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Ister Bluchenwalde was getting old. He could tell. His temper, which had never really been anything he tried to control anyway, was getting shorter. He stared at the phone he'd just slammed back into the cradle and muttered a few more obscenities. Just for effect.

The man he'd just spoken to had called him by his real name. While most people don't really have too much of a problem be called by name, Ister did. It just wasn't a name he fared well with.

In the first place, he couldn't understand how his father had come up with a surname like Bluchenwalde. To top matters off, his mother had insisted on christening him with an equally insidious label like Ister. Together, they had a terribly discordant sound. Especially on those WANTED posters decorating the walls of the Post Office. For it was under the name Ister Bluchenwalde that he was wanted in three states. Four, if you counted Wyoming. But they had the name spelled wrong. Like you could blame them. Still, it was a name you would never remember if it belonged to the person you had a job interview with. Drive you crazy trying. But put that sucker under a mug shot, it stuck right in your head. You couldn't shake it.

Florida wanted him for questioning in a kidnapping and murder case that had happened several years ago in Tallahassee. Several years didn't make a damned bit of difference when murder was your maker. He'd killed the girl all right. Thought he'd covered his tracks pretty well, too. Once he was done having his fun with her, he dumped her carcass into a construction site and covered it with gravel. The next day, about a hundred tons of concrete covered it.

Only thing was - he'd lost his wallet. He hunted that damned thing for six days. Couldn't find it anywhere. Then on the seventh, a fellow from the Department of Public Buildings decided the foundation was insufficiently fortified. He made the contractors tear the whole thing out and start again. That’s when they found the girl. And his wallet. He decided he didn't want it back after all. But that didn’t keep Tallahassee from wanting him.

Arizona wanted him for something slightly different. He'd pulled into Phoenix, slightly down on his luck. He'd just dumped twenty grand in a Las Vegas casino. What made it particularly depressing, was that, at that point in his career, he didn't even know what twenty thousand dollars looked like. Bars on the bathroom window had foiled him at first. But with a little ingenuity, he'd managed to elude the grasp of several gentlemen whose surnames reminded him a bit of pizza.

Once in Phoenix, he'd rapidly come to the conclusion that seventeen dollars and twenty-six cents wasn't going to get him very far. He needed a slightly bigger stake. So he knocked off a liquor store on the corner of Scottsdale Road and Thomas. The take had been pretty good, too. Nearly a thousand in cash and three bottles of Chivas.

That wasn't what got him in trouble, though. Eight-inch lifts and the foresight to wear shoes a full size too small paid off. On his way out of the store, he left a bullet in the clerk's forehead and a footprint in the mud left by the irrigation system. The cops were off chasing a six and a half footer with size nine feet.

What got him in trouble was tequila. He had a fondness for genuine Mexican tequila - the kind with the worm. So while he was south of the border, converting his loot to low-grade Mexican stash laced with oregano, he also picked up a few bottles of that. How was he supposed to know he had two bottles over his limit?

His herbal connection knew better than to even look in the direction of the Border Patrol. But the little shit who sold him the liquor didn't. The little prick charged him two bucks a bottle more than any other dealer on the street. Then, he collected another ten-spot from the Federalés for supplying them with his tag number.

Naturally, the extra bottles of booze weren't the only thing the border boys found when they searched Ister's car. (Which, incidentally, wasn't really his car.) To the dismay of the border patrol, Ister had come prepared for such an untimely turn of events. A border guard found the bricks of herbal delight, and Ister left him at the gate with a small hole where the bullet went into his head, and a much larger one where it went out. Ister led the Highway Patrol on a merry chase all the way to Tucson.

There, he managed to elude the cruisers long enough to swap his car for an Impala someone had left idling in the parking lot of a Circle K. From there, he was the perfect picture of decency all the way to El Paso.

Where he knocked off another liquor store. Which brings us to why Texas wanted him. The Bank of America wanted him, too. They just didn't know it yet. He was the one who ran up all those charges on the Visa left in the Impala's glove compartment.

And so it was, after all these years that he sat in a phony real estate office in Richmond staring at a decorator phone while the jingle of the abused instrument died in his ears. Someone had just called him Ister Bluchenwalde. He hadn't used that name since Florida.

Now, he liked to be called Joseph Cardinados. He wore blue, non-prescription contacts over his brown eyes, and had grown a beard to cover a conspicuous scar on his right cheek. He was now prosperously plump - a fact that he did not try to hide. His flamboyant checkered suit caught everybody's eye. Even if somebody, on some off chance, had ever heard of Ister Bluchenwalde, they would probably cock an eye, look him up and down, and say, "Nah. That ain't him."

