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Harry could see just enough of the corpse to know beyond a doubt that it was Ricky Never had he felt so sick at heart A coldness rose in the pit of his storeeak

As Harry moved around the hole in the floor, Connie entered the house after hiestured toward the livingroom arch

Habitual police procedure had tremendous appeal for Harry at the moment, even if it was pointless to search for the killer in this instance Ticktock, whateverin a corner or cla out a back , not when he could vanish in a ind or a pillar of fire And what good were guns against hi to proceed as if they were the first to arrive at an ordinary crih policy, roohth of a ton if there was an ounce He would have thought that it had co up with the explosion, except that no mud was splattered in the foyer or hallway It was as if someone had carefully carried the rooave therooth

They searched the two baths and bedrooms, but found only a fat tarantula Harry was so startled by the spider, he almost squeezed off a shot If it had run toward hiht have blown it to bits before realizing what it was

Southern California, a desert before er areas of it habitable, was a perfect breeding ground for tarantulas, but they kept to undeveloped canyons and scrublands

Though fearsooutside of theseason

Dana Point, or this part of it at least, was too civilized to be of interest to tarantulas, and Harry wondered how one had found its way into the heart of the tohere it was as out of place as a tiger would have been

Silently they retraced their route through the house, into the foyer, the hall, then lance confirious statue clinked underfoot

The kitchen was full of snakes

"Oh shit," Connie said

One snake was just inside the archway Two s Most were at the far side of the roo, serpentine coils, no fewer than thirty or forty, perhaps half again as

Twoa white tile counter, near the edge, keeping a watch on the tee serpents below

"What the hell happened here?" Harry wondered, and was not surprised to hear a trean to notice Harry and Connie Most of them were disinterested, but a few slithered forth froate

A pocket door separated the kitchen froarage Ricky’s car A damp spot on the concrete where the roof had leaked earlier in the day, and a puddle that had not entirely evaporated Nothing else

Back in the hallway, Harry finally kneltøbeside the body of his friend

He had delayed the dreaded exa as possible

Connie said, "I’ll see if there’s a bedroom phone"

Alarmed, he looked up at her "Phone? No, for God’s sake, don’t even think about it"

"We’ve gotta put in a ho his atch, "it’s going on eleven o’clock already If we report this, we’re going to be tied up here for hours"

"But-" "We don’t have the ti to find this Ticktock before sunrise We don’t seem to have a chance in hell Even if we find him, I don’t knoe could deal with him But we’d be foolish not to try, don’t you think?"

"Yeah, you’re right I don’t just want to sit around waiting to be whacked"

"Okay then," he said "Forget the phone"

"I’ll justI’ll wait for you"

"Watch out for snakes," he said as she moved up the hall

He turned his attention to Ricky

The condition of the corpse was even worse than he anticipated

He saw the snake head fixed by deepsunk fangs to Ricky’s left hand, and he shivered Pairs of sht have been bite marks Both arms were bent backward at the elbows; the bones were not just broken but pulverized Ricky Estefan was so battered that it was difficult to specify one injury as the cause of death; however, if he had not been dead when his head had been wrenched a hundred and eighty degrees around on his shoulders, he had surely died in that savage moment His neck was torn and bruised, his head lolled loosely, and his chin rested between his shoulder blades

His eyes were gone

"Harry?" Connie called

Staring into the dead man’s empty eye sockets, Harry was unable to answer her His ht like a burr in his throat

"Harry, you better look at this"

He had seen enough of what had been done to Ricky, too er at Ticktock was exceeded only by his fury with hiht of himself in the silverleafed mirror above the shrine table He was ashen He looked as dead as the man on the floor A part of him had died when he’d seen the body; he felt diminished

When he met his own eyes, he had to look away froe that he saw in them The man in the mirror was not the Harry Lyon he kneanted to be

"Harry?" she said again

In the living roo beside the pile of h to be mud, actually, just two or three hundred pounds of moist, compacted earth

"Look at this, Harry"