THE STANFORD MALL was an open-air dream market with shops grouped on narrow lanes, embedded in gardens. And what shops they were: the big stores Neiman and Nordstrom and Bloomingdale’s, and the high-end boutiques Armani, Benetton, Louis Vuitton.

  Hawk and Pidge had taken a seat on a bench outside the Polo shop, surrounded by a small forest of potted topiary, aromas of flowers and coffee wafting all around them. It was a Saturday, and great masses of designer-clad shoppers were out, parading down the little walkways past Pidge and Hawk, swinging their shopping bags, stopping to admire Ralph Lauren’s windows.

  Pidge had a video camera about the size of a deck of cards and was filming the parade. If anyone asked what he was doing, he’d tell them the truth - or part of it, anyway. He was in the computer video lab at Stanford. He was making a documentary.

  But what he wouldn’t say is that he and Hawk were looking for the winners. The biggest, piggiest oink-oinks of the day.

  They had two sets of contestants in mind.

  Both couples had college stickers on the rear windows of their cars. They were primo candidates. It was going to be hard to choose, but once Hawk and Pidge had agreed on the winning couple, they would follow them to where they lived and check out their home.

  Which one?

  The rich and fatty couple loaded down with bags imprinted with designer logos? Or the older, more athletic pair, dressed ostentatiously, sipping lattes as they wandered along the avenues of gluttony.

  Pidge was reviewing the footage when the security guard approached. He was late forties, blue uniform with a badge on his breast poc............