Fire And Ice Part 2

"I know. Thought that was you when I saw you in the Anchorage airport. We heard you were coming."

"Oh," Liam repeated, and wondered what else they had heard. A crater the size of Copernicus loomed up in front of them. Jim Earl drove right through it. When he came down off the ceiling Liam wedged himself into the corner as firmly as he could, one hand gripping the back of the seat and the other pressing against the glove compartment. "What's the situation with the local cop? Should we maybe detour over there first, see if he needs backup?"

"s.h.i.t no." Earl spit out the window, fortunately rolled down. In retaliation, a large blast of wet, cold air flooded the cab. "The way I hear it, Amy Pauk thought Nick was safe out fighting for his share of herring, so she invited Johnny Wa.s.sillie over for the morning. Johnny and Amy got this thing going," Earl added parenthetically. "They think n.o.body knows about it." He snorted again. It seemed to be his favorite expression. "Fine, fine, most of us could give a s.h.i.t who's s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g who, and I'm all for a quiet life anyway. Only trouble is Nick's boat broke down and he had to limp back into the harbor early. Goes home to grab some grub, catches Nick and Amy in the sack, goes for his rifle, starts a little ventilating. Dumb b.a.s.t.a.r.d." The mayor shook his head. "It's too early in the day for that s.h.i.t."

Liam checked his watch. It was just coming up on six-thirty. As casually as he could, he said, "So it's a hostage situation? Are there any children involved? What kind of gun does Pauk have? Did he shoot his wife? Did he shoot Mr., uh, Mr.--"

"Wa.s.sillie, Johnny Wa.s.sillie, and h.e.l.l yes, he shot him. Only winged him, though." Jim Earl seemed regretful to report this. He tapped the scanner hanging beneath the dash. "On the way over to get you, I heard Roger Raymo report in to the dispatcher. That'd be our day shift officer, the one we got left," Earl added with some bitterness. "He said he'd managed to disarm Nick before he got around to shooting Amy." Earl grinned. "Scared her, though, I bet." He thought about it. "Maybe. Amy's pretty scary herself, when she's of a mind to it."

Liam's hand slid from the holster, and he let out a long, slow breath. "Okay," he said, he hoped mildly. He hadn't been on the ground for--he checked his watch--three hours, and already there had been two and possibly three attempts at murder.

Maybe four, once he got his hands on Wy.

"No, we're headed for Bill's," Earl said with grim satisfaction. "Local watering hole, open from six a.m. until midnight, two a.m. on Fridays and Sat.u.r.days. Best burgers in town." He shot Liam a sardonic look. "Only burgers in town."

"Uh-huh," Liam said, dragging his attention back to the situation at hand. "You said there'd been shooting?"

Jim Earl snorted. "No s.h.i.t, Sherlock."

Liam waited. "So, who got shot?"

"Not who, what."

"I beg your pardon?"

The Suburban bottomed out over another pothole. Liam winced at the resulting tortured sc.r.a.pe of metal. Jim Earl didn't seem to notice. "Teddy Engebretsen's boat broke down just about the time the gun went off for herring. He and Nick limped back into the harbor together; Nick went home to see if he could bag hisself a Wa.s.sillie, Teddy went on up to Bill's to drown his sorrows. Reasonable response," Earl added parenthetically. "h.e.l.l of a thing to miss out on, herring. Enough money in one set for the boat payment and the insurance payment and a new engine and a trip to Seattle. If you make the right one in the right place."

Liam made a small noise that could have meant a.s.sent. He knew even less about herring fishing than he did about aviation, although in the case of the former it was distance and inexperience, not terror and intent that kept him ignorant.

"So, Teddy gets a little liquored up." Earl paused. "Well, okay, maybe a lot liquored up, and he takes exception to what's on the jukebox." A small shudder seemed to ripple up Jim Earl's spine. "Bill keeps a thirty-ought-six behind the bar in case of trouble. Teddy grabbed it and shot out the jukebox. Right in the middle of "Margaritaville." Dumb b.a.s.t.a.r.d." He shook his head. "Poor, dumb b.a.s.t.a.r.d." He spit out the window again and added, "Poor dumb dead b.a.s.t.a.r.d is what he's going to be if we don't get there in time."

