‘As always,’ Del said, ‘he was a class act.’

‘Even my policemen were moved to tears,’ Mrs. Payne said. ‘I had to attend the funeral between these two burly guards, of course, because I was under arrest for murder.’

‘I understand,’ Tommy assured her.

‘I never held that against them,’ said Mrs. Payne. ‘They knew I’d shot Ned through the heart, and they couldn’t see it as anything but murder, they were so blind to the truth, but everything turned out all right in the end. Anyway, these two dear policemen were so moved by all the lovely things Frank had to say about Ned, and then when he began to sing “It Was a Very Good Year,” they just broke down and sobbed like babies. I let them share my little pack of Kleenex.’

At a loss for comforting words, Tommy could think of nothing to say except: ‘Such a tragedy, dying so young.’

‘Oh,’ said Del’s mother, ‘Ned wasn’t all that young. Sixty-three when I shot him.’

Fascinated with this peculiar family even as his per¬sonal clock of doom ticked rapidly toward the fatal hour, Tommy did some quick mental calculations. ‘If he died eighteen years ago when Del was ten. . . you would have been thirty-two at the time. And he was sixty three?’

Nudging Scootie to the floor, rising from her armchair, Julia Rosalyn Winona Lilith said, ‘It was a May-December romance. I was twenty when we met, and he was over fifty, but from the first moment I saw Ned, I knew he was the one. I wasn’t your ordinary young girl Tommy dear. Oh, I was fiercely hungry for experience, for knowledge. I wanted to devour life. I needed an older man who had been around, who had seen it all someone who could teach me. Ned was glorious. With Elvis singing “Blue

Hawaii” — the poor dear had a bad cold, but he came to sing anyway — we married at a chapel in Vegas, nineteen hours after we met, and never regretted it for one minute. On our honeymoon we parachuted into the heart of the Campeche jungle on the Yucatan Peninsula with only two sharp knives, a coil of rope, a map, a compass, and a bottle of good red wine, and we made it out safely to civilization in only fifteen days, more madly in love than ever.’

‘You sure were right,’ Tommy told Del. ‘Your mother’s a hoot.’

Smiling radiantly at her daughter, looking so unlike Tommy’s mother in her ao dais, Winona said, ‘Deliver¬ance, did you really say that about me, dear?’

The two women embraced.

Then Tommy hugged Del’s mother and said, ‘I hope you’ll invite me over some night to watch the David Letterman show.’

‘Of course, dear boy. And I hope you’ll live long enough to have a chance to see it.’

‘Now,’ Del said to Tommy, ‘it’s my turn to meet your mother.’

Mrs. Payne walked them out of the music room, down the great hall, to the front door.

The Jaguar 2+2 was waiting outside in the now rainless November night.

When Tommy opened the passenger-side door and pulled the seat forward, Scootie romped into the back.

As Del went around to the driver’s side, Mrs. Payne called to her daughter from the front door of The Great Pile: ‘When you bite his head off and eat him alive, try to make it quick and painless. He’s such a nice boy.’

Tommy locked eyes with Del across the roof of the car.

Del said, ‘It’ll be over before you realize what’s hap¬pening. I promise.’

EIGHT

At the Phan house in Huntington Beach, Tommy’s mother waited in the driveway. Although the clouds had begun to shred in the night sky, she wore ankle-high rubber boots, black slacks, a raincoat, and a plastic rain scarf. Her ability to predict the weather was not as impressive as Mrs. Payne’s.

Del stayed behind the wheel with the engine running. Getting out of the Jaguar, Tommy said, ‘Mom, I don’t—’

Interrupting him, she said, ‘Get in backseat. I sit up front with terrible woman.’ When he hesitated, she said, ‘Go, go, foolish boy, less than hour to dawn.’

Tommy scrambled into the backseat with Scootie.

When his mother got in beside Del and pulled the passenger door shut, Tommy leaned forward from the back and said, ‘Mom, I’d like you to meet Deliverance Payne. Del, this—’

Glowering at Del, his mother said, ‘I don’t like you.’

Grinning, Del said, ‘Really? Already, I like you a lot.’

‘Let’s go,’ Tommy’s mother said.

Backing into the street, Del said, ‘Where?’

‘Go left. Just drive, I tell you when turn. Gi say you save Tommy’s life.’

‘She saved my life more than once,’ Tommy said. ‘She—’

‘Don’t think you save my son’s life then I like you,’ Tommy’s mother warned Del.

‘Earlier, I almost shot him.’

