a cover. The man’s true purpose was right here, in this room.
“Tifty, you are full of shit.”
Everybody turned. Tifty crossed his arms over his chest and gave Peter a hard look.
“You have something on your mind, Lieutenant?”
“You always meant to go back to Iowa. You just couldn’t figure out how.”
Tifty’s expression didn’t change. His face looked suddenly older, worn down by life. “That’s an interesting theory.”
“Is it?”
For five seconds the two men stared at each other. No one else said anything. Just when the silence had gone on too long, Michael broke the tension.
“I think she likes you, Peter.”
Fifteen feet below, the big drac was looking up at him, her head rolling lazily on her gimballed neck. She uncocked her jaw like someone yawning and drew back her lips to display her glinting teeth. These are for you.
Tifty stepped forward. “Our latest addition,” he said. “We’re all very proud of this one—we’ve been tracking her for weeks. It’s not often we get a full-blown drac anymore. We call her Sheila.”
“What are you going to do to her?” Michael asked.
“We haven’t decided. More or less the usual, I suppose. A little of this, a little of that. She’s too mean for the cage, though.”
Peter recalled Hollis’s punishment. “What’s the cage?”
Tifty’s face lit with a smile. “Ah,” he said.
Midnight. During the intervening hours, the three of them had been confined to a small, unused room, with one of Tifty’s men outside. Peter had finally managed to fall asleep when a buzzer sounded and the door opened.
“Come with me,” said Tifty.
“Where are we going?” Lore asked.
“Outside, of course.”
Why “of course”? thought Peter. But this seemed to be Tifty’s way. The man had a taste for drama. “Where’s Hollis?” Peter asked.
“Not to worry, he’ll be joining us.”
A cloudy, starless night. A truck was waiting for them, parked at the steps. They climbed into the bed while Tifty got into the cab with the driver. They weren’t guarded, but unarmed, in the dark, where would they go?
A few minutes passed before the truck drew up to an immense rectangular building, like an airplane hangar. Several other vehicles were present, including a large flatbed. Men milled about in torchlight, conspicuously armed with pistols and rifles, some smoking corn silk. From inside the building came a buzz of voices.
“Now you’ll see what we’re really all about,” said Tifty.
The building’s interior was a single cavernous space, lit by torches. A huge American flag, tattered with age, hung from the rafters. At the center was the cage, a domed structure approximately fifty feet in diameter with a hooked chain descending to the floor from its apex. Surrounding it were bleachers packed with men, all talking loudly, urgently waving Austins at a figure moving up and down the rows. At Tifty’s entrance a cheer shot up from the crowd, accompanied by a thunder of pounding feet. He did nothing to acknowledge this, escorting the three of them to an empty region on the lower tier of the bleachers, just a few feet from the crisscrossing bars of the cage.
“Five minutes till the betting closes!” a voice rang out. “Five minutes!”
Hollis took a place beside them. “Is this what I think it is?” Peter said.
He nodded tersely. “Pretty much.”
“They’re actually betting on the outcome?”
“Some are. With dopeys, mostly it’s just how many minutes it will take.”
“And you’ve actually done this.”
Hollis looked at him strangely. “Why wouldn’t I?”
The conversation was cut short as a second, louder cheer erupted. Peter looked up to see a metal crate being toted into the room on a forklift. A figure entered from the other side, walking with a manful swagger: Dunk. He was wearing heavy pads and carrying a pike; a sweeper’s mask rode on top of his head, leaving his tattooed face exposed. He raised his right fist and pumped it in the air, summoning a frenzied stamping from the bleachers. The forklift operator dropped the box in the middle of the cage and backed away while a second man hooked the latch to the chain. As he moved clear, Dunk stepped inside. The door was locked behind him.
A hush fell. Tifty, seated beside Peter, got to his feet, holding a megaphone. He cleared his throat and directed his voice over the crowd. “All please rise for the national anthem.”
Everyone clambered to their feet, placed their right hands over their hearts, and began to sing:
Oh, say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed, at the twilight’s last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes