cars were already parked.
Shiner parked beside a Jeep that had a Confederate flag on its radio antenna.
She took hold of Jeremy’s hand as they walked toward the veranda. Her hand felt moist.
She really is nervous about this, Jeremy realized. Why? What does she think might happen?
At the top of the stairs they stopped in front of twin oak doors. Jeremy pushed the doorbell button. From inside came the sound of chimes playing a few bars of “My Old Kentucky Home.”
“Are they southerners?” Jeremy asked.
“Who knows? Tanya isn’t. She grew up here.”
The door on the right swung open.
“Howdy there, Duke, Shiner.” Cowboy clapped him on the shoulder. “Long time no see, pardner.” The whole right side of his head looked like one huge bandage with a big hump where his ear must be. He wore his old battered Stetson. There were a few bandages on his arms, and Jeremy could see others through the thin white fabric of his T-shirt.
“Come on in, folks. Join the party.” As they followed him across the foyer, he said, “I hear you aced a troll last night. Fuckin’-A, and I missed it.”
“How are you feeling?” Shiner asked him.
“Like the old lady that bit the hatchet.”
He led them down a staircase into a huge carpeted room with furniture along the paneled walls, a pool table, and a bar at the far end. All the trollers were there.
Jeremy’s eyes sought out Tanya. He spotted her bending over the pool table, lining up a shot. She was barefoot, wearing white shorts and an oversize shirt with tails so long that they almost covered the shorts. The shirt was a plaid of bright blue and yellow. The way she was bent over, its loose front probably didn’t even touch her body.
Karen, standing beside Nate at the other side of the table, looked as if she might be trying for peeks.
Tanya banked the eight ball into a corner pocket and punched her fist into the air. Nate shook his head. Apparently the shot had just won the game for Tanya.
Randy, at a corner of the table, waved a greeting toward Jeremy and Shiner.
Tanya set her cue stick on the table, turned around, and smiled. “Glad you made it,” she said, coming forward. Jeremy saw the way her shirt moved, and quickly raised his eyes to her face.
Someone patted his rump. He looked over his shoulder and tried to keep his smile as he met Heather’s tiny piglike eyes.
“How’s it hanging, Duke?” she asked.
He shrugged.
Samson, behind her, winked and hoisted a glass full of red liquid.
Liz, off to the side, held a glass with the same stuff in it.
The three of them—Heather, Samson, and Liz—had all been at the bar a minute ago when Jeremy first scanned the room.
Heather bumped soft bulges against Jeremy’s side. “Why don’t you get some punch and join the party?” she said.
“What’s the occasion?” Shiner asked, slipping an arm around Jeremy’s back as if to let Heather know he wasn’t available.
“Let’s just call it a wake,” Tanya said. “A tribute to the ‘good troll.’”
“Only good troll’s a dead one,” Cowboy added. “Shit, I should’ve been there.”
“And I thought I was good at the high dive,” Liz said, hooting out a laugh. “That guy did the best damn triple-back-somersault…”
“He lost points on his entry, though,” Samson said.
“Yeah. I’d only give him an eight.”
Some of them laughed. Shiner didn’t. Neither did Nate.
“I propose we all get drinks,” Tanya said, “and hoist one to the memory of the good troll.”
She led the way to the bar, stepped behind it, and uncapped a liter bottle of rum.
“Yo ho ho,” Heather said.
Tanya dumped half the bottle’s contents into the cut-glass punch bowl. The liquor slurped into the red juice with soft plopping sounds. Setting the bottle aside, she stirred with a glass dipper.
When everyone held a glass full of the spiked punch, she raised her own glass. “To the one who took the big dive,” she toasted, “and shall be known henceforth as Fish Food.”
“I’m not going to drink to that,” Nate muttered.
“Lighten up, would you?” Tanya said. “He was a fucking troll.”
“He was a human being, and we killed him.”
“We didn’t kill him. It was an accident.”
“A lucky accident,” Liz added.
“And I missed it,” Cowboy said.
“We murdered him,” Nate said.
Tanya stared at him. She looked annoyed, frustrated. “It was an accident. He would’ve been okay if he hadn’t been a fat slob. He would’ve been okay if your Ferris wheel had safety bars worth a shit.”
Nate’s face went slack. “You