Joseph Cardinados didn't mind that Ister was using his name. In fact, he didn't mind much of anything. Ister had left him fertilizing the pond lilies down in Branton Lake, just a little south of Bellemont. Ister would only be mildly concerned to learn that the body had been fished out of the water, identified, autopsied, and planted in Richmond Memorial Cemetery, three blocks away.

That was all three cities and three scams ago. Until that phone call had come through, all he wanted was to finish up another real estate scam that could well net six digits or better. Now it looked like he was going to have to move on without the six-digit bank account.

He sat in the growing darkness of his eighth floor office, nervously drumming his fingers on the distended vest of his suit. For the life of him, (or death, for that matter) he couldn't figure out who could have traced him this far using his real name. It could have been some sort of cop, he supposed. But that didn't seem likely. If that were the case, why not just make a clean bust and get it over with. The law liked to play cat and mouse. But only when it served their purpose.

The phone rang again, and Ister would have been ashamed if anyone had seen the way he jumped. He stared at the ugly thing while it clamored on and on. On the seventeenth ring, he decided whoever it was, wasn't giving up. So he answered it.

"Yeah!" he snapped.

"Hello, Ister. Keeping late hours again tonight, I see."

"Who da hell is dis?"

"You haven't figured that out yet?" The voice sounded genuinely surprised. A male voice, it carried no sign of the owner's age.

"What? You think I got ESP, or som'pin'? Why you keep callin' me Ister. My name is Joseph Cardinados. Now who da hell are you?"

"Just someone who knows you're not really who you say you are."

Damn him, thought Ister. He thinks he's Jesus Christ, passing parables to the peons. Aloud, he said, "Den you don't know as much as you think you do. You got som'pin' to say, say it! I'm a busy man"

"I'll be dealing with you, Ister. Remember that. It isn't finished yet."

"What isn't finished yet? Quit playin' your friggin' games and . . ." He stared at the empty receiver, listening to the buzz of the dial tone until he convinced himself there was nothing else to hear. Then, with a sweep of energy he hadn't displayed since El Paso, he ripped the phone out of the wall and hurled it through the window. Eight floors down, it disintegrated on the pavement at the feet of a very startled policeman, while shards of American Glass Company remnants showered down around him. A stiff breeze gusted around the cop and set Ister’s curtains to billowing. Below, the trees that lined the street began dancing all around.

Ister slammed out of his office and down the hall, not bothering to lock the door. He doubted he would ever use it again. The elevator groaned and clattered its objections to his descent all the way to the ground floor. Ister never took his eyes off the antique arrow sweeping past the floor numbers that measured his life.

At the bottom, he exploded out of the elevator, past a uniformed officer who seemed to be in an equal hurry to take the hesitant contraption back up. Neither man acknowledged the other.

Ister was very perturbed. And he felt very alone. If only there was somebody he could turn to for help. Someone who could give him a place to hole up until he figured out who was on to him. That was the trouble with his line of work. It didn't really pay to have many close friends.

Suddenly, he stopped in his tracks, so abruptly that the man following him collided roughly into his back. "Watch where you're going, buddy," the man growled. Fortunately for him, Ister didn't pay a bit of attention to him. On another day, that would have been a serious mistake. But Ister had just remembered Harold. Harold would help. Harold would know just what to do.

Ister hadn't seen Harold in ages - not since the last time he'd slept with her. But he knew she would never turn him away. They were too close - been through too much together. Besides, he had enough on her to put her away for life. She helped him cremate the body of his last competitor, and gave him the gun he used to do Joseph Cardinados. The real Joseph Cardinados, that is. She had urged him on as he pelted the man with the butt of his gun. She almost drooled when he put the barrel in the man's mouth. Then, she groaned in delight when the man's brains redecorated the warehouse wall.

There was no doubt about it. Harold was the perfect choice to get Ister out of this mess. He saw a phone booth up ahead and rushed for it, the wind whistling through what was left of his hair. Grabbing the receiver, he held it to his ear while he fumbled for change. That's when the ageless male voice on the other end said, "Hello, Ister. I wondered how long it would take you to get this far."

Ister screamed and leaped from the booth. His ear tingled where the handset had pressed into it, as if a mild electric shock had passed from the phone to his head. A block away, the policeman emerged from the building where Ister's office used to be. He caught sight of Ister standing in the light of the phone booth and shouted, "You there. Halt!"

Ister heard him and looked up. When he saw who it was, he illogically came to the conclusion that this was the man who kept calling. Deciding not to hang around for an introduction, he lit out as fast as his ill-conditioned body would allow.