They were in town now, a confused ma.s.s of buildings built on a series of small rolling hills that reminded Liam of sand dunes in shape and size, sand dunes covered with a thick encrustation of pine and spruce and alder and willow and birch. The town's buildings varied in construction from prefabricated corrugated metal to rickety two-story wooden plank to split log, lining the sides of a labyrinthine arrangement of streets. Paved streets, both Liam and Jim Earl's truck were glad to notice. They pa.s.sed two grocery stores, one with its corrugated metal siding painted an electric blue and a small front porch that was crowded with a group of teenage boys.

As the Suburban pa.s.sed the store, the group of boys spilled down the steps and into the street. Jim Earl leaned on the horn. The boys looked around, mimed astonishment at this appearance of a wheeled vehicle in the middle of the road, and one by one and as slowly as was humanly possible drifted to the curb.

One boy in particular, shorter and younger than the others, was even more obvious than the rest. He wore jeans that bagged out down to his knees and a baseball cap on backward. He stooped to fuss with a cuff, which although rolled three times, was still dragging the ground, and barely twitched when Jim Earl's horn gave another impatient blast. He took his time straightening up, adjusted his cap, and gave Jim Earl a sideways glance that bordered on insolence. He was short and stocky, with straight black hair and the cla.s.sic high cheekbones, tilted eyes, and golden skin of the upriver Yupik. "G.o.ddammit, kid, move outta the G.o.dd.a.m.n way!" the mayor bellowed out the window, and hit the horn again.

The other boys had retreated to the porch and were whistling and hooting and catcalling. The boy looked from them to the truck and back again, held a brief, internal debate, and then with an almost imperceptible shrug moved ever so slowly to one side of the street. "About G.o.dd.a.m.n time," Jim Earl bellowed again, and trod on the accelerator.

Liam twisted his head to watch the boy swagger up the steps to the porch, where he was greeted like a conquering hero, with a lot of back- and hand-slapping, shoulder-shaking, and fist feints to the jaw. The boy turned suddenly and caught Liam's eye. He smiled, slowly, arrogant satisfaction sitting on his young face like war paint, and then the Suburban went around a corner and the boy was lost from view.

The potholes had given way to pavement, but the streets were a warren of sudden rises and dogleg curves. Jim Earl swooped down one such rise and around one of the doglegs, whipped past a large group of buildings on a wooden dock that could have been a cannery or the local fuel dock or the SeaLand warehouse--they were going too fast for Liam to be sure--and pulled up with a jerk at a sprawling, one-story building that featured a shallow-peaked tin roof and green vinyl siding. It sat in the middle of a large parking lot, about three-quarters filled.

The sight did not fill Liam with joy, who had visions of all the vehicle owners being held hostage at gunpoint. "Mayor--" he began.

"Call me Jim Earl," the mayor said, turning off the ignition without bothering to throw out the clutch. The Suburban lurched and gurgled. "Everybody does." With a protesting diesely rattle, the engine died.

"Hold on a minute," Liam said, raising a hand. "You're saying there's a man in there with a gun, right? How many other people are in there? Is he holding them hostage? What kind of gun does he--"

Jim Earl snorted again, spit again, and slammed open the driver's side door. "s.h.i.t, Liam, Teddy don't got no gun. Bill done took it away from him."

"What?" Liam got out and slammed shut his own door. "Then what the h.e.l.l am I doing here?" Ten miles from what might be a real murder scene, and farther than that in s.p.a.ce and time from Wy. Suddenly he was furious. "Now, look, Jim Earl"--it was difficult to separate those two names--"I just set foot in Newenham, and I know, because you've told me, that your local force is shorthanded, but I've got some real work to do out at your airport, and--"

Mayor Jim Earl snorted, spat, and swore all in the same breath. "s.h.i.t, boy, I didn't haul your a.s.s all the way in from the airport to take Teddy into custody." The tall, grizzled man walked around the hood of the car and poked Liam in the chest with a bony finger. "You're here to save his a.s.s. You don't understand: Teddy shot the jukebox in the middle of "Margaritaville." He'll be lucky to get out of there alive." He grinned for the first time, displaying a set of large, improbably white teeth. "I wouldn't care but he's my son-inlaw, and I don't want the raising of his kids. h.e.l.lions, every one of them. You might be arresting me for murder my own self, should I be fool enough to take on that job."

And with that he vaulted the faded gray wooden steps and disappeared inside the building with the sign on it that said in unprepossessing black block letters, BILL'S BAR AND GRILL.

