“Don’t move, motherfucker!” Jenks held the Glock sideways at arm’s length. “Get in that register, old man. Get out that green stuff.”

“What the hell, boy? You on the crack?”

“Don’t give me no shit. Just the money.”

“Get the hell out of here, boy. I work for a living.”

Jenks waved the gun, shoved it in the man’s face. Didn’t this old fool know what was happening? “You want to die, motherfucker?” he screamed, deep-throated, saliva flying with each word. “I’m going to put a goddamn bullet in your brain, you dumb redneck.” Back in East St. Louis, he’d be pulling this job with Spoon, and Spoon would have shot this dumb fuck by now.

Spoon had no patience for dumb white fucks.

“I mean it,” Jenks yelled. “Gimmee that money.” But he was losing his nerve, had already lost the edge of surprise he’d had when he’d exploded through the front door.

The old man’s hands dipped under the counter, came back holding a pump shotgun, barrel sawed off short. He pumped a shell in slow and firm like he was shucking corn. Swung the barrel around to Jenks, who was already diving behind a display of two-liter Dr Pepper.

The shotgun blast shook the little store, riddled the Dr Pepper with double-ought pellets. Soda fizzed, foamed, sprayed sticky across the dirty tile floor and Jenks’s back.

Jenks’s cry was a strangled, animal bleat. He belly-crawled down the first aisle, a high-pitched shriek caught in the back of his throat. He heard the old man pump the shotgun again and crossed his arms over his head. Oh, Lord, this fucker’s crazy.

The second blast shredded the candy racks. Butterfingers rained. The odor of chocolate and cordite swirled thick in the air.

“Show your ass, you son of a bitch.” The old man fired twice more.

But Jenks was already running around the end of the aisle toward the rear of the store. He fired wildly back over his shoulder, the 9mm popping away at cigarettes and beef jerky.

Jenks looked up and could see the old man still behind the counter in the store’s big, fish-eye mirror. The old dude was thumbing fresh shells into the shotgun.

Jenks ran for the door.

The old man pumped in a shell, swung the barrel in line with Jenks’s chest. Jenks hit a muddy-slick patch of Dr Pepper just as the old man squeezed the trigger. Jenks’s heels slid out from under him. He landed hard on his ass, bruised his tailbone.

The shotgun blast destroyed the newspaper display.

Jenks fast-crawled through the front doors, knocking them open with the top of his head. The doors swung closed behind him, and the old man’s next shot obliterated the glass. Jenks ducked beneath the diamond glitter shower.

He stood and ran.

The old man was shouting something after him, but Jenks didn’t try to hear. He pumped his arms and legs, ran a long way for a long time.

ten

It was Abba this time that rolled through the empty corridors of Albatross Hall’s fifth floor. The treble-sharp, crisp disco-pop of “Super Trouper.” Morgan followed the music to Valentine’s office.

He was wet and unhappy. His feet were bricks of ice.

This late in the evening, he hadn’t really expected the strange professor to be in his office. Morgan didn’t exactly know what lured him up the stairs, up through the building’s dead floors to seek the bizarre reclusive poet who haunted the vacant offices.

He approached the door, prepared to knock, but stopped when he heard voices. Several voices. Cheerful and occasionally boisterous voices all simmering on the other side of Valentine’s door.

And the door opened.

A nice-looking woman in a deep blue cocktail dress almost ran into him, stopped short, delicate hand going to the plunging V of her neckline. “Oh. Sorry, didn’t see you there.” She was small, blond, handsome, makeup only slightly too heavy

It occurred to Morgan to say, “Uh…”

“I’m just looking for the little girls’ room.” She slipped past him. “Go ahead on in.” And she glided down the hall.

Morgan stepped into the din.

Valentine’s office was crowded with people. A few looked young enough to be students. He recognized at least three professors from his own department. One bumped into him and spilled beer on his sleeve.

It was Dirk Jakes.

“Morgan! Didn’t expect to see you here, you old gypsy prof,” Jakes said. “Sorry about the spill there, chief.” Jakes dabbed at Morgan’s sleeve with the tip of his tie.

Dirk Jakes was the loudest man Morgan had ever met. A blowhard, a self-promoter, and a merciless hack. He was squat, red-haired, red-nosed, and fit poorly into expensive dark suits. He puked out three pulpy crime novels a year and made Mickey Spillane look like William Faulkner. He taught fiction writing for the university.

“What is all this?” Morgan asked.

“A party. You’ve never seen a party before?”

“Why here?”

“Valentine’s idea. All the stress builds up from the semester. Good to blow off steam.”

“The semester’s only a week old,” Morgan said.

“You don’t want the stress to build up,” Jakes told him. “Gets you all tight in the bunghole.”

“I see.”

“You’re not a tight in the bunghole type of guy, are you?” Jakes was clearly gearing up for a colossal drunk.

“I try not to be,” Morgan said.

“That’s swell, fabulous.” Jakes nodded, pushed him on into the depths of the party. “The bar’s over there someplace. Go loosen up your goddamn bunghole, for Pete’s sake.”

“Good idea.” Morgan moved into the mass of partygoers, glad for an excuse to get away from Jakes. The party writhed around him, seemed to breathe in and out like a living thing.

He tried to spot Valentine but didn’t see him.

Somebody grabbed his arm, and Morgan turned.

It was Dirk Jakes again.

“Listen, I forgot to tell you.” Jakes wouldn’t let go of his arm. “Don’t mention to anyone that Valentine’s back. Make like he’s still in Prague, you get it?”

“I get it.”

“Don’t let the cat out of the bag, eh? The old man doesn’t want the dean putting him on some goddamn bullshit committee or something, so he’s lying low, capische?”

Morgan pried his arm loose. “I won’t say a thing.”

He made his way to the little fridge where he’d found a bottle of beer his last visit, but it was empty. A curtain on the back wall was pushed aside, and he saw that the wall had been knocked through into the next office. He ducked through, found another crowd of people on the other side. They stood around a keg of beer, a stack of yellow plastic cups on a sideboard.

Morgan took a cup, poured beer. Too foamy.

“You have to tilt the cup.” The high-pitched voice belonged to a petite, raven-haired girl about twenty years old. “You have to tilt it. I know because I tend bar down at Peckerwood’s, the sports bar across town. You know it?”

Morgan shook his head. “I’m new in town.”

She took the cup out of Morgan’s hand, dumped the foam, and tilted the cup. “See, like this.” She poured the beer, smooth.

Morgan watched her pour. She was barely five feet tall, twig of a thing. Tight denim shorts, pink T-shirt a size too small. Flip-flops, toenails painted lime. She must’ve had boots around somewhere. He thought of his own freezing feet.

“You’re a student here?” Morgan asked.

She shook her head, handed Morgan his cup. “I walk Professor Valentine’s dogs.”

“He has dogs?”

“Two Irish wolfhounds. Huge, but very gentle. I keep them for him ever since the problem with his house.”

“I was looking for Valentine,” Morgan said.

“I haven’t seen him in a while.” The girl’s attention immediately whipped to a newcomer at the keg. “You have to tilt it or you’ll get foam,” she said.

Morgan drank half his beer and drifted back through the hole in the wall, where he found a couple of familiar faces, two more professors from his department.