Special Agent Romilia Chacon drives her old Taurus out of the neighborhood of canals of Venice, California, and toward the freeway. Venice Boulevard has little traffic just past midnight. It''s a straight shot of green lights all the way to the 405. She does not speed. There is no need for that. I can see her easily, even without the streetlights, from the roof of this old apartment building. The Steiner Nighthunters with their twelve by fifty-six range can peer into near total darkness. The binoculars, manufactured by a private company for the U.

S. Army and used by the high military command in the Iraq war, and bought at Internet prices (eight hundred forty dollars, a steal ), make Romilia''s face large and sharp. She does not cry. This does not surprise me; she''s not in love. She has a lover. The man who lives on the banks of these canals, in one of the smaller homes but one that he can barely afford. Special Agent Samuel "Chip" Pierce. Living off a Fed''s salary, bringing in a little extra income due to his wounds, Chip can manage the payments, along with the help of an inheritance; and he means to enjoy it.

The loss of body parts has that effect on some men: Either you drink yourself away or you slam down the pain pills or the heroin or all three; or maybe you get existential, you decide hey, they took my leg, my eye, they took a chunk of my hand, fuck it; I''m living. I''m going to live, and if I can, I''ll live in one of the nicer areas in Los Angeles. Sure, it''s not the real Venice, no gondolas plying the waterways; it''s just L.A. with canals running by the houses, but it''s expensive and that''s what Chip wanted and I can''t disagree. I understand Pierce''s perspective. I know how much it costs to ease pain. But I have become an existentialist, too; I''ve learned that pain means life and that death is the absence of pain and sometimes I''m not sure which one to choose so I''ve chosen this.

I lean against the concrete banister of the roof, adjust the Nighthunters so as to look up the street, through the space between two jacaranda trees and into the window of the small canal home. Chip Pierce places a drink on a glass table. Now he looks out the window, no doubt at the road that Romilia Chacon has just taken home. I can''t adjust the binoculars anymore, can''t see the look that may be regret pass over Chip Pierce''s face. But the stance is there, a cock of the head downward, a decision not to drink from the glass for that moment. A pause. Who is more solid: Chip Pierce, or me? Or Romilia Chacon? She''s done well for herself here in Los Angeles these past years. No doubt she is the most solid of all, even with that knife-scar over the left side of her neck, even with that sister long in the grave.

I know her, I''ve had to get to know her. But she''s not my target. Nor is Chip Pierce. Though later, police and witnesses will be hard put to believe that. I''m painting a picture that they won''t forget. I watch, carefully, as Chip cracks ice for another drink. My ice, the tray I made for him. He sits in a large chair and drinks scotch, then starts to shake his head.

Another sip, as if to toss off the sudden whirl. He stands to walk it off, means to set the scotch on the table but doesn''t quite place it correctly; the glass tumbler totters on the table''s lip. It falls, but does not break. And poor, half-drugged Chip is on his way to sleep. I leave the roof and make my way across Venice Boulevard. After popping the lock on the front door and entering the six-digit code that will disarm his alarm system, I will find Special Agent Pierce on his back, just below the window, the empty tumbler next to his head. Get to work. Wrap Pierce''s limp fingers around objects.

Open drawers and leave the objects behind. Prick and shoot. Pierce has only a slipper on his right foot. This makes it easy. Now, wait for his body to go through the motions, the rush. The first venom streams through him, like it streams through the blood of so many others across this country. A great country. Enough.

Pierce''s body has relaxed. Now, dip and stab. Snap the dart, leave a splinter of wood behind. Help Chip Pierce die. Then I draw the blade across Pierce''s stomach. At first it''s simple, like cutting on a mannequin. But then it gets harder, even though he''s dead. Still, there is rage, though it is not sure which way to go.

Rage against the poison that you''ve just shot into him. Rage against those who buy and sell it. Chip has been like me, hurt in the line of duty. Too many parallels. That''s why there is regret. Still, I do the only thing I can think of doing: I take off Chip Pierce''s left leg. I fight with the silicon sheath, peeling it down over the stub. Finally it comes off.

