“Right. That’s why I bought these wool socks.”

She thought that was funny, then said, “Well, you need winter camping gear.”

“I really don’t have a lot of cash, and my ex-wife stole my credit card.”

“You got a rifle, at least?”

“Nope.”

“Well, you need to watch out for the bears. They’re unpredictable this time of year.”

“So am I.”

“And don’t think you’re safe with those peashooters you got. Last guy I knew who tried to drop a bear with a pistol is now a rug in a bear den.”

“Right. Funny.”

“Yeah. Not funny. Well, if a bear comes around your camp, looking for food, you have to bang pots and pans-”

“I don’t have pots and pans. That’s why I need stun grenades.”

“No. You know what you need?”

“No, what?”

“You need a compressed gas horn.”

She took a tin canister off the shelf, and I asked her, “Is that a can of chili?”

“No-”

“Compressed gas. You know?”

“John-jeez. No, this is like… an air horn.” She explained, “This usually scares them off, and you can also use it to signal you’re in trouble. Two longs and a short. Okay? Only six bucks.”

“Yeah?”

“And this…” She took a box off the shelf and said, “This is a BearBanger kit.”

“Huh?”

“This is like a signal flare launcher with cartridges. Okay? See, here, it says the flare fires one hundred thirty feet high and can be seen nine miles away during the day, and eighteen miles at night.”

“Right…” A little flare went off in my head, and I said, “Yeah… that could do it.”

“Right. Okay, when you fire this cartridge, it puts out a one-hundred-fifteen-decibel report. That’ll scare the you-know-what out of the bear.”

“Right. So the bear will make doo-doo in the woods.”

She chuckled. “Yeah. Here.” She handed me the box, and I opened it. It seemed to consist of a launcher, not much bigger than a penlight and similar in appearance, plus six BearBanger flares, the size of AA batteries. This little thing packed a wallop.

Leslie said, “You just put the cartridge in here, then push the pen-like button, and the flare fires. Okay? But try not to point it at your face.” She laughed.

Actually, it wasn’t my face that it was going to be pointed at if and when I needed to fire this thing.

She continued, “And don’t point it at the bear. Okay? You could hurt the bear or start a forest fire. You don’t want to do that.”

“No?”

“No. Okay, you’ll get a bright light, equal to… what’s this say? About fifteen thousand candlepower.” She smiled. “If I see it, or hear it, I’ll come looking for you.” She added, “This is thirty bucks. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“So, take the air horn and take the BearBanger. Right?”

“Right… actually, I’ll take two BearBangers.”

“You got company?”

“No, but this would make a nice birthday gift for my five-year-old nephew.”

“No, John. No. This is not a toy. This is a big flash bang for adults only. In fact, you need to sign an ATF form to buy this.”

“Adult-in-training form?”

“No. Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.”

“Really?” I took another BearBanger kit, and as we walked to the checkout counter, I silently thanked the fucking bears for helping me solve a problem.

Leslie gave me a form from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, in which I stated that I hereby certified that the BearBangers were to be used for legitimate wildlife pest control purposes only.

Well, that was very close to my intended use, so I signed the form.

There was a box of energy bars on the counter, and I took one for Kate. I would have taken two, but I wanted to keep her hungry for dinner.

Leslie asked me, “Is that it?”

“Yup.”

She rang up the ammunition, air horn, socks, energy bar, and two BearBanger kits.

I paid her with the last of my cash, and I was two bucks short, so I was going to give up the energy bar, but Leslie said, “Owe it to me.” She gave me her business card and suggested, “Stop back tomorrow and let me know what else you need. I’ll take a check, or there’s a few ATMs in town.”

“Thanks, Leslie, see you tomorrow.”

“I hope.”

Me, too.

I got back in Rudy’s van and headed toward Wilma’s B amp;B.

Bears. Madox. Nuke. ELF. Putyov. Griffith.

Asad Khalil, the Libyan terrorist with a sniper rifle, was looking good right now.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

At 4:54 P.M., I pulled into the long driveway to Wilma’s B amp;B. I could see a woman peering through the window of the main house, and it was undoubtedly Wilma, waiting for her UPS lover, and she was probably wondering who the guy was in the van.

I stopped at Pond House, gathered my plastic shopping bags from Scheinthal’s Sporting Goods, got out, knocked on the door, and announced, “It’s your mountain man.”

Kate opened the door, and I went inside. She asked me, “Where did you get that van?”

“Rudy.” I explained, “It’s important to switch vehicles when you’re a fugitive.”

She didn’t comment on that. “How did it go? What’s in those bags?”

“It went well, though Bain still doesn’t have his meds right. Let me show you what I bought.”

I emptied the contents of the two bags on the kitchen table. “Clean socks for me, some extra ammo and magazines for us-”

“Why-?”

“An air horn, and two BearBangers-”

“Two what?”

“Scares away the bears, and signals that you’re in trouble. Pretty neat, huh?”

“John-”

“Hey, you should have seen this sporting-goods store. I never knew so many things came in camouflage. Here’s an energy bar for you.”

“Did you get anything to eat?”

“I had a granola bar.” Or was that a Ring Ding?

I sat on the kitchen chair and pulled off my shoes, then my socks, which I could see had rug fibers on the soles, and at least one long dark hair, which I hoped belonged to Bain Madox, Kaiser Wilhelm, or Harry Muller. I said, “This is from Madox’s office, and I have a hunch-really a hope-that Harry was sitting in the same chair that I sat in.”

She nodded.

I put the socks in a plastic bag, then took a page from my notebook and wrote a brief description of the time, date, method, and place of collection, signed it, and put it in the bag.

I then took the lint roller out of my pocket, removed the protective paper, peeled off the first layer of sticky paper that was coated with fibers, and explained to Kate, “This was from the foyer carpet.”

I carefully pressed the sticky paper to the inside of the plastic bag and said, “One time, I swiped a murder suspect’s ham sandwich from his kitchen”-I began writing up the lint-paper description and continued-“I got enough DNA to link him to the crime… but his lawyer argued that the evidence was improperly obtained-stolen, without a warrant-and therefore not admissible, and I had to swear that the suspect offered me the half-eaten sandwich…” I rolled the bag up and asked Kate, “Do you have any tape?”

“No. But I’ll get some. So, what happened?”

“To what? Oh, the evidence. So, the defense attorney grills me about why the accused would offer me a half-eaten ham sandwich, and I’m on the stand for twenty minutes, explaining how this happened, and why I shoved the sandwich in my pocket instead of eating it.” I smiled at the memory of that testimony. “The judge was impressed with my bullshit, and ruled the ham sandwich as admissible.” I added, “The defense attorney went bonkers and accused me of lying.”

“Well… but it was a lie. Wasn’t it?”

“It was a gray area.”

She didn’t comment on that, but asked, “Did they get a conviction?”

“Justice was done.”

I found the hand towel in the bottom of the second bag and said to Kate, “This is from the downstairs pee-pee room, and I used this to wipe some surfaces.” As I wrote a note about the hand towel, I said, “This comes under the category of the ham sandwich. Was I offered the hand towel to keep, or did I take it without a search warrant? What would you say?”