“No. Did I mention that, in addition to everything else that’s happened tonight, she thinks I’m impotent?”

“No, I think you left that part out. Are you? I could check.”

“She wanted to, you know, spend some time with me tonight, before she went to work, but it’s a bit hard to concentrate when you think the police might be looking for you and charging you with murder. I think maybe it’s time to go to the police.”

Trixie thought about that. “How did you get here, if your car’s blown up?”

“Stefanie’s car. Her Beetle. I parked it one block over.”

“So you not only stole her purse, but now you have her car? That’ll look good to the police. You’re not wearing her underwear, too, are you?”

I hadn’t thought about the incriminating aspect of driving Stefanie’s car all around town. I did not, it occurred to me, have the makings of a master criminal.

“But if I don’t go to the police,” I said, “how’m I going to protect myself from this Rick guy? He’s a total nutjob. He killed that Spender guy down in the creek, probably killed Stefanie, and he’s wandering around town with a python in his trunk.”

Trixie blinked. “Does Sarah know anything about any of this?”

I shook my head. “She’s noticed me acting kind of weird, but no. And she won’t be coming home from work until morning, she’s doing the night shift, and I farmed the kids out to friends’ houses.”

“You need some kind of backup,” she said. “You have a gun or anything?”

“Are you kidding? Do I look like someone who owns a gun? I don’t even know anyone who owns a—” I stopped.

“What?” Trixie said.

“I do know one person. Who owns a gun. Someone who owes me a favor. Someone who might let me borrow it.”

“do you know what time it is?” Earl said when he opened his front door to me and Trixie. She’d changed out of her work clothes and into some jeans and a T-shirt, and had gone out of her house first, making sure there was no sign of Rick or anyone else at my house two doors down, then waved for me to join her. I ran across the street in a flash, ducked into some bushes as Trixie rang Earl’s bell.

“Let us in,” Trixie said. “Zack needs your help.”

“Where’s Zack?”

“He’s the one here, in the bushes. Turn off your front light.”

Earl was dressed in checkered boxers and a sweatshirt. He padded barefoot into the kitchen, where he found a pack of cigarettes and lit up.