Then Gandalf began to scream, too, and the flashback - what Dr. Kamen would have called a recovered memory, I suppose - was gone. Until that afternoon in October four years ago, I hadn't known dogs could scream.

I broke into a lurching, crabwise run, pounding the sidewalk with my red crutch. I'm sure it would have appeared ludicrous to an onlooker, but no one was paying any attention to me. Monica Goldstein was kneeling in the middle of the street beside her dog, which lay in front of the Hummer's high, boxy grille. Her face was white above her forest-green uniform, from which a sash of badges and medals hung. The end of this sash was soaking in a spreading pool of Gandalf's blood.

Mrs. Fevereau half-jumped and half-fell from the Hummer's ridiculously high driver's seat. Ava Goldstein came running from the front door of the Goldstein house, crying her daughter's name. Mrs. Goldstein's blouse was half-buttoned. Her feet were bare.

"Don't touch him, honey, don't touch him," Mrs. Fevereau said. She was still holding her cigarette and she puffed nervously at it.

Monica paid no attention. She stroked Gandalf's side. The dog screamed again when she did - it was a scream - and Monica covered her eyes with the heels of her hands. She began to shake her head. I didn't blame her.

Mrs. Fevereau reached out for the girl, but changed her mind. She took two steps back, leaned against the high side of her Hummer, and looked up at the sky.

Mrs. Goldstein knelt beside her daughter. "Honey, oh honey please don't."

Gandalf lay in the street, in a pool of his spreading blood, howling. And now I could also remember the sound the crane had made. Not the meep-meep-meep it was supposed to make (its backup warning had been broken), but the juddering stutter of its diesel engine and the sound of its treads eating up the earth.