Mr. Murder

stay at the house."
        "No, Paige, I literally mean what if the bastard walks in two minutes after the cops leave, doesn't even give us a chance to clear out?"
        "He's not likely to risk-"
        "Oh, yes, he is! Yes, he is. He came back almost immediately after the cops left the first time-didn't he? just boldly walked up to the Delorios' front door and rang the damn bell.
        He seems to thrive on risk. I wouldn't put it past the bastard to break in on us while the cops were still there, shoot everyone in sight. He's crazy, this whole situation is crazy, and I don't want to bet my life or yours or the kids' lives on what the creep is going to do next."
        Paige knew he was right.
        However, it was difficult, even painful, to accept that their situation was so dire as to place them beyond the help of the law. If they couldn't receive official assistance and protection, then the government had failed them in its most basic duty, to provide civil order through the fair but strict enforcement of a criminal code. In spite of the complex machine in which they rode, in spite of the modern highway on which they traveled and the sprawl of suburban lights that covered most of the southern California hills and vales, this failure meant they were not living in a civilized world. The shopping malls, elaborate transit systems, glittering centers for the performing arts, sports arenas, imposing government buildings, multiplex movie theaters, office towers, sophisticated French restaurants, churches, museums, parks, universities, and nuclear power plants amounted to nothing but an elaborate facade of civilization, tissue-thin for all its apparent solidity, and in truth they were living in a high-tech anarchy, sustained by hope and self-delusion.
        The steady hum of the car tires gave birth in her to a mounting dread, a mood of impending calamity. It was such a common sound, hard rubber tread spinning at high speed over blacktop, merely a part of the quotidian music of daily life, but suddenly it was as ominous as the drone of approaching bombers.
        When Marty turned southwest on the Crown Valley Parkway, toward Laguna Niguel, Charlotte at last broke her silence. "Daddy?"
        Paige saw him glance at the rearview mirror and knew by his worried eyes that he, too, had been troubled by the girl's unusual spell of introversion.
        He said, "Yes, baby?"
        "What was that thing?" Charlotte asked.
        "What thing, honey?"
        "The thing that looked like you."
        "That's the million-dollar question. But whoever he is, he's just a man, not a thing. He's just a man who looks an awful lot like me."
        Paige thought about all the blood in the upstairs hall, about how quickly the look-alike had recovered from two chest wounds to make a quick escape and to return, a short time later, strong enough to renew the assault. He didn't seem human. And Marty's statements to the contrary were, she knew, nothing but the obligatory reassurances of a father who knew that children sometimes needed to believe in the omniscience and unshakable equanimity of adults.
        After further silence, Charlotte said, "No, it wasn't a man. It was a thing. Mean. Ugly inside. A cold thing." A shudder wracked her, causing her next words to issue tremolo, "I kissed it and said "I love you' to it, but it was just a thing."
        The upscale garden-apartment complex encompasses a score or more of large buildings housing ten or twelve apartments each. It sprawls over park-like grounds shaded by a small forest of trees.
        The streets within the complex are serpentine. Residents are provided with community carports, redwood structures with only a back wall and roof, eight or ten stalls in each. Bougainvillea climbs the columns that support each roof, lending a note of grace, although at night the vivid blossoms are bleached of most of their color by the detergent-blue light of mercury-vapor security lamps.
        Throughout the development are uncovered parking areas where the white curbs are stenciled with black letters, VISITOR PARKING ONLY.
        In a deep cul-de-sac, he finds a visitors' zone that provides him with a perfect place to spend the night. None of the six spaces is occupied, and the last is flanked on one side by a five-foot-high oleander hedge.
        When he backs the car into the slot, tight against the hedge, the oleander conceals the damage along the