‘Is true?’

‘True,’ Del confirmed.

‘So okay, maybe could like you a little,’ Tommy’s mother grumbled.

Glancing back at Tommy, Del said, ‘She’s a hoot.’

‘Gi says you total stranger to Tommy.’

‘Served him dinner maybe ten hours ago but only really met him less than six hours ago,’ Del confirmed.

‘Served dinner?’

‘I’m a waitress.’

‘He eat cheeseburgers?’

‘Two of them.’

‘Stupid boy. No dating?’

‘Tommy and me? No, we’ve never dated.’

‘Good. Don’t. Here, turn right.’

‘Where are we going?’ Tommy asked.

‘Hairdresser.’

‘We’re going to the hairdresser? Why?’

‘You wait, you see,’ said his mother. Then to Del: ‘He’s a bad boy, break your heart.’

‘Mom!’ he said, mortified.

‘Can’t break my heart if I don’t date him,’ Del said.

‘Smart girl.’

Scootie squeezed past Tommy and thrust his big head into the front seat, sniffing suspiciously at the new passenger.

Turning in her seat, Tommy’s mother met the dog face to face.

Scootie grinned, tongue lolling.

‘Don’t like dogs,’ she said. ‘Dirty animals, always licking. You lick me, lose tongue.’

Scootie still grinned at her and slowly eased his head closer, sniffing, surely on the verge of licking.

Baring her teeth at the Labrador, Tommy’s mother made a warning sound low in her throat.

Startled, Scootie twitched, drew back, but then bared his teeth and growled in response. His ears flattened against his skull.

Tommy’s mother bared her teeth further and issued a growl meaner than the dog’s.

Whimpering, Scootie retreated, curling up in a comer of the backseat.

‘Turn left next block.’

Hoping to ingratiate himself, Tommy said, ‘Mom, I was so sorry to hear about Mai. What could’ve gotten into her, running away with a magician?’

Glowering at Tommy in the rear-view mirror, she said, ‘Brother was bad example. Young girl ruined by brother’s bad example, future destroyed by brother’s bad example.’

‘Which brother would that be?’ Del asked teasingly. Tommy said, ‘Mom, that’s not fair.’

‘Yeah,’ Del said, ‘Tommy’s never run off with a magician.’ She glanced away from the street, at Tommy. ‘Er… have you, tofu boy?’

Mother Phan said, ‘Marriage already arranged, future bright, now good Vietnamese boy left without bride.’

‘An arranged marriage?’ Del marvelled. ‘Nguyen boy, nice boy,’ said Tommy’s mother. ‘Chip Nguyen?’ Del wondered. Tommy’s mother hissed with disgust. ‘Not silly detec¬tive chases blondes, shoots everyone.’

‘Nguyen is the Vietnamese equivalent of Smith,’ Tommy told Del.

‘So why didn’t you call your detective Chip Smith?’

‘I probably should have.’

‘I’ll tell you why you didn’t,’ Del said. ‘You’re proud of your heritage.’

'He pisses on heritage,’ Tommy’s mother said.

‘Mom!’

Tommy was so shocked by her language that his chest tightened, and he had to struggle to draw a breath. She never used foul words. That she had done so now was proof of an anger greater than she had ever displayed before.

Del said, ‘Actually, Mrs. Phan, you misunderstand Tommy. Family is very important to him. If you’d give him a chance—’

‘Did I say don’t like you?’

‘I believe you mentioned it,’ Del said.

‘More you talk, less I like.’

‘Mom, I’ve never seen you be rude to anyone before —anyone not in the family.’

‘Just watch. Turn left, girl.’ As Del followed instruc¬tions, Tommy’s mother let out a quavery sigh of regret. ‘Boy for Mai not silly Chip Nguyen. This Nguyen Huu Van, family in doughnut business, have many doughnut shops. Perfect for Mai. Could have been many grand¬children pretty as Mai. Now strange magician children.’

‘Isn’t that what it’s all about?’ Del asked.

‘What you say?’

‘Strange magician children. If there are three words that sum up what life should be all about, it’s “strange magician children.” Life shouldn’t be too predictable. It should be full of chance and mystery. New people, new ways, new hopes, new dreams, always with respect for the old ways, always built on tradition, but always new. That’s what makes life interesting.’

‘More you talk, less I like.’

‘Yes, you said.’

‘But you not listen.’

‘It’s a fault of mine,’ Del said.

‘Not listening.’

‘No, always talking. I listen but I always talk too.’

