"Piss off the feds," Sloan said.

"Fuck 'em. Something's happening."

Sloan made a U-turn in the parking lot of a run-down building with a line of dancing cowboy boots painted on the bare, corrugated metal in flaking house paint. They waited for a break in traffic and then drove back to the south end of town, pulled into a parking lot, and found an empty handicapped parking space facing the street. A line of pine trees separated the lot from the street. "Probably get a ticket," Sloan said as he pulled into the handicapped space.

"I don't know," Lucas said. "I've always thought of you as handicapped."

Radio: The subject has exited Bayport and is proceeding north.

"Why's he talking like that?" Sloan asked.

"He's got that camera with him. He'll say perpetrator in a minute."

From their vantage in the parking lot, they could look through the line of trees and see the cars coming into town on Highway 95. Dunn drove a silver Mercedes 500 S, and as the chopper radio said Subject is entering Stillwater, Lucas picked it out in the traffic stream.

"See him?"

"I've got him."

"Let him get past."

Sloan backed the car out of the handicapped slot. "I wonder where the feds are?"

"Probably not real close."

They waited behind the trees until the Mercedes went past, and then Sloan pulled out of the lot and back onto Main Street. There were two cars between them and Dunn. Lucas, slumped in his seat, couldn't see him.

"What's he doing?" he asked, when they all stopped for a red light.

Sloan had edged a bit to the left, and said, "Nothing. Looking straight ahead."

"What do you think? Is Dunn legit?"

Sloan looked at him. "If he's not, they had to set it up ahead of time."

"Well, he's a smart guy."

"I don't know," Sloan said. The traffic started moving again. "That'd be awful tricky."

"Yeah."

After a moment, Sloan said, "It looks like he's going all the way through town. Unless he's going to that old train station. Or one of the antique places."

"Shit: I hope he doesn't take a boat somewhere. Did the feds think of a boat? Boy, if the sonofabitch goes out on the water…"

"We could grab a boat from somebody," Sloan said.

"I'd give ten bucks to see that note he got from the picnic table."

"With your money, you could do better," Sloan said. "Hey. He's slowing down. Goddamn, he's turning around right where we did."

"Go on past," Lucas said. He sat up a bit and saw the silver Benz turning in the gravel parking lot outside the building painted with the cowboy boots. Sloan pulled into the next parking lot, a marina, and found a space with two cars between them and Dunn.

"Goddamnit," Lucas said. He put his hand to his forehead.

Subject has stopped. Subject has stopped. Five, are you on him?

We see him, we're proceeding into parking lot down the street.

"The whole fuckin' lot's gonