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already know about them.”
    â€œNot as much as you do,” Tommy said.
    Sal was a crime reporter with a deep knowledge of the Vietnamese gangs that operated not only in Orange County but nationwide. While with the newspaper, Tommy had written primarily about the arts and entertainment.
    â€œSal, you ever hear about Natoma or the Cheap Boys threatening anybody by mailing them an imprint of a black hand or, you know, a skull and crossbones or something like that?”
    â€œOr maybe leaving a severed horse’s head in their bed?”
    â€œYeah. Anything like that.”
    â€œYou have your cultures confused, boy wonder. These guys aren’t courteous enough to leave warnings. They make the Mafia seem like a chamber-music society.”
    â€œWhat about the older gangs, not the teenage street thugs, the more organized guys—the Black Eagles, the Eagle Seven?”
    â€œThe Black Eagles have the hard action in San Francisco, the Eagle Seven in Chicago. Here it’s the Frogmen.”
    Tommy leaned back in his chair, which creaked under him. “No horse’s head from them, either, huh?”
    â€œTommy boy, if the Frogmen leave a severed head in your bed, it’s going to be your own.”
    â€œComforting.”
    â€œWhat’s this all about? You’re starting to worry me.”
    Tommy sighed and looked at the nearest window. Clotting clouds had begun to cover the moon, and fading silver light filigreed their vaporous edges. “That piece I wrote for the ‘Show’ section last week—I think maybe somebody’s threatening to retaliate for it.”
    â€œThe piece about the little girl figure skater?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œAnd the little boy who’s a piano prodigy? What’s to retaliate for?”
    â€œWell—”
    â€œWho could’ve been pissed off by that—some other six-year-old pianist thinks
he
should have gotten the coverage, now he’s going to run you down with his tricycle?”
    â€œWell,” Tommy said, beginning to feel foolish, “the piece
did
make the point that most kids in the Vietnamese community don’t get mixed up in gangs.”
    â€œOooh, yeah, that’s controversial journalism, all right.”
    â€œI had some hard things to say about the ones who do join gangs, especially the Natoma Boys and Santa Ana Boys.”
    â€œOne paragraph in the whole piece, you put down the gangs. These guys aren’t
that
sensitive, Tommy. A few words aren’t going to put them on the vengeance freeway.”
    â€œI wonder….”
    â€œThey don’t care what you think anyway, ’cause to them, you’re just the Vietnamese equivalent of an Uncle Tom. Besides, you’re giving them a whole lot too much credit. These assholes don’t read newspapers.”
    The dark clouds churned from west to east, congealing rapidly as they moved in from the ocean. The moon sank into them, like the face of a drowner in a cold sea, and the lunar glow on the window glass slowly faded.
    â€œWhat about the girl gangs?” Tommy asked.
    â€œWally Girls, Pomona Girls, the Dirty Punks…it’s no secret they can be more vicious than the boys. But I still don’t believe they’d be interested in you. Hell, if they got steamed this easily, they’d have gutted
me
like a fish ages ago. Come on, Tommy, tell me what’s happened. What’s got you jumpy?”
    â€œIt’s a doll.”
    â€œLike a Barbie doll?” Sal sounded bewildered.
    â€œA little more ominous than that.”
    â€œYeah, Barbie isn’t the nasty bitch she used to be. Who’d be afraid of her these days?”
    Tommy told Sal about the strange white-cloth figure with black stitches that he had found on the front porch.
    â€œSounds like the Pillsbury Doughboy gone punk,” Sal said.
    â€œIt’s weird,” Tommy said. “Weirder than it probably sounds.”
    â€œYou don’t