From the top of a nearby streetlight, an enormous raven surveyed the situation with a sardonic eye and croaked at the mayor's receding back. When Liam looked around to meet the black bird's steady gaze, the raven clicked at him, a series of throaty cackles that sounded somehow mocking.

It was the last sound Liam heard before he went in the door of the bar, from which he promptly came staggering out backward, falling down the stairs and landing with a thump on the pavement, f.a.n.n.y-first. "What the h.e.l.l?" He looked up just in time to see a tangle of bodies roll down the steps and right over the top of him, to hit hard against the already bruised b.u.mper of the construction orange Suburban. The tangle resolved itself into three people, two men and one woman. One of the men had a rifle and the second man and the woman dove on top of him and the resulting scuffle looked like something out of a Tom and Jerry cartoon.

He fumbled to his feet, brushed off the seat of his jeans and tried out his trooper voice. "Now, just hold it right there!"

The scuffle paused, looked him over, saw a tall man with an authoritative frown but nothing much else to recommend they obey him, and resumed the scramble. The man with the gun managed to get his finger on the trigger and the gun fired, bang! The bullet glanced off the windshield of the Suburban but there were already so many cracks in it Liam couldn't really tell if it had left a mark.

Enough was enough. He waded into the fray and grabbed someone by the scruff of the neck and someone else by the seat of the pants. "Hey!" a voice said indignantly, and he looked down to see that he had the woman by the seat of the pants.

"Sorry," he said without apology, dropped her and the unarmed man, and grabbed for the rifle, which went off again just before his hand closed around the barrel. The bullet sang past his ears and clipped the branch the raven was sitting on. The bird rose up in the air with an affronted squawk and a tremendous flapping of wings to hover over the shooter and unload a large helping of bird s.h.i.t down his cheek and the front of his shirt. He squawked again, a somehow menacing sound that promised more of the same should he be disturbed a second time, and went back to the spruce tree to land on a branch a little higher up the trunk.

"Eyaaaagh!" said the shooter, and the woman, glaring at him, snapped, "Serves you G.o.dd.a.m.n right, you nearsighted little b.a.s.t.a.r.d! If you'd just buy some gla.s.ses maybe once in a while you could hit what you aimed at!" She hauled him to his feet by the collar and hustled him up the steps.

"Wait a minute--" Liam said, standing still with the rifle in one hand.

The second man followed the first two up the steps.

Liam stared at the door. "What the h.e.l.l?"

From his new branch, the raven croaked at him. "Who asked you?" Liam retorted.

He climbed the steps again, keeping to one side this time. The door opened inward, and he hooked a cautious eye around the edge.

Inside, it was a bar like any fifty other Alaskan bars he'd been in, from Kenai to Ketchikan, Dutch Harbor to Nome, Barrow to Anchorage. He stood in the doorway, allowing his eyes to adjust to the dim light. A bar ran down the left side of the room; booths and the jukebox lined the right side. There was a stage the size of an end table against the back wall with an even smaller, imitation parquet dance floor in front of it. The rest of the floor was covered with tables and chairs. There was a window into the kitchen through the back wall, and the air was filled with the tantalizing odor of a deep fat fryer on overdrive. The floor was gritty beneath his feet, and the rafters were unfinished timber festooned with caribou racks, lead line, cork line, green fishnets, and various animal pelts. Neon beer signs glowed from every available inch of wall s.p.a.ce. There were two windows overlooking the parking lot, grimed with years of condensed fat. More signs blinked on and off in them.

Something was missing. It took a moment for Liam to realize what it was. There wasn't any television. No thirty-two-inch screen blaring out the latest Madison Avenue seductions into overspending your income on like-arock pickups, after which tall black men would chase after b.a.l.l.s of a.s.sorted shapes and sizes, unless it was short white men whacking the h.e.l.l out of a puck, when they weren't whacking the h.e.l.l out of each other. Sports made no sense to Liam. The only form of exercise he considered worth pursuing was undertaken horizontally. "Pushups?" Wy had asked oh so innocently when he had propounded this theory to her. "Bench-pressing? Oh, I know, wrestling," and she had tumbled him back onto the bed and demonstrated various holds.

The memory, flashing in from nowhere, halted him in his tracks. He came back to himself and, flushing slightly, looked around for Teddy, whose a.s.s he was there to save.

