Snick, snick, snick. Then a thicker sound, one he recognized immediately, the now all too familiar sound of breaking glass. Window glass, straight below him-no, a windshield this time. The sound shattered what was left of his sleep, his dream, his Annie.

Those damn kids, the ones from over on Fayette. Well, no more, he resolved, then said it out loud. "No more."

He kept his gun in his bottom bureau drawer, in a nest of single socks he held on to, because their mates might show up one day. They made for good cleaning rags, too, slip one over your hand and dust the woodwork. The bullets were with his never-worn cufflinks, in the tiny drawers on either side of the old-fashioned chifforobe. He loaded the gun with care, not rushing. After all, they weren't rushing. When those kids got started, they took their sweet time, knowing no one would call the police, and it wouldn't matter if they did. Everyone in the neighborhood, so scared of those little kids, and the cops so indifferent it could make you cry. "It's just property," they said, every time he called. Not their property, though. Just his car, his radio, his windows, his front door. His, his, his.

He moved slowly down the staircase in the dark, huffing a little. Lord, he was getting fat, he'd have to start putting skim milk on his cereal. Nasty stuff, skim milk, not much more than white water. But a man had to do what a man had to do. John Wayne had said that, he was pretty sure. Saw that movie with Annie in the old Hippodrome theater, or maybe the Mayfair. One of those. It was hard to hold on to your memories with any exactitude the way the city kept tearing things down. And the things the city didn't tear down just fell down all by themselves. He and Annie had gone dancing afterward, he was sure of that, over on Pennsylvania Avenue.