Oh, Christ, no…

He pulled out the little glassine envelope. Coke or speed. A gram, easy. Oh, Lord. Felony possession. Pellam stared at the packet through muddy eyes.

He heard their voices. "Okay, let's find him. Search everything around the clearing."

Pellam started coughing again, deeply, as the cops rounded the camper. He recognized the two deputies even though neither was wearing their trademark sunglasses.

"Well, sir," the deputy said, "looks like you had some more of that bad luck after all."

No, don't go after the thugs. Stand there and bust my chops, why don't you?…

"You all right, sir?" The other one asked.

He helped Pellam to his feet. He was coughing, choking. "Water, please, some water."

"Sure, no problem." The first deputy stepped into the camper and came back with a cup of water. Pellam took it and swallowed the whole thing down. Breathing desperately, his chest heaving, like a nearly drowned man on land once again.

"Can you stand up, sir?"

Pellam was frowning, watching the other deputy going over the clearing with his flashlight, inch by inch.

"Yeah, I can."

"Good." The deputy smiled. "Because you're under arrest." He glanced at his friend. "Read him his rights. And search him."

16

"And you didn't find anything?" Moorhouse asked the sheriff.

The mayor squinted against the brilliant sunlight streaming into his office early on Sunday morning.

"Nothing. My deputies searched like you told us. But they didn't find anything."

"You're sure? No drugs? All these movie people do drugs all the time," Moorhouse said.

Which Tom knew because he and the wife read People. But he also knew they'd searched like a son of a bitch and found zip.

"He was out when they found him?"

"Nosir. But he was down, lying under the camper. He couldn't have thrown anything far enough so's we'd miss it. We combed the ground. And I mean combed."

Moorhouse warily asked, "Any idea who he was mixing it up with?"

"Nope. You want, I can ask around."

Moorhouse shook his head. "No. Pellam probably started the fight." He motioned with his head toward the Sheriff's Department, with its small lock-up. "Can't blame some local kid for getting tough with an asshole from the Coast thinks he owns the place. Any evidence of the, you know, the gas bomb in the clinic?"

"Nope."

"Had to've been him though."

"You'd think," the sheriff said. But uncertainly. He kept looking at Moorhouse curiously, playing with the big hammer of his chrome-plated.357.

The mayor grimaced. Now I got an envelope of LSD or PVC or whatever the hell it is out loose somewhere in town. Where was it? What if some kid gets a hold of it? Christ.

"What about Pellam?" he asked the sheriff. "He okay?"

"Seems to be. Brought him in last night, blood all over him. He went into the John at the station and puked his guts out. I thought maybe we oughta get him to the hospital, but-"

"The hospital that he tried to fucking burn down."

"Uh," Tom said noncommittally. "He seems okay now."

"We better have a little talk with him," Moorhouse said. "Bring him in."

Handcuffed.

Standing in front of this small-town shine, who was wearing his favorite baby-blue suit.

And handcuffed, for Christsake.

"Mr Pellam, let me say how sorry we are about what happened. Things like this you don't usually see here, Cleary's a peaceful place."

"Surprising," said the sheriff. "That it happened, I mean." Pellam nodded to him and squinted against the cold, brutal sun that poured in through the smeared windows. The worst pain was in his right hand-the knuckles-where he'd hit bone. "Why'd I spend the night in jail?"

"Oh." Moorhouse swivelled back in his green leatherette chair. "You were arrested for D &D. Didn't the deputy read you your rights?"

"Sure he did, Mayor," the sheriff offered. Pellam asked, "D &D?"

"Drunk and disorderly conduct. How do you plead?" April fool. Had to be a joke. Pellam even gave them a short laugh. "I got jumped by two assholes knocked on my door, dragged me out and beat the hell out of me. That's not D &D."

Moorhouse smiled patiently. "Guilty or not guilty."

"Not guilty. Have you found the two assholes?"

The sheriff's turn: "Seems the other perpetrators-"

"Other perpetrators?" Pellam laughed. "-escaped. We searched for evidence but didn't find any." He turned to Pellam. "You weren't real helpful when it came to the description, sir."

Pellam raised his hands. The chrome bracelets jangled with a dull sound. "Somebody threw a truckload of dirt in my face before they started working on me."

Moorhouse said, "Well, under the law, of course, we don't need the others. We can prosecute the one we caught. And that's you. Now, I'm taking off my mayor's hat and putting on my magistrate's." He consulted an empty wall calendar. "I'm setting trial for one week. About bail-"

"What do you mean, one week?"

"I'm a very busy man."

"Good. Let me go. I'll be one less burden for you."

Moorhouse looked him up and down-the shirt stained with dirt and ruddy-black dots of blood, the blotched jeans, the hair upended from a night on a stiff pillow.

"To be honest with you, sir, we aren't inclined to keep you around here for any length of time ourselves."

Sir sir sir…

The sheriff rocked on his thick heels; a board creaked.

The light was painful as a dull razor. Pellam's eyes were watering. He waited. Moorhouse was trying to tell him something. Something he was supposed to be picking up on. Something that was not quite right for the town magistrate to be asking-even this town magistrate.

Pellam sniffed and blinked the tears.

"You got a cold, sir?"

"That truckload of dirt I was mentioning."

"Ah." Moorhouse looked at the sheriff. "Tom, why don't you leave us be for a minute."

"Sure, Mayor." The lean man pivoted on his heels and walked out of the room in as near to a march as a man could get without Sousa playing in the background.

"Pellam, your presence here's been, what's the word? Disruptive."

"No more disruptive than two assholes driving around town beating up people who're minding their own business."

"Ha, there you go." Moorhouse shook his head. "Did you know that the clinic near to burned down last night?"

Pellam blinked. Trying to make the connection, how this figured in his case. He asked, "What, exactly-"

"You know what was destroyed in the fire?"

Oh. Interesting. He said, "Those drugs the Torrens boy had."

"Yes, sir." Moorhouse raising an eyebrow.

"Oh, come on, you charging me with arson too? You've got no probable cause for that."

Moorhouse's other eyebrow joined the first and they seemed to be asking: How come you're so familiar with words like "probable cause"? How come, sir?

"Mr Pellam, you're the kind of outside influence isn't good for our community."

"Outside influence might be just the ticket," Pellam said, "you being the inside influence."

Moorhouse, smiling, sucked air in through his white teeth. "I may have to add contempt to your growing list of infractions, you aren't careful-"

Pellam put his hands, balled into fists, on the desk, and leaned forward. Light shot off the cuffs. "I want bail set and I don't care if you're busy fixing DWI tickets for the sons of your clients-I want a trial tomorrow. I'm calling my lawyer in Manhattan and getting him up here today with a habeas corpus writ and you fuck around anymore with me and I'll sue your ass for abuse of judicial process and failure to get an injured prisoner adequate medical attention-"

"Now, just let's calm down here. Let's-"