Over and again, I drop it down hard on his face. It works. It looks close enough to my own rage that it seems all very real. This will bring everybody out of the bushes, make them all run across open fields, crisscrossing one another''s paths, making it that much easier for me to hunt. This is good. Really good. Now that I''m not a coach, this is just fantastic. Sergio kicked the ball right between two opponents'' legs, and all of us parents on the sidelines whooped it up.

He was playing defense, as always; Sergio hadn''t had his chance at scoring a goal yet, but at this point, it didn''t matter to him. His teammates nicknamed him Firewall Chacon . He was not about to let that ball get by him or into the goal. "Keep it up, Firewall, stop every ball that comes your way!" said Matt, a good-looking fellow with a thick mustache. Matt kept the game positive by emphasizing the fun of it all; still, he wanted the team to win as much as the rest of us did. He was better at maintaining a balance between the two--much better than I was. Last year had been a disaster. I learned quickly, after only two months, that being a coach of the Sherman Oaks Soccer Association was a bad idea.

Not just because I was sometimes away on a case, which meant leaving The Mighty Slayers without a leader; but because when I was there, my reputation overshadowed Sergio''s. More than once I heard it whispered among some of the moms: that Latina hothead . Here, in good old liberal Los Angeles, and those wondrous stereotypes just keep pumping along. But I suppose I didn''t do much to help snuff the stereotype out. One Saturday morning the coach of the other team (The Red Terminators) had decided that the ref''s call was bad: His goalie had stopped the ball even though the goalie had fallen back with the ball in hand, right into the goal net. The ref had given us the point, rightly so. The opposing coach launched into the ref. I made my way onto the field to calm the situation only to have him start breathing down my throat.

And even with my mother on the sidelines saying, " Hija , just let it go, come on, we''re winning," I stayed out there and said my piece. And am I to blame for him calling me bitch? Though I am to blame for flipping him over my calf and slamming him on the full of his back, which had a very interesting way of silencing both sides of the field. I lost my coach position that same weekend. He didn''t. I wanted to fight that, but my mother talked me out of it. And it had gotten busy at the Bureau, what with all the buildup around antiterrorism, so I decided, one less battle. Which, my mother could tell anyone, was quite a change in my life. "You''re getting wiser in your old age, hija ," she said to me.

I had turned thirty that year. I didn''t need her to remind me. Still, I had recognized it as well. I can still lose it, but after a short time, I regain . whatever it is we''re supposed to regain. Patience? Acquiescence? I''m calmer now, that''s what Mama tells me. Everyone agrees that it''s good. I suppose they''re right.

But this year was much better. Sergio turned eight in August, and he seemed less stressed out once his mother was no longer his coach. And, I had to admit, I enjoyed the game more. Matt was a great coach. The kids loved him; Sergio was always one of the first to run up and give Coach Matt a high five. Matt was married, though. Too bad. His wife was always there: a good-looking woman, blond, nice figure, maybe four, five years older than me.

A little shorter, though her legs were thinner than mine and I didn''t doubt those breasts were silicone. Or, maybe they weren''t. She was nice, in a soccer-mom way. "Come on, Slayers, move your behinds up that field!" She would belt her demands across the grass, but in a way that felt more, I don''t know, positive. I hadn''t warmed up much to the other mothers on the team. There were differences between us, like shards of glass strewn over the sidelines. They gathered under sun umbrellas, talked to one another in familiar, though elevated ways. If they had been Latinas, they''d have been using to between one another.

But they weren''t; somehow, in a game dominated by Latin Americans, and in a city where Latinos have become the majority, my kid had landed on an almost all-white team. But that wasn''t the main difference between us. It was the differences in our lives. "Gosh, I hope Jessica''s careful today," said one woman. "If she gets hurt or anything, well, that''ll just ruin her filming tomorrow." "What''s she on?" "It''s another Kellogg commercial." "Really? Animated?" "Oh, yes. She''s gotten very good at pretending to talk with Tony the Tiger.

She practices all the time in front of her mirror. But I''ve got to get her home right after the game. We''ve got.