The ropes came alive, uncoiling like snakes, and the audience let out a cheer. The heroine was beginning to rally!

… about to backhand her …

Buck stepped up and would have backhanded her—

One of her threw the rope around his ankle and yanked him backward.

… yanked him backward; he body-slammed …

He body slammed the stage, and it had to have hurt.

… she yanked the rope and he went sprawling …

… he went sprawling …

… she came out of the chair …

The audience didn’t laugh. They weren’t sure what to make of this.

Jim was stunned and squatted down to check on his buddy.

The stage was moving like a ship on a rough sea. Mandy’s hands broke free as the rope fell away, but her body was tied fast to the chair.

She was standing midstage, addressing the audience, rubbing her sore wrists. “Wow! Guess you got a real show tonight!”

… her hands broke free …

She grabbed a pellet out of the little box beside her, spilling all the others, and popped it into her mouth.

Now Jim cursed her, rising, coming toward her.

She was working the ropes that bound her to the chair.

… standing in front of him … he was coming toward her …

She was in the chair, but standing there, too. The standing Mandy was no boxer, but anger and impulse made her throw a vicious punch to his face.

… the rope snaked behind him …

She didn’t feel a thing, but he reeled back, stunned, nose bleeding.

She held the rope in many hands.

It snaked behind him and looped around his chest. He fought it, beat at it, tried to grab hold, but it was alive, still coiling around him, keeping him busy.

… Buck got to his feet …

… Pfft! Try usingthat tonight! …

The audience was getting noisy, some cheering, some questioning, everybody murmuring. The goons were on their feet, trying to decide what to do.

Buck got to his feet …

It used to work on the moose and deer that ate her and Daddy’s flowers, only she used a slingshot to ping themin the ribs. She spit this pellet where it would really hurt, and it did. Buck doubled over.

“Try using thattonight, you son of a——” Yes. She really said it, loudly, and she meant it. She wanted to hurt him, and she wasn’t through.

Her ankles were free, and the other Mandys were frantically working, uncoiling the rope from around her, whipping and snaking it above the stage. One half tangled itself around Jim, the other half around Buck… .

From above, she grabbed hold of the rope.

The middle of the rope hefted upward as if in the hand of an invisible giant. Their bodies came off the stage, collided, then dropped in a heap.

… then dropped in a heap …

… Jim doubled over, hit in the groin …

She rose from the chair, rubbing her sore wrists.

… still bound to the chair, afraid …

By now, at long last, Andy, Carl, and two security guys ran onto the stage and gathered up Jim and Buck with the ropes still around them.

Mandy wasn’t thinking much, just raging, wanting to hit somebody, bite somebody. She locked eyes with the four goons in the third row, her fists clenching …

They cleared out, heads down and arms raised to shield themselves.

She, in some form, would have gone after them, but Andy put out a gentle hand. “It’s okay, it’s okay, they’re leaving.”

He and the other men hauled Jim and Buck up the center aisle and out the back.

Dead space. Mandy stood in the spotlight, hair tousled, face crimson and slick with sweat, her lipstick smeared, half gone. From somewhere she heard rustling, murmuring …

Oh. There was still an audience sitting there. She rubbed her sore wrists and worked up a smile even though her voice was unsteady. “Wow! Guess you got a real show tonight!”

They were still undecided how to feel about it.

In Mandy’s worlds, there were still Jims and Bucks on the stage, Mandys fighting and yanking ropes, different audiences watching different parts of what had just happened, was still happening, was going to happen.

Ladies and gentlemen,came a voice.

… let’s have a round of applause …

… prop manager …

She focused on the lounge and audience that weren’t rolling, shifting, and tea-stained. “Ladies and gentlemen, let’s have a round of applause for Buck Johnson, our prop manager, and Jimmy Hansen, our, uh, hairdresser!”

… our, uh, hairdresser …

… Whoo! They had me scared …

Now they were astounded, feeling fooled, and so relieved—at least some of them were.

Johnson? Hansen? She hadn’t a clue what their last names were. “Whoo! They had mescared!”

… had me scared!

… me scared!

Andy made the decision and ordered the curtain dropped. He made an announcement over the sound system that the show would close early. The people filed out of the lounge in many moods. Some were cheering for the brave girl, some thought it was the sickest stunt they’d ever seen, some felt gypped, everybody left the lounge talking about it.

The crew went to work. There was blood to mop from the stage and about a hundred quarter-inch steel pellets to sweep up.

Back in the dressing room there was yelling and screaming, mostly by Mandy, at Andy: What took him so long? How could he let them do that to her? Wasn’t he watching? How dare he close her show?

Andy kept trying to calm her down: he wasn’t sure how far to let it go, was wondering if she could play her way through it, didn’t know they’d be that brazen, was just about to put a halt to it, was she all right?

“No, I’m not all right!” she cried, immersing her face in the sink, smearing on soap, sloshing and slobbering the water into and out of her mouth to cleanse herself. “I’ve been violated! I’ve been, I’ve been shamed!”

“And you wanted to keep going?”

“I told you, it’s my show!”

“It’s my lounge.”

She smeared on more soap and washed her face again. “No, I am not all right! What kind of town is this, anyway, they let people like that run around violating people right in front of everybody!” She was crying, even yelling in the sink, her voice bubbling in the water. She soaped her hands and face again.

“This is Vegas,” Andy explained. “People can forget themselves—”

“I am not all right, can’t you see that? And I’m not one of your stripper, show-it-off showgirl bimbo nincompoops! I’m Mandy Whitacre, Mandy Whitacre, and I have some dignity!”

“You’ve already washed your face.”

“Well, I haven’t!”

“Listen, I should call a medic—”

“No doctors!”

“You should let them check you over.”

“No, I’m not all right! Seamus should have known, he should have known this would happen. What are you doing here?”

“I’m making sure—”

“Well, try knocking!”

“I came in here with you. You could hardly walk, remember?”

“No, I am not all right! How many of you are there, anyway?”

He shied back, hands extended as if she might attack him. “I’ll get a medic.”

She saw herself in the mirror. “I gotta get out of this outfit. I gotta get out of here.”

“Mandy, you’re upset, you’re beside yourself—”

“Is that supposed to be funny?”

“I’ll get someone—”

“Get out of here! And you get out of here! And you, too!”

Several Andys went out the door like a succession of instant replays. Mandy slammed the door shut, went to the mirror—the door slammed shut again, then again—saw her crimson, overwashed face and water-spiked hair with soap still in it; she’d splashed water and soap down the front of her costume, and there was a scary, psycho-banshee look in her eyes. If any medics came in here right now they’d inject her, take her away, and lock her up where doctors would give her pills, take away her clothes, her toothbrush, her freedom.