"Oh, that. True."

"Why?"

Moorhouse pulled an inch of Scotch Magic tape off a dispenser, rolled it up and began chewing it. "Your friend, if he'd got himself killed in a car crash or racing out into the street to rescue a little girl we'd put banners up and welcome your outfit to town. But the boy was smoking crack-"

"He wasn't smoking crack. He never did crack. I traveled with him for months."

"Well, we found crack vials-pot there too."

"I doubt it was his."

"Somebody walked up and dropped a foil-wrapped package full of hash in a burning car?"

"If the police found it there then, yes, that's exactly what happened."

"What'd you be suggesting, sir?"

This man, like the town deputies, was getting some serious mileage out of "sir." The word seemed to have a different meaning every time he said it.

"He couldn't have had any with him."

"And why would you be so sure?"

"I just am."

"Yessir, well, doesn't really matter. It's in our discretion to issue permits or not. We chose not to. Nothing more needs to be said. We're a self-sufficient community."

Pellam blinked, wondering what on earth that meant.

"I'm saying we don't need your movie here, sir. We don't need your Hollywood money."

"I'm not suggesting you do."

Moorhouse held his hands up. "So. That's it. There's nothing more to be said."

"I guess not."

Moorhouse's wattles stretched as he broke into a shallow smile. He opened his desk. "Now, we've got a ticket for you… Ha, that'd be an airline ticket. Not parking."

"Oh, I'm not leaving."

"You're not…"

"Leaving."

"Uh-huh. I see."

Pellam said, "Real pretty around here. The leaves and everything."

"We do get tourists rrom around the world."

Pellam said, "I can understand why."

"So, you're just going to look at some leaves for a while?"

"Well, see without those permits I'm out of a job. So may as well take a bit of a vacation."

"Vacation." The Scotch tape got chewed and the eyebrows moved a fraction of an inch closer. "That's wonderful. I'm glad our little burg made an impression on you. Uhm, one thing I'd mention, for your benefit. You've got that camper of yours. Which you can't park on the town streets two to six a.m. You'll get yourself a ticket, you do." The grin tightened. "That's parking. Not airline. Ha."

"And I'll bet that's enforced pretty well."

"Tom and his boys do their best."

Pellam walked to the door. He stopped. "The car?"

"Car, sir?"

Damn, gotta learn how to say that. Sir, sir, sir, sir … It seemed very Zen. Like a mantra.

"The car Marty was in. The one that burned. You still have it in custody, don't you?"

"Believe it's been sold."

"In two days?"

"Sold for scrap."

"But how?"

"Selling a car's easy, sir."

"I mean, there'll be lawsuits, won't there? There'll be some kind of investigation."

"The police investigation ended with the coroner's report. You curious, you'll have to ask the rental place."

"Obliged for your help…" Pellam opened the door. He turned back and nodded. "Sir."

Meg Torrens listened to the familiar squeak of her chair as she sat back. It was the oldest chair in an old office, a teacher's dark oak chair with an elaborate spring mechanism underneath a carved seat that matched no posterior she'd ever seen.

"Wex," Meg said, "I can promise you, they aren't going to go with less than R-1. This is Cleary P &Z you're talking about."

Wexell Ambler sat across from her and looked unhappily at the survey in front of him.

The midmorning lull was in full swing at Dutchess County Realty. In residential real estate evenings and Saturdays were the hectic times though that was an adjective Meg doubted could ever legitimately describe business in Cleary (No, Mr Pellam, you are one hundred percent on point there: people aren't busy in Cleary. Never have been, never will be). The small office, littered with three desks and unmatched chairs, scarred bookcases, an eclectic assortment of lamps, which were always illuminated because the window awning had been frozen in the down position for a year. The room was decorated with one yellowing ficus tree, some primitive paintings of houses one broker's daughter had done in grade school and a huge roll-up map of Cleary and environs, which made the town look more impressive than it ever could in person.

Ambler twisted the survey several ways and studied it. None of the positions cheered him up.

Wex Ambler was a tall man-six four. Lean. In his early fifties. He was thin on top, with a few renegade tufts of fine hair going in different directions. He had a long face and he continually reminded himself to keep his chin high; otherwise his neck flesh became a small wattle. He played golf, he jogged two miles a day and was a member of the town council. He believed (one of the few things he had in common with most of the rest of the local population) that he was the wealthiest man in Cleary. He owned Foxwood, the one apartment complex in town, and was the most successful real estate developer in this part of the county. (Real estate and death of a rich relative being the only ways people in Cleary could come by real money.)

Meg's co-broker of the day, a horsy, blond woman named Doris, was ticking off items on her to-do list with a tiny flick of a mechanical pencil. "Ah, huh," she said with each accomplishment. Meg fired a look of irritation at the self-congratulations-Doris missed it completely-and she turned back to Ambler.

"They're not…" Ambler searched for a word. "Progressive."

Meg laughed, her expression saying: You just figured that out about Cleary?

She knew that Ambler had told a number of people-his ex-wife, his associates, even virtual strangers-that his life goal was not to amass a huge reservoir of money. What he loved was the entrepreneurial process itself. It didn't matter what he did, as long as the challenge was there. The process held more intrigue and excitement than the capital gains did.

Still, he told her now, "The difference to me between three-quarter acre lots and two acres…" He looked up, calculated. "… is about eight million dollars. Total. For all lots."

"But that's pretax," she said seriously, frowning. She was trying to joke.

Ambler wasn't amused. "A variance'll take forever."

Meg said, "It's the best land north of the city. It's-"

"Meg," Doris interrupted her jotting. "There. That's him. Didn't squash him so bad, looks like."

She looked up and watched a thin man in jeans walk down Main Street.

"Is that?…" Meg asked.

"Yup," Doris said.

Ambler's eyes followed him. "Who?"

Doris turned to him with an excited face. "Didn't you hear? The man from the movie company. Meg ran into him in her car." She smiled at Meg and continued to tick away on her list.

But Ambler said, "I know. I heard. I heard you went to his hotel room."

Meg blinked. Doris's head shot up. She stopped ticking.

Ambler shook his head. "I meant his hospital room."

Meg's eyes flared. "I went to see how he was."

Doris said, "You didn't tell me that."

Meg said, "Did you hear about his partner?"

"No," Doris asked.

"The accident?" Meg continued.

"What accident?" Ambler looked at her.

"I don't know much about it. Just that he was smoking dope and it blew up. Killed him."

"My God," Doris said, "the fire in the park?"

"That was it, yeah."

Ambler said nothing. He stared out the windows.

Doris said, "Tough luck, honey. You know, Mr Ambler, last week, after those boys showed up, all Meg was talking about was trying to get an audition…"

"Doris," Meg barked.

Doris said to Ambler, "Meg did some modeling in Manhattan, you know. She was in Vogue and Self a couple times. Woman's Day."