Tommy curled up in the back seat, in the corner

opposite the dog, aware that he could not compete in this conversation.

His mother said to Del, ‘Can’t listen if talk.’

‘Bullshit.’

‘You bad news.’

‘I’m the weather,’ Del said. ‘What say?’

‘Neither good nor bad. Just there.’ ‘Tornado just there. But bad.’ ‘I’d rather be weather than geology,’ Del said. ‘What mean?’

‘Better to be a tornado than a mountain of rock.’ ‘Tornado come and go. Mountain always there.’ ‘The mountain is not always there.’ ‘Mountain always here,’ Mother Phan insisted. Del shook her head. ‘Not always.’

‘Where it go?’

With singular elan, Del said, ‘The sun explodes, goes nova, and the earth blows away.’

‘You crazy woman.’

‘Wait around a billion years and see.’

Tommy and Scootie locked eyes. Only minutes ago, he wouldn’t have believed that he could ever have felt such a kinship with the Labrador as he felt now.

Del said to Tommy’s mother, ‘And as the mountain blows away, there will be tornadoes of fire. The mountain will be gone, but the tornadoes still whirling.’

‘You the same as damn magician.’

‘Thank you. Mrs. Phan, it’s like the rock and scissors game writ large,’ Del said. ‘Tornadoes beat rock because tornadoes are passion.’

‘Tornadoes just hot air.’

‘Cold air.’

‘Anyway air.’

Glancing at the rear-view mirror, Del said, ‘Hey, guys, we’re being followed.’

They were on a residential street lined with ficus trees. The houses were neat but modest.

Tommy sat up and peered out the rear window of the teardrop-shaped sports car. Looming behind them was a massive Peterbilt tractor and trailer, like a juggernaut, no more than twenty feet away.

‘What’s he doing in a residential neighbourhood at this hour?’ Tommy wondered.

‘Killing you,’ Del said, tramping on the accelerator. The behemoth of a truck accelerated to match their pace, and the yellow glow of sodium-vapour streetlamps, flickering across its windshield, revealed the portly Samaritan behind the wheel, his face pale and his grin broad, although they were not close enough to see the green of his eyes.

‘This can’t be happening,’ Tommy said.

‘Is,’ Del said. ‘Boy, I wish Mom was here.’

‘You have mother?’ Tommy’s mom asked. ‘Actually,’ Del said, ‘I hatched from an insect egg. I was a mere larva, not a child. You’re right, Mrs. Phan — I had no mother.’

‘You are smart-mouth girl.’

‘Thank you.’

‘This is smart-mouth girl,’ Tommy’s mother told him. Bracing himself for impact, he said, ‘Yes, I know.’ Engine shrieking, the truck rocketed forward and smashed into their rear bumper.

The Jaguar shuddered and weaved along the street. Del fought the steering wheel, which wrenched left and right, but she maintained control.

‘You can outrun him,’ Tommy said. ‘He’s a Peterbilt, for God’s sake, and you’re a Jaguar.’

‘He’s got the advantage of being a supernatural entity,’ Del said. ‘The usual rules of the road don’t apply.’

The Peterbilt crashed into them again, and the rear bumper of the Jaguar tore away, clanging across the

street into the front yard of a craftsman-style bunga¬low.

‘Next block, turn right,’ Tommy’s mom said.

Accelerating, briefly putting distance between them and the Peterbilt, Del waited until the last possible moment to make the turn. She slid through it, entering the new street backend first, tyres screaming and smok¬ing, and the car went into a spin.

With a sharp little yelp better suited to a dog one-quarter his size, Scootie shot off the backseat and tumbled onto the floor.

Tommy thought they were going to roll. It felt like a roll. He was experienced in rolling now, and knew what that penultimate angle felt like, just before the roll began, and this sure felt like it.

Under Del’s guidance, the Jaguar held the pavement tenaciously, however, and it shrieked to a shuddering halt as it came out of a complete three-hundred-sixty-degree spin.

Not a stupid dog, wanting to avoid being pitched off the seat again, Scootie waited on the floor until Del jammed her foot down on the accelerator. Only after the car rocketed forward did he scramble up beside Tommy.

Looking out the rear window, Tommy saw the Peterbilt braking aggressively on the street they had left. Even the superior driving skills of a supernatural entity —did they have highways in Hell where demons with Los-Angeles-area assignments were able to practice? —couldn’t finesse the huge truck into making such a sharp and sudden turn. Basic physics still applied. The Samaritan-thing was trying only to bring the vehicle to a stop.