1999 NY:Putnam First edition, first printing, mint/new unread in a flawless dustjacket, signed by the author. In the city of Coconut Grove, Florida, these things happen: A struggling ad man named Eliot Arnold drives home from a meeting with the Client From Hell. Eliot's teenage son, Matt, fills a Squirtmaster 9000 for his turn at a high school game called Killer. Matt's intended victim, Jenny Herk, sits down with her mom in front of the TV for what she hopes will be a peaceful evening for once. Jenny's alcoholic and secretly embezzling stepfather, Arthur, emerges from the maid's room, angry for being rebuffed. Henry and Leonard, two hit men from New Jersey, pull up to the Herks' house for a real game of Killer, Arthur's embezzling apparently not having been quite so secret to his employers after all. And a homeless man named Puggy settles down for the night in a treehouse just inside the Herks' yard.. "In a few minutes, a chain of events will begin that will change the lives of each and every one of them, and leave some of them wiser, some of them deader, and some of them definitely looking for a new line of work.