on the man, focused on his eyes He couldn’t tell their color, not in that light, but he could see a keenand balanced his weight on the balls of his feet and tried to re useful fro he’d had over the years

He’d had classes and one-on-one instruction in kung fu and judo and tae kwon do, along with soh he’d never trained in any disciplined fashion, never stayed with any of it for any length of time But every trainer he’d ever known had offered the sauy had a knife The thing to do, they all would tell you, was turn around and run like hell

The chances were considerable, they’d all agreed, that he wouldn’t chase you And Keller was sure that was true with this drooling blond ht where he was and get back to raping the woman

Keller watched his eyes, and when the h in the air, and caught the wrist of the hand that held the knife He earing sneakers and wished they could have been steel-toed work shoes, but his ai almost made up for whatever the sneakers lacked, and the knife went flying even as theback, rubbing at his wrist "Okay, you win I’"

And he started to back away

"I don’t think so," Keller said, and went after hiht that Keller ducked underneath He straightened up and butted the guy in the chin, and when the guy’s head snapped back Keller reached out and grabbed hold of it, one hand closing on a fistful of greasy yellow hair, the other cupping the bristly chin

Keller didn’t have to think about what came next His hands knehat to do, and they did it

He let go of the round A few feet away, the wo

Tiht Tiht By the tione Who was that masked man? Why, I don’t know, but he left this silver bullet…

He walked over to the woman, held out a hand She took it and he drew her to her feet

"My God," she said "You just saved my life"

If there was a response to that, Keller didn’t knohat it ht be The only ones that came to mind started with Aw, shucks He stood there hat definitely felt like an Aw shucks look on his face, and she stepped back, took a look at him, and then lowered her eyes to look down on the man at her feet

"We have to call the police," she said