It wasn't only that there was no television and that the jukebox wasn't playing--the bar was quiet. Too quiet, especially for a bar in the Bush at the beginning of the fishing season. The booths and tables were full, the bar was lined with patrons, and there should have been talk, laughter, more than a few feminine shrieks of delight or dismay, and at the very least two men arguing blearily over who corked who during last summer's salmon season.

But it was quiet instead, with a quality of silence Liam might have expected to find at a drumhead court-martial. There were maybe thirty people present, most of them standing in a semicircle a respectful distance from the action without being so foolish as to put themselves out of range of hearing every word. Liam cast a quick eye over the group. It was a varied bunch, about two-thirds male, white, Native, mixed race, and what appeared to be a couple of heavy equipment salesmen from South Korea who looked delighted with fortune's putting an event in their path that had previously only been granted them via John Wayne movies. There was an ethereal young blonde with a bar towel wrapped around her waist, one hand on her hip, who was tapping an impatient foot as if to indicate she was ready to get back to generating tips now, thanks. Their shoulders stooped and hands crabbed from a lifetime of picking fish, three or four old fishermen in white canvas caps worn a dull gray watched everything out of bright, avid eyes. In a back booth one man had his head pillowed in his arms and was sleeping through it all. A barfly with gla.s.sy eyes and a lot of miles on her hung affectionately on the arm of the man Liam recognized from the altercation outside, a stocky young man with a merry grin that displayed irresistible twin dimples. "Come on, Mac honey," the barfly said in a slurred voice. "Les go back to my place, hmm?"

Mac honey was sober enough to catch the barfly's hand as it slid to his crotch, and to get while the getting was still good. "Sorry, Marcie," he said, draining his beer and setting the empty bottle on the bar. "I've got a party to go to, and a girlfriend to keep happy."

He threaded his way through the throng, nodding politely as he pa.s.sed in front of Liam, and the sound of the door closing behind him was magnified by the hush surrounding the main event. The only noise came from a man Liam recognized as the Old Fart from the plane that afternoon. He was standing in front of the jukebox, whose clear plastic lid was marred with a neat round hole surrounded by a starburst array of cracks. The lid was back, and the Old Fart was tinkering with the insides. He looked around once when Liam came in, said "Huh!" in a loud voice, and selected a larger screwdriver before returning to his work.

Liam looked further for the source of quiet. It wasn't hard to find. It hadn't taken them long, once they got him inside; the man who had been separated from the rifle was seated in a chair and immobilized with enough bright yellow polypropylene line to restrain King Kong. He was maybe thirty years old, five-eight, thickset, with matted brown hair and terrified brown eyes that stared at Liam over the bar rag that had been used to gag him.

Teddy Engebretsen might be drunk, but he wasn't so drunk he didn't know his life was in grave danger.

Standing opposite him was a woman, a woman who towered over Teddy in presence if not in height. The same woman who had rolled over the top of Liam outside, she was about five feet two inches tall and plump as a pigeon, her body a cascading series of rich curves; cheek, chin, breast, belly, hip, thigh, calf, a model for Rubens clad in clean, faded jeans and a gray T-shirt cinched in with a wide leather belt. Zaftig, they called it, Liam remembered from somewhere, as in making a man's palms itch.

All attention in the room was focused on these two. No one seemed to be moving; no one, with the exception of the Alaskan Old Fart, seemed to be breathing. Liam, mindful of his training, gave his gun belt an authoritative hitch and said in his calmest, deepest voice, "What seems to be the trouble here?"

The woman turned to look at him, and Liam registered three things immediately. Her eyes were the blue of glacier ice and thickly lashed, her well-filled T-shirt had a picture of a beribboned mask with the words "New Orleans Jazz Fest" written beneath it, and she had one of the firmest jaws he'd ever seen. She spoke, moved, and acted with a vigor that belied the lines on her face and the color of her hair, a thick silver swath combed straight back from her face that fell to a neatly trimmed line just above her shoulders.

"Who in the h.e.l.l are you?" she demanded. "Give me that."

She made as if to s.n.a.t.c.h the rifle from him. He moved it away and she said irritably, "Oh, don't bother, you d.a.m.n fool, I'm the magistrate for this district."

He looked at her for a long moment, and then sought out Jim Earl's face in the crowd. Jim Earl gave a confirming nod.

