“Remember, you don’t touch, you don’t spit, you don’t rub. You don’t shed hair. Take off your sweatshirt and wrap your head to prevent hair from shedding. Also, cover your face, since if anybody sees it, they must die. If there are women there and they see your face, they must die. Or, maybe easier, I’ll kill you, let them live.”

“Ha ha,” said Jared. “Now you’re the funny one.”

“It’s time. Be a man.”

They crept to the lee of the house again, low-crawled down the side, turned the corner toward the front, and reached the front door.

“Go on,” said Juba. “Do it! Now!”

Jared swallowed and stood. More gracefully, more fluently, more practiced, Juba stood next to him, back against the door.

Jared pounded hard on its surface, feeling the rebound of the wood with each blow.

Nothing. He pounded again.

Sounds of scuttling inside.

Then the thump-thump of someone racing down the hall.

“Who the fuck is that?” came the call from the door.

“Ginger sent me. Man, he’s hurt bad. They jumped him, beat his ass, and took his shit. I think he’s going to die.”

“Who the fuck are you?”

“Ginger told me to come here. He may be dead by now.”

A view hole in the door opened, as whoever was in there had to check out the messenger before deciding what to do. Juba pivoted and without pause or hesitation, but with full strength, commitment, and great accuracy, jammed the sharpened stick through the hole.

Jared heard an unprecedented sound. It had both the qualities of crunch and slurp to it, something cracking, something squirting, and the stick disappeared as whoever now received it surrendered to gravity. Juba, fast as a snake, reared back and drove the sole of his right foot at high velocity into the door, just above the lock, and the wood splintered as if it were balsa. The impact sprang the door, ripping splinters and chunks with it, as bolts and chains clanked with their sudden release, and Juba was in, followed by Jared, who got just a brief look at the guard. He lay against the wall, about six inches of raw stick protruding vertically from his left eye socket, a torrent of blood washing down his slack face and running onto his black satin shirt. Jared had never before seen the devastation to flesh that violence brings, and it froze him solid for a second.