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.
“That would be great,” said Shadow. They went into an empty office, next to Chad’s. The light was slightly better in there. The number Shadow gave Chad to dial for him was that of a funeral home in Cairo, Illinois. Chad dialed it, handed Shadow the receiver. “I’ll leave you in here,” he said, and went out.
The telephone rang several times, then it was picked up.
“Jacquel and Ibis. Can I help you?”
“Hi. Mister Ibis, this is Mike Ainsel. I helped out there for a few days over Christmas.”
A moment’s hesitation, then, “Of course. Mike. How are you?”
“Not great, Mister Ibis. In a patch of trouble. About to be arrested. Hoping you’d seen my uncle about, or maybe you could get a message to him.”
“I can certainly ask around. Hold on, uh, Mike. There’s someone here who wishes a word with you.”
The phone was passed to somebody, and then a smoky female voice said, “Hi, honey. I miss you.”
He was certain he’d never heard that voice before. But he knew her. He was sure that he knew her…
Let it go, the smoky voice whispered in his mind, in a dream. Let it all go.
“Who’s that girl you were kissing, hon? You trying to make me jealous?”
“We’re just friends,” said Shadow. “I think she was trying to prove a point. How did you know she kissed me?”
“I got eyes wherever my folk walk,” she said. “You take care now, hon…” There was a moment of silence, then Mr. Ibis came back on the line and said, “Mike?”
“Yes.”
“There’s a problem getting hold of your uncle. He seems to be kind of tied up. But I’ll try and get a message to your aunt Nancy. Best of luck.” The line went dead.
Shadow sat down, expecting Chad to return. He sat in the empty office, wishing he had something to distract him. Reluctantly, he picked up the Minutes once more, opened it to somewhere in the middle of the book, and began to read.
An ordinance prohibiting expectoration on sidewalks and on the floors of public buildings, or throwing thereon tobacco in any form, was introduced and passed, eight to four, in December of 1876.
Lemmi Hautala was twelve years old and had, “it was feared, wandered away in a fit of delirium” on December the thirteenth, 1876. “A search being immediately effected, but impeded by the snows,