Watchers

frustration and displeasure. He did not want to take on a troublesome hit right now. He wanted to concentrate on tracking down Travis Cornell and the dog. But he knew Tetragna’s contract was more a demand than an offer. To get the names of the people who sold false papers, he must first waste Velazquez.
    He said, “I would be honored to squash any insect that has stung you. And there’ll be no charge this time.”
    “Oh, I’d insist on paying you, Vincent.”
    As ingratiatingly as he knew how, Vince smiled and said, “Please, Don Tetragna, let me do this favor. It would give me great pleasure.”
    Tetragna appeared to consider the request, though this was what he expected—a free hit in return for helping Vince. He put both hands on his enormous belly and patted himself. “I am such a lucky man. Wherever I turn, people want to do me favors, kindnesses.”
    “Not lucky, Don Tetragna,” Vince said, sick of their mannered conversation. “You reap what you sow, and if you reap kindness it is because of the seeds of greater kindness you’ve sown so broadly.”
    Beaming, Tetragna accepted his offer to waste Velazquez for nothing. The nostrils of his porcine nose flared as if he had smelled something good to eat, and he said, “But now tell me . . . to satisfy my curiosity, what will you do to this other man when you catch him, this man with whom you have a personal vendetta?”
    Blow his brains out and snatch his dog, Vince thought.
    But he knew the kind of crap The Screwdriver wanted to hear, the same hard-assed stuff most of these guys wanted to hear from him, their favorite hired killer so he said, “Don Tetragna, I intend to cut off his balls, cut off his ears, cut out his tongue—and only then put an ice pick through his heart and stop his clock.”
    The fat man’s eyes glittered with approval. His nostrils flared.
     
     
3
    By Thanksgiving, The Outsider had not found the bleached-wood house in Big Sur.
    Every night, Travis and Nora locked the shutters over the inside of the windows. They dead-bolted the doors. Retiring to the second floor, they slept with shotguns beside their bed and revolvers on their nightstands.
    Sometimes, in the dead hours after midnight, they were awakened by strange noises in the yard or on the porch roof. Einstein padded from window
    to window, sniffing urgently, but always he indicated that they had nothing to fear. On further investigation, Travis usually found a prowling raccoon or other forest creature.
    Travis enjoyed Thanksgiving more than he had thought he would, given the circumstances. He and Nora cooked an elaborate traditional meal for just the three of them: roast turkey with chestnut dressing, a clam casserole, glazed carrots, baked corn, pepper slaw, crescent rolls, and pumpkin pie.
    Einstein sampled everything because he had developed a much more sophisticated palate than an ordinary dog. He was still a dog, however, and though the only thing he strongly disliked was the sour pepper slaw, he preferred turkey above all else. That afternoon he spent a lot of time gnawing contentedly on the drumsticks.
    Over the weeks, Travis had noticed that, like most dogs, Einstein would go out into the yard occasionally and eat a little grass, though sometimes it seemed to gag him. He did it again on Thanksgiving Day, and when Travis asked him if he liked the taste of grass, Einstein said no. “Then why do you try to eat it sometimes?”
    NEED IT.
    “Why?”
    I DON’T KNOW.
    “If you don’t know what you need it for, then how do you know you need it at all? Instinct?”
    YES.
    “Just instinct?”
    DON’T KNOCK IT.
    That evening, the three of them sat in piles of pillows on the living-room floor in front of the big stone fireplace, listening to music. Einstein’s golden coat was glossy and thick in the firelight. As Travis sat with one arm around Nora, petting the dog with his free hand, he thought eating grass must be a good idea because Einstein looked healthy and robust. Einstein sneezed a few times and coughed now and then, but those seemed natural reactions to the Thanksgiving overindulgence and to the warm, dry air in front of the fireplace. Travis was not for a moment concerned about the dog’s health.
     
     
4
    On the afternoon of Friday, November 26, the balmy day after Thanksgiving, Garrison Dilworth was aboard his beloved forty-two-foot Hinckley Sou’wester, Amazing Grace, in his boat slip in the Santa Barbara harbor. He was polishing brightwork and,