Until then, the policeman hadn't suspected him for a thing. He just wanted to ask him the legendary Few Questions. Now, he was convinced he'd found the deadbeat who chucked the phone. Ister's flight for the fields was all the proof he needed. He took up pursuit. And when Ister realized he was being chased, it was only natural to assume that it was for a decade's worth of crime. Not just assault with a deadly telephone.

With the law after him, Ister's survival instincts took over in high gear. He hadn't been in town long enough to know where the nearest pay toilet was. Still, he could smell blind alleys a block away. Some hidden sense told him which ones went all the way through.

His heart beating a drum roll in his chest, he managed to skirt two alleys without catching sight of the cop. He didn't realize the guy was a lot like himself. He was overly fond of Budweiser and pasta and smoked two packs of Lucky Strikes a day. Ister had no way of knowing he'd left the man two blocks back, wheezing, gasping and clutching his heart in his chest, and trying to make it look like he was trying to hold up a weakened brick wall. Ister thought those footsteps behind him belonged to the cop.

Every time Ister looked back, all he saw was darkened alleyways. But he wasn't fooled. He could hear the sound of running feet closing in. His own breath was coming much too quickly now; his heart pumping too hard. He had to stop and rest. Running against the wind was just too much effort.

He caught sight of the flashing neon of the Prancing Pony just ahead. Forcing himself on to one final burst of speed, he darted through the doorway. The place was almost deserted, with only a few silent faces staring down into glasses of watery beer. The smell of stale cigarettes and beer lingered in the smoky air. The phone was ringing, the bartender muttering a few choice words as he moved to answer it.

Ister collapsed at the bar and waited for the man to get free. He was certain he'd lost the cop. In reality, that guy had given up the chase long ago. It was merely happenstance that he was within thirty seconds of passing in front of the entrance to the Prancing Pony.

The bartender looked up from the phone and called out, "Anyone here named Ister Bluchenwalde?"

Ister's face must have given him away, for the barkeep looked him straight in the eye and said, "Some dude just left a message for you. Said to meet him by Harold's grave. Say's you know the place."

Ister screamed and bolted for the door, leaving a confused bartender and half a dozen drunks behind. He burst through the door, out on the sidewalk and knocked the unsuspecting street cop right on his keester. It was a tossup who was more startled; Ister, or the policeman. The former cut out running again, while the latter fumbled to get his revolver out of its holster. By the time he managed that, Ister had already rounded the corner and was headed for the United Presbyterian Church. Once again, the policeman took up the chase.

The cop rounded the same corner just in time to see Ister struggle over the fence of the neighboring cemetery. Not feeling up to such a climb, the officer elected to take the longer way. Through the gate and under the sign that read, Richmond Memorial Cemetery.

Ister was hoping to lose the cop among the gravestones. He ran through the oily darkness, dodging headstones and skirting trees. Every time his foot sank into the soft earth of a freshly turned grave, an icy shudder worked its way up his spine. Ever since his brother left him in a graveyard on Halloween night, he'd been deathly afraid of the places. He remembered that night all too clearly. Only on that night, the wind had been blowing even harder.

Every wisp of mist resolved into a discorporate spirit - every nocturnal sound a ghostly footstep. He no longer heard the footsteps of the police officer. Only the ghoulish clatter of dead branches in the wind. Now, he ran simply to get out of the cemetery. Just ahead, he saw the spiked fence surrounding the graveyard. Locking his eyes on target, he ran like hell.

Had his eyes been on the ground ahead, he might have seen the chain that had been set up around a freshly dug grave - presumably to keep people from walking (or running) over it. His foot caught on the chain and he pitched forward, his hands flailing to break his fall.

The universe around him reverted to slow motion. A headstone drifted lazily past as he descended. The name on the monument stood out in icy clarity. Janet (Harold) Preston. He'd reached his rendezvous.

He saw at the last moment the iron spike decorating a neighboring burial mound. With the sound of a pitchfork impaling a melon, the metal penetrated his throat, just above the ribcage. His blood was a crimson geyser, painting the ground all around. As the darkness of the graveyard gave way to a more permanent blackness, Ister made one last attempt to pull himself off the stake. That was how the cop found him.

By the time the ambulance arrived to cart him away, the policeman had fished Ister's wallet out of his pocket and found the stolen ID. It was a coincidence the man would ponder the rest of his life. For the license in the wallet and gravestone where he died both carried the same name. Joseph Cardinados. The wind finally died away as the ambulance pulled away with the remains of Ister.