Nobody in the bar said a word. Chad Mulligan looked up at Shadow. “It’s probably a mistake. I’m sure we can sort this all out,” he said, sensibly. Then he said, to the bar, “It’s all fine. Nothing to worry about. We can sort this out. Everything’s fine.” Then, to Shadow. “Let’s step outside, Mike.” Quiet competence. Shadow was impressed.
“Sure,” said Shadow.
He felt a hand touch his hand, and he turned to see Sam staring at him. He smiled down at her as reassuringly as he could.
Sam looked at Shadow, then she looked around the bar at the faces staring at them. She said to Audrey Burton, “I don’t know who you are. But. You. Are. Such. A cunt.” Then she went up on tiptoes and pulled Shadow down to her, and kissed him hard on the lips, pushing her mouth against his for what felt to Shadow like several minutes, and might have been as long as five seconds in real, clock-ticking time.
It was a strange kiss, Shadow thought, as her lips pressed against his: it wasn’t intended for him. It was for the other people in the bar, to let them know that she had picked sides. It was a flag-waving kiss. Even as she kissed him, he became certain that she didn’t even like him—well, not like that.
Still, there was a tale he had read once, long ago, as a small boy: the story of a traveler who had slipped down a cliff, with man-eating tigers above him and a lethal fall below him, who managed to stop his fall halfway down the side of the cliff, holding on for dear life. There was a clump of strawberries beside him, and certain death above him and below. What should he do? went the question. And the reply was, Eat the strawberries.
The story had never made any sense to him as a boy. It did now.
So he closed his eyes, threw himself into the kiss and experienced nothing but Sam’s lips and the softness of her skin against his, sweet as a wild strawberry.
“C’mon, Mike,” said Chad Mulligan, firmly. “Please. Let’s take it outside.”
Sam pulled back. She licked her lips, and smiled, a smile that nearly reached her eyes. “Not bad,” she said. “You kiss good for a boy. Okay, go play outside.” Then she turned to Audrey Burton. “But you,” she said, “are still a cunt.”
Shadow tossed Sam his car keys. She caught them, one-handed. He walked through the bar, and stepped outside, followed by Chad Mulligan. A gentle snow had begun to fall, the flakes spinning down into the light of the neon bar sign. “You want to talk about this?” asked Chad.
“Am I under arrest?” asked Shadow.
Audrey followed them out onto the sidewalk. She looked as if she were ready to start screaming again. She said, her voice trembling, “He killed two men, Chad. The FBI came to my door. He’s a psycho. I’ll come down to the station with you, if you want.”
“You’ve caused enough trouble, ma’am,” said Shadow. He sounded tired, even to himself. “Please go away.”
“Chad? Did you hear that? He threatened me!” said Audrey.
“Get back inside, Audrey,” said Chad Mulligan. She looked as if she were about to argue, then she pressed her lips together so hard they went white, and went back into the bar.
“Would you like to comment on anything she said?” asked Chad Mulligan.
“I’ve never killed anyone,” said Shadow.
Chad nodded. “I believe you,” he said. “I’m sure we can deal with these allegations easily enough. It’s probably nothing. I have to do this. You won’t give me any trouble, will you, Mike?”
“No trouble,” said Shadow. “This is all a mistake.”
“Exactly,” said Chad. “So I figure we ought to head down to my office and sort it all out there?”
“Am I under arrest?” asked Shadow, for the second time.
“Nope,” said Chad. “Not unless you want to be. I figure, we go down to my office together, you come with me out of a sense of civic duty, and we do whatever we can to straighten all this out.”
Chad patted Shadow down, found no weapons. They got into Mulligan’s car. Again Shadow sat in the back, looking out through the metal cage. He thought, SOS. Mayday. Help. He tried to push Mulligan with his mind, as he’d once pushed a cop in Chicago—This is your old friend Mike Ainsel. You saved his life. Don’t you know how silly this is? Why don’t you just drop the whole thing?
“I figure it was good to get you out of there,” said Chad. “All you needed was some loudmouth deciding that you were Alison McGovern’s killer and we’d’ve had a lynch mob on our hands.”
“Point.”
“So you sure there’s nothing you want to tell me?”
“Nope. Nothing to say.”
They were silent for the rest of the drive to the Lakeside police offices. The building, Chad said, as they pulled up outside it, actually belonged to the county sheriff’s department. The local police had a few rooms in there. Pretty soon the county would build something modern. For now they had to make do with what they had.
They walked inside.
“Should I call a lawyer?” asked Shadow.
“You aren’t accused of anything,” said Mulligan. “Up to you.” They pushed through some swing doors. “Take a seat over there.”
Shadow took a seat on the wooden chair with cigarette burns on the side. He felt stupid and numb. There was a small poster on the notice board, beside a large NO SMOKING sign: ENDANGERED MISSING it said. The photograph was Alison McGovern’s.
There was a wooden table, with old copies of Sports Illustrated and Newsweek on it, with the place on the cover where an address label had been pasted cut neatly away. The light was bad. The paint on the wall was yellow, but it might once have been white.
After ten minutes Chad brought him a watery cup of vending machine hot chocolate. “What’s in the bag?” he asked. And it was only then that Shadow realized he was still holding the plastic bag containing the Minutes of the Lakeside City Council.
“Old book,” said Shadow. “Your grandfather’s picture’s in here. Or great-grandfather maybe.”
“Yeah?”
Shadow flipped through the book until he found the portrait of the town council, and he pointed to the man called Mulligan. Chad chuckled. “If that don’t beat all,” he said.
Minutes passed, and hours, in that room. Shadow read two of the Sports Illustrateds and he started the Newsweek. From time to time Chad would come through, checking to see if Shadow needed to use the restroom, once to offer him a ham roll and a small packet of potato chips.
“Thanks,” said Shadow, taking them. “Am I under arrest?”
Chad sucked the air between his teeth. “Well,” he said, “we’ll know pretty soon. It doesn’t look like you came by the name Mike Ainsel legally. On the other hand, you can call yourself whatever you want in this state, if it’s not for fraudulent purposes. You just hang loose.”
“Can I make a phone call?”
“Is it a local call?”
“Long-distance.”
“It’ll save money if I put it on my calling card, otherwise you’ll just be feeding ten bucks’ worth of quarters into that thing in the hall.”
Sure, thought Shadow. And this way you’ll know the number I dialed, and you’ll probably be listening in on an extension.