Sure as hell you know them swamplands, and you know what can happen in there. Especially when it gets dark and you can’t see where you’re going. Another thing, this rain. This rain, it ain’t no light drizzle anymore. It rains like this, it’s really raining; and the swamplands sit lower than the neighborhood, so all the water from the gutters goes into them holes and slimy pools out there, along with the overflow from the goddam river. You remember one time some years ago there were kids out playing in them swamplands, and it started to rain, and then it was a heavy rain, and it got dark. And a few days later a searching party went in, and the search went on for weeks, but it was no use. Then another time some grown-ups, who shoulda had more sense and woulda had more sense if they were sober, got to fooling around. And for some idiotic reason they wandered in there; it was six of them, or seven I think. Anyway you remember it was during a spell of heavy rain and again the searching party went in and again it was no use. So according to that—

His thoughts were interrupted. He heard a shot and he threw himself into the mud, landing facedown, then twisting and looking back to see three of them running across the backyards. He pulled the police pistol from his belt and fired without aiming, just to let them know he had a gun. He fired again, and they fired back at him. All three of them fired as they scattered for cover behind trash barrels, rubbish cans.

It’s gonna hafta be the swamplands, he told himself. You can’t try for Ingersoll, and you can’t try for no back doors, either. It’s a cinch all them back doors are locked. Just look at the lights goin’ out in them windows, like they’re tellin’ you they don’t wanna know from nothin’. They got their own worries.

So it’s gonna be the swamplands. It’s gotta be the swamplands, jim. There ain’t no other place for you to go. But Jesus Christ, what a setup. What a mess.

He grimaced wryly, shaking his head slowly as he rested, facedown in the mud, about thirty yards away from the edge of the swamplands.