and the world turned indigo and the wind blew cold enough to burn the skin on your face. When it was too dark to continue, Mulligan radioed to them to call it off for the evening, and they were picked up and driven back to the fire station.
In the block next to the fire station was the Buck Stops Here Tavern, and that was where most of the searchers wound up. They were exhausted and dispirited, talking to each other of the bald eagle that had circled them, how cold it had become, how more than likely Alison would show up in a day or so, no idea of how much trouble she’d caused everyone.
“You shouldn’t think badly of the town because of this,” said Brogan. “It is a good town.”
“Lakeside,” said a trim woman whose name Shadow had forgotten, if ever they’d been introduced, “is the best town in the Northwoods. You know how many people are unemployed in Lakeside?”
“No,” said Shadow.
“Less than twenty,” she said. “There’s over five thousand people live in and around this town. We may not be rich, but everyone’s working. It’s not like the mining towns up in the northeast—most of them are ghost towns now. There were farming towns that were killed by the falling cost of milk, or the low price of hogs. You know what the biggest cause of unnatural death is among farmers in the Midwest?”
“Suicide?” Shadow hazarded.
She looked almost disappointed. “Yeah. That’s it. They kill themselves.” She shook her head. Then she continued, “There are too many towns hereabouts that only exist for the hunters and the vacationers, towns that just take their money and send them home with their trophies and their bug bites. Then there are the company towns, where everything’s just hunky-dory until Wal-Mart relocates their distribution center or 3M stops manufacturing CD cases there or whatever and suddenly there’s a boatload of folks who can’t pay their mortgages. I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”
“Ainsel,” said Shadow. “Mike Ainsel.” The beer he was drinking was a local brew, made with spring water. It was good.
“I’m Callie Knopf,” she said. “Dolly’s sister.” Her face was still ruddy from the cold. “So what I’m saying is that Lakeside’s lucky. We’ve got a little of everything here—farm, light industry, tourism, crafts. Good schools.”
Shadow looked at her in puzzlement. There was something empty at the bottom of all her words. It was as if he were listening to a salesman, a good salesman, who believed in his product, but still wanted to make sure you went home with all the brushes or the full set of encyclopedias. Perhaps she could see it in his face. She said, “I’m sorry. When you love something you just don’t want to stop talking about it. What do you do, Mister Ainsel?”
“Heavy lifting,” said Shadow. “My uncle buys and sells antiques all over the country. He uses me to move big, heavy things. Without breaking them too badly. It’s a good job, but not steady work.” A black cat, the bar mascot, wound between Shadow’s legs, rubbing its forehead on his boot. It leapt up beside him onto the bench and went to sleep.
“At least you get to travel,” said Brogan. “You do anything else?”
“You got eight quarters on you?” asked Shadow. Brogan fumbled for his change. He found five quarters, pushed them across the table to Shadow. Callie Knopf produced another three quarters.
He laid out the coins, four in each row. Then, with scarcely a fumble, he did the Coins Through the Table, appearing to drop half the coins through the wood of the table, from his left hand into his right.
After that, he took all eight coins in his right hand, an empty water glass in his left, covered the glass with a napkin and appeared to make the coins vanish one by one from his right hand and land in the glass beneath the napkin with an audible clink. Finally, he opened his right hand to show it was empty, then swept the napkin away to show the coins in the glass.
He returned their coins—three to Callie, five to Brogan—then took a quarter back from Brogan’s hand, leaving four coins. He blew on it, and it was a penny, which he gave to Brogan, who counted his quarters and was dumbfounded to find that he still had all five in his hand.
“You’re a Houdini,” cackled Hinzelmann in delight. “That’s what you are!”
“Just an amateur,” said Shadow. “I’ve got a long