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“The gun or the hand?” Baum asked without taking his eyes off Perry.

“Both,” Dew said. “But I’ll surprise you with the order of entry. And quit staring. Jesus. You’d think you two had never sat down to eat with a guy that kicked your a.s.s before.”

“Sure,” Milner said. “All the time. It’s like a regular outing with my buddies back home.”

Perry smiled at him and held up one hand, waving his fingers toward his palm. Come on, the gesture said, let’s go.

“Knock it off, Dawsey,” Dew said. “All three of you, just can the s.h.i.+t. Perry is here because he wants to work with us, ain’t that right?”

Perry nodded.

“As for you two”—Dew looked at Baum and Jens in turn—“stop being p.u.s.s.ies. This is too important for you guys to be all b.i.t.c.hy because he got the drop on you.”

Dew stared at Baum. “Well?”

Baum kept looking at Perry for a few more seconds, then let out a sigh and shrugged his shoulders. “f.u.c.k it,” he said. “He’s not the first p.r.i.c.k to break my nose.”

Dew slid his stare over to Milner. “How about you?”

Milner finally tore his glare away from Perry to return Dew’s stare. “Your boy here is bad news, Dew,” he said quietly. “You could track this guy just by following the trail of corpses. He murders people.”

“They’re not people,” Perry said. Why couldn’t anyone understand that?

“Save it,” Milner said. “He’s a f.u.c.king psycho, Dew, and I’m not eating with him.”

Jens stood up and dropped his napkin on his plate.

“Sit your a.s.s down, Milner,” Dew said.

“You got a problem with it?” Milner said. “Then fire me. Otherwise, I’ll be in the car.”

He turned and walked out of Applebee’s.

Perry looked down at his plate. Was Milner right? Was he just a psycho? No. Those people were not people at all. They were infected. They had to die. All the infected had to die.

“Don’t sweat it, Perry,” Dew said. “He’ll come around.”

Maybe he would, maybe he wouldn’t. Perry didn’t give a s.h.i.+t what two peons thought. But . . . maybe he should. Dew seemed to think their opinion was important.

If Dew thought it mattered, well then, it mattered.

OATMEAL

Chelsea squirted the lighter fluid all over the kitchen. Daddy was crumpling up newspapers into big b.a.l.l.s. He crumpled, then Mommy squirted them with her can of lighter fluid and put them into the kitchen cupboards.

Family time was really fun.

“Daddy, are you sure there aren’t any guns in Mister Burkle’s truck?”

Daddy nodded. Chelsea wondered if Daddy knew what he was talking about. Mr. Burkle would be awake in a few hours, and then Chelsea could ask him personally.

“Daddy, why don’t we have any guns?”