Geri raised her eyebrows a polite millimeter. "And what might this career be?"

"I am a dancer. I worked at the Blue Heaven for two years, then Mr. Lisbon offered me a better deal, so I'm now appearing nightly at the Xanadu, which is named after a fancy hotel in a poem."

"No kidding," Geri said as she made a notation on the clipboard and stood up. "You'll be in 213; the manager will give you the key. I'm going to use his phone to see if I can't find at least one paper willing to report the contest. Maybe Mother knows someone who can help." She went down the hallway to the office, and as the door closed, I heard her mutter, "If she's a dancer, you can call me Prancer!"

"I'm only doing this for the publicity," Gaylene confided to me as if we were bunkmates at summer camp. "I don't really like to cook, but like my boyfriend says, surely I can follow a recipe." She offered me a piece of gum, and when I shook my head, popped several in her mouth. "I have to make Krazy KoKo-Nut Kabobs. You roll strawberries in sticky jam, then in the flakes, and put them on long wooden toothpicks. I tried it at home, and it was real good. The package says the stuff is less fattening, and we girls have to keep an eye on that, don't we?"

"We certainly do," I said. "I'll leave you to check in. I need to see if my mother and her friend are up yet."

"Is she the one who shot the guy?"

Shrugging, I went to the elevator. As I reached for the button, the door wheezed open and Ruby Bee and Estelle stepped out. They were dressed in their Sunday best, and each had a massive, bulging handbag supported by a shoulder strap.

"In case some criminal tries to snatch it," Ruby Bee said, noticing my gaze. "I put some rocks in the bottom. I can swing it hard enough to make him see stars until springtime. We ain't gonna take any foolishness from these folks."

"That's good," I said weakly. "Where are you going?"

Estelle took out a travel book riddled with markers. "We're going to the Statue of Liberty first and then the Empire State Building. We talked about going on one of those tour boats that go around the island, but we decided to wait until another day for that."

Ruby Bee brushed past me. "Come on, Estelle, we can't waste our time if we want to see Macy's, Tiffany's, that Trump man's building with the waterfall, Saks Fifth Avenue, and the Bronx Zoo. It's already nine o'clock, and we're supposed to be back here at four. I am, anyway. It doesn't matter if you're here or not."

"Wait a minute," I said as I trailed them across the lobby. "How are you going to get to all those places and be back at four?"

Estelle, still rankled by Ruby Bee's remark, said, "We plum forgot our mules, so I suppose we'll have to find other means of transportation, Miss Travel Agent. We ain't got all day, Ruby Bee. Have you got the map?"

"What map?" I asked.

"The map of the subways," Ruby Bee said, flapping it at me. "We weren't born yesterday, missy, and we don't aim to spend a fortune on taxicabs when we can take these trains all over the city."

"You two have fun," Gaylene called from the sofa.

Ignoring my admittedly incoherent sputters, they sailed out of the door, consulted Cambria, and took off down the sidewalk as if they were heading down the road to Jim Bob's SuperSaver Buy 4 Less.

For those who are a mite confused by all the comings and goings of people in the oddly parallel universes of Manhattan, Maggody, and Tennessee (or maybe Kentucky by now), rest assured that everyone was pretty much in place for the duration.

The fifth and final contestant, Gaylene Feather, had arrived and was in her room unpacking while she listened to a talk show that concerned the secret lives of transvestite Episcopalian priests. Down the hall from her, Durmond was wincing as he dressed. Brenda and Jerome were in their room; he was dealing with work he'd brought and she was fretting about the time zones and her daughter's lackadaisical attitude about picking up the telephone.

Farther afield, in a charmingly swank salon, Catherine was having makeup done under hawk-eyed maternal supervision. Ruby Bee and Estelle were heading down a flight of stairs to the vast labyrinth of dark, odoriferous tunnels and graffiti-riddled trains, both so determinedly fierce that they were unnerving the regular psychotics who inhabited the station. Neither realized they were being followed, but they would before too long.

Geri was on the telephone in the hotel office, desperately pleading with a receptionist. The desk was littered with lists, most of them scratched to the point of illegibility and splattered with a saline solution of perspiration and tears. Kyle was cleaning countertops in the kitchen. Rick was on the third floor with two men sporting the insignia of an electrical contracting business. Mr. Cambria smiled benignly at pedestrians from his post outside the door of the Chadwick Hotel.

Back in Maggody, the newly elected president of the Committee Committee Against Whiskey was sitting at the dinette on the sun porch, drinking tea and making notes as she plotted an appropriate course of action to save the youth of Maggody (and some others who could use a righteous shove) from demon whiskey. It was a nice day, what with the sun shining and the foliage aglow with autumn colors, but the newly elected president wasn't admiring nature. She was pursing her lips and wondering where Brother Verber had been the night before-and that smart-mouthed Arly Hanks, who, from all accounts, had torn out of town without so much as a word of explanation to anyone and thus far had not returned. The newly elected president finally put down her pen and went to make some calls to see if anybody knew what was going on.

The husband of the above was out back picking up garbage scattered on the lawn. It looked as if dogs had gotten in the cans, or maybe a coon. Odd thing was, dogs and coons hardly ever left behind a Bible under a limp lettuce leaf. Jim Bob started to toss the Bible into the garbage can, then stopped and opened it on the off chance there was a name written within the inside cover. There was. Frowning, he set it aside and resumed his chore.

Brother Verber lay on the couch inside the silver trailer that served as the rectory for the Voice of the Almighty Lord Assembly Hall. Like the newly elected president, he was oblivious to the day unfolding outside, since he was keenly and painfully preoccupied with his pounding head, moldy tongue, bleary red eyes, tumultuous stomach, and general feeling of being trampled by an endless herd of bison. Which, for all he could recollect of his previous evening's adventures, might well have happened. Whatever lust he might have been harboring had been replaced with righteous heartburn.

Raz Buchanon was on Cotter's Ridge, as was Marjorie. She was snuffling contentedly for acorns, but he was up to no good.

Eilene Buchanon was well on her way to losing her mind, having spent the night alternately pacing the floor and sitting by the telephone, willing it to ring. Well after midnight, her husband had gone on to bed with a few grumpy remarks, and earlier in the morning had gone on to work with a few more, even grumpier, since Eilene had not been of a mind to fix him breakfast.

Joyce Lambertino was vacuuming the front room and trying to remember if she had enough sugar in the cannister to make peach cobbler for her in-laws, who were coming for supper. Shortly afterward, she discovered there would have been enough had the kids not made Kool-Aid and left snowy white hills all over the counter and the floor. No use crying over spilt sugar, she wearily told herself as she went for the broom and dustpan.

Somewhere in Tennessee (or maybe Kentucky by now), Marvel was cruising along in the passenger's seat, his feet on the dashboard and the warm breeze buffeting his face, gazing at the bucolic panorama and humming along with the whiny country music from the radio. The road to Cleveland had turned out to be damn empty thus far, and they'd been obliged to sleep in the car. He was in the mood for food.