"Uh-huh," Liam said, but he kept hold of the rifle. "State Trooper Liam Campbell, ma'am."

"And don't call me ma'am," she snapped. "Makes me feel like I'm a hundred years old."

"Close enough!" the man at the jukebox said without turning around.

"Oh shut up, you old fart," the woman said. Again she reached for the rifle, and this time Liam let her take it. "The name's Billington, Linda Billington. You can call me Bill; everybody does." She shifted the rifle to extend a hand. Her grip was dry and firm--one pump, up and down, and withdrawn. She looked him over critically. "Liam Campbell, is it? We heard you were coming. They get that mess cleaned up at Denali?"

Liam thought "mess" was an inadequate way of referring to the screwup that had cost five lives and his job. "Yes," he said briefly.

Bright eyes examined him shrewdly. "Buck stopped on your desk, I hear."

"Yes. Look, what--"

"Didn't help they were a family of Natives, and you and the other two troopers involved were as white as you can get without bleach."

"No." He could feel the eyes of many trained upon him. This was even worse than he had expected. "What seems to--"

"You'll have a lot to prove here, Liam," she said. "But it's a good town. Pretty fairminded bunch of people. They'll judge you, all right, but they'll judge you on what you do here, not what you did before you came here."

"Yes, ma'am," Liam said woodenly.

"Bill, dammit. I don't want to be called ma'am until I'm at least a hundred."

"Won't be long now!" the Old Fart bellowed.

"Oh shut up," Bill said without heat. "In the meantime, Liam, this here is Teddy Engebretsen, who's got nothing better to do on a fine spring day such as this than to come in and shoot up my bar with my own rifle." She glared at the miscreant, who whimpered behind his bar rag gag. "And then when we think he's all calmed down, he has the gall to go for it a second time!" Teddy whimpered again. "I'm just figuring on what to do with him."

"Uh-huh," Liam said, because for the life of him he couldn't think what else to say. He shuffled his feet and cleared his throat. He was, after all, the first officer on the scene. It was up to him to establish his sense of authority. He buried his resentment at the woman's blabbering of his private affairs--as private as they get when they've been on the front page of the Anchorage Daily News for a week straight--to most of the population of Newenham. "Well, Ms. Billington--"

"Who's that?" she demanded. "I told you to call me Bill. That's my name. Liam," she added pointedly.

So much for establishing his sense of authority. "Okay, Bill," he said, trying an ingratiating smile. She didn't visibly soften, but then the smile hadn't been all that sincere, and he persevered, ever mindful of the clock ticking in the background on the crime scene--if it was one--at the airport, and even more conscious of the burning if irrational need to get back to Wy before she vanished on him again. "What exactly happened here?"

"Teddy shot up the place," she replied promptly. "He come in here all liquored up, then got more so--my fault for not cutting him off sooner. He takes exception to what's on the jukebox, which isn't any of his G.o.dd.a.m.n business and he can go down to the Seaside and listen to punk rock music and like it from now on." She glared again at the miscreant, who seemed to shrink inside his clothes.

"And?" Liam prompted.

Her face darkened. "I got to him before he got more than one off, but that one hit my jukebox. Right in the middle of "Margaritaville."" She looked back at Liam. "n.o.body does that to Jimmy Buffett. Not in my bar. n.o.body."

"Uh-huh," Liam said. Bill's priorities seemed a little skewed to him, given the number of people in the room who could have been shot instead, herself included. "And we are doing--what, now?"

"I was deciding on that when the cavalry barreled in the door," she said with a sardonic look. "By the way, where is your uniform, trooper?"

Bill was an officer of the court, and as such his coconspirator in upholding the letter as well as the spirit of the law in this section of the Alaskan Bush. Liam reminded himself of this, and took care to keep his tone civil. "In my luggage. I just got off the plane," he added, sounding to his own ears a little aggrieved.

"Uh-huh," she mimicked him, and smiled suddenly. He stared, dazzled. It was like the sun coming out on a bare and wintry day. Her face was strong of brow, nose, and jaw and her skin was lined at the corners of eyes and mouth, but there was no mistaking the warm humor, the manifest charm, and the undeniable s.e.x appeal.

"Watch it, boy," someone growled, and Liam turned to see the Old Fart glaring at him. "She's taken." He pointed with the screwdriver. "And so are you."

