The oldest man—and the only one who talked—was named Adam. The other old man, according to Adam, was Jake. The stoned boy—who was focusing on something just below the treetops—evidently didn't deserve an introduction. And although Jake did not speak, at every question and before every answer, old Adam looked to Jake—who made no visible sign but who seemed to pass along permission or denial telepathically—before Adam spoke.

Kurtz shot the shit for fifteen minutes or so. He confirmed Rigby's assumption that everyone in Neola either worked for the Major's South-East Asia Trading Company or benefitted from the money from it or was afraid of someone who did work for it. He also confirmed the details of the 1977 shooting at the high school that had put eighteen-year-old Sean Michael O'Toole in the state asylum.

"That fucking Sean was a crazy fucking kid," said Adam. He wiped the mouth of the bottle and handed the pint to Kurtz, who took a small sip, wiped the mouth, and handed it to Jake.

"Did you know him?"

"Everybody in the fucking town fucking knew him," said Adam, taking the bottle back from Jake. "Fucking Major's fucking kid—like a fucking prince. Little fucking bastard shot and killed my Ellen."

"Ellen?" said Kurtz. Arlene's research had reported that the O'Toole kid had gone to the high school with a.30-.06 one morning and killed two fellow students—both male—a gym teacher, and an assistant principal.

"Fucking Ellen Stevens," slurred the old man. "My fucking girlfriend. She was the fucking girl's gym teacher. Best fucking lay I ever had."

Kurtz nodded, sipped some of the disappearing whiskey, wiped the mouth, and handed it on to Jake. The stoned boy's eyes were glazed and fixed.

"Anybody ever say why he did it? This Sean Michael O'Toole?"

"Because he fucking wanted to," said Adam. "Because he fucking knew that he was the fucking Major's fucking son. Because he'd fucking got away with everything—until Ellen gave him fucking detention that fucking week because the little fuck had drilled a hole in the wall of the girl's locker room and was fucking peeping at Ellen's fucking girls. That fucking old bastard the Major has run Neola since fuck knows when, and his fucking kid didn't know that he couldn't shoot and kill four fucking people and fucking get away with it You got another fucking pint, Joe?"

"No, sorry."

"That's all right. We got another fucking bottle." Adam showed a smile consisting of three teeth on top and two on the bottom and pulled the Thunderbird wine out from behind his stump.

"Whatever happened to the kid?" said Kurtz. "Sean Michael?"

Adam hesitated and looked to Jake. Jake did not so much as blink. Adam evidently got the message. "Fucking psycho went up to that big fucking nuthouse in Rochester. They say he got fucking burned up a few years later, but we don't fucking believe it."

"No?"

"Fuck no," grinned Adam, checking with Jake before going on. "Little kids in the town've seen him—seen him wandering the woods and backyards at night, all scarred up from his burns, wearing a fucking baseball cap. And Jake here seen him, too."

"No shit?" Kurtz said conversationally. He turned expectantly to Jake, but the other old man just stared unblinkingly, took the Thunderbird from Adam, and helped himself to a swig.

Adam turned his head as if he was listening to Jake, but Jake's expression was as gray and expressionless as the October sky.

"Oh, yeah," added Adam, "Jake reminds me that the kids in town used to see the Artful Dodger's ghost mostly around Halloween. That's when the Dodger would bring Cloud Nine alive again—at least for one night—All Hallow's Eve. I ain't never seen it myself, but kids I knew over the years used to say that the Dodger come back with a bunch of other ghosts from the other side and would ride all them dead rides up Cloud Nine one last time."

"The Dodger?" said Kurtz. "Cloud Nine?"

"When they was all kids, according to my dead Ellen, they used to fucking call that fucking O'Toole kid 'the Artful Dodger. " replied Adam. "You know, from that fucking Charles Dickens book. Fucking Oliver Twist."

"The Artful Dodger," repeated Kurtz.

"Fucking aye," said Adam. "Or sometimes just 'Dodger, you know, 'cause he was all the time wearing that fucking Dodger cap… not the L.A. cap, but the old fucking Brooklyn one."

Kurtz nodded. "What was that you were saying about something called Cloud Nine?"

Adam lowered the bottle and looked at Jake for a long minute. Finally Adam said, not to Kurtz but to the silent old man, "Why the fuck not? Why should we do that fucking Major a favor?"

Jake said nothing, showed nothing.

Adam turned and shrugged. "Jake don't want me to tell you, Joe. Sorry."

"Why not?"

"'Cause Jake knows that everyone who fucking goes up there in the last twenty fucking years or so to fucking find Cloud Nine gets their ass shot off, and Jake fucking likes you."

"I'll take my chances," said Kurtz. He took two twenties out of his billfold.

"Fucking liquor stores ain't open today," Adam said mournfully.

"But I bet you know somewhere else you could get some good stuff," said Kurtz.

Adam looked at Jake. "Yeah," be said at last.

He told Kurtz about the Major building an amusement park in the hills and gave Kurtz the directions. He warned him to stay away until after Halloween, after the ghost of the Artful Dodger and his pals had their last rides on the abandoned Ferris wheel and little train and dodge-em cars up there. "Wait 'til mid-November," said old Adam. "The Dodger ghost don't come around much in November according to the kids. And the other ghosts only join him on Halloween."

Kurtz stood to go, but then asked. "Do you know why just on Halloween?"

"Fuck yes I know," said old Adam. "Back when the Major was still running fucking Cloud Nine, Halloween was the last night it was open before shutting down all fucking winter. The last night was fucking free. It was the one time when everyone in the fucking town went up to that fucking amusement park—sometimes it was almost too fucking cold to ride the fucking rides—and the Major always had a big fucking parade with his fucking son on a fucking float—that little weasel, the Artful Dodger, riding up there and waving like the fucking queen of fucking England. Halloween. It was the fucking brat's birthday."

Kurtz looked over to see if the stoned kid was paying any attention, and noticed for the first time that the boy had gone, slipped away into the trees along the river. It was as if he'd never been there.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Kurtz's plan was to take the Pinto, check out Cloud Nine, and get back to downtown Neola before Rigby King finished her schmoozing with the local sheriff's department. But she was sitting in the car when he walked back to the downtown block where he'd left it.

Shit, he thought. "Hey, Boo," he said. It was an old joke and he'd almost—not quite—forgotten the origin of it back at Father Baker's Friday Movie Night.

"Hey, Boo," she said back. She didn't sound happy. "You find your talkative drunks?"

"Yeah," said Kurtz. "I thought you needed at least ninety minutes to break the ice with your local cops."

"I could've spent ninety days here and they weren't going to tell me anything," said Rigby. "They wouldn't even acknowledge that your goddamned amusement park ever existed. To listen to the Sheriff and his deputies, they never heard of Major O'Toole and barely've heard about his company that seems to rule the roost here."

"Which means that they're all on the Major's payroll," said Kurtz.

Rigby shrugged. "That's hard to believe, but that's what it sounds like. Unless they're all just cretinous small-town cowturds too stupid and too suspicious of an outside police officer to tell the truth."