Liam blinked. A ripple of laughter went around the room, defusing some of the tension. He shook himself. The Old Fart must have picked up on Wy at the airport. It seemed unlikely, given that the Old Fart must have adjourned to Bill's early on, but then if any part of what Liam had been feeling had showed on his face, he had probably been lit up like one of the neon signs on the wall behind him. It was an uncomfortable thought for a deeply private man, and he turned back to Bill. "What were you intending to do with Mr. Engebretsen, Bill?"

They both regarded the bound man for a moment. The bar watched and waited in silence. "Well," Bill said finally, "I was thinking about supergluing his shooting hand to one cheek of his a.s.s and his other hand around a beer bottle."

Liam stared. She appeared to be absolutely serious. He opened his mouth, and she said, "He drinks too much, does Teddy. I'm not totally unfeeling--the bottle of beer will be a full one, but after it's gone, that's it."

"I like it," the Old Fart said, and grinned evilly when Teddy's eyes bulged over the edge of the gag.

"Or we could just shoot him," she said, and raised the .30-06 to work the action. She gave a satisfied nod. "Plenty of ammunition. 'Course at this distance I really only need one."

The crowd, as a unit, took one step back.

Not just a court-martial, Liam thought, but an execution as well. He admired Bill's efficiency. He started to say something soothing, only to be beaten to it by Jim Earl. "Now, Bill--"

"Put a lid on it, Jim Earl," Bill said. "You been letting this boy run wild since he starting courting your daughter in high school." She bent a severe look upon the mayor. "Why you let him court her is something we won't get into right now." The mayor's face went red, and he began to splutter. Ignoring him, Bill continued, "Fact is, somebody's got to shake some sense into Teddy, and it looks like I've been elected. Besides," she added inexorably, in what was becoming a litany, "he came into my saloon, and he shot up my jukebox, and he shot it up when Jimmy was singing, and he shot it up when Jimmy was singing "Margaritaville." n.o.body does that in my bar. And n.o.body ever, ever does that to Jimmy."

"Uh," Liam said.

"Yes, Liam?" Bill said, looking at him with a bland smile.

Liam made what felt even to himself like a feeble attempt to gain control of the situation. "Surely there has to be a local ordinance against the shooting of a firearm within the city limits."

Bill raised her brows. "I'm sure there must be. And your point is?"

"Well, I--" Liam was beginning to sweat, although not as freely as Teddy Engebretsen. It didn't help that the rest of the people in the bar were fully alive to his dilemma and thoroughly enjoying it. Liam felt like the star attraction in a three-ring circus. He looked back at Bill, and for the first time noticed the twinkle lurking at the back of her eyes. He stared at her, and the twinkle grew.

"There, that oughta do it." The lid on the jukebox came down with a solid thud and the Old Fart dropped a quarter into the machine and punched in a selection. Nothing happened. The twinkle in Bill's eyes vanished, and Teddy looked even more terrified, if that was possible. "Come on, you son of a b.i.t.c.h," the Old Fart said, and squared off to give the jukebox a quick kick in the side. The machine hiccuped once and came alive with the sound of steel drums and a harmonica collaborating on a Caribbean rhythm that inspired one couple into an impromptu jitterbug. Jimmy was back.

Tension visibly eased. The Old Fart packed up the toolbox and lugged it to the bar, where he let it drop with a resounding crash. He looked impatiently around for Bill. "Well, come on, woman, don't just stand there, get me a beer!"

Bill grumbled but did as she was told, absentmindedly handing off the rifle to Liam as she pa.s.sed. The Old Fart looked at him. "Get your b.u.t.t up here, too, boy--I'll buy you a drink. Bill, pour him some o' that Glenmorangie--you know, that stuff bottled by the only ten honest men on the Isle of Skye, or some such."

Bill snapped her fingers and pointed at the Old Fart. "That was why you made me buy this stuff."

The Old Fart shrugged. "What can I say? I'm good."

Liam found himself standing at the bar. If he'd had time to think about it he might have wondered how he got there, especially with what was waiting for him at the airport, but for the moment he didn't seem to have much choice in the matter. It all seemed somewhat dreamlike, anyway--the body at the airport, the reappearance of Wy in his life when he had thought her lost to him forever, a practicing vigilante who moonlighted as the local magistrate, and now, a soon-to-be-drunken jukebox repairman. He was wrong--this wasn't a three-ring circus, it was an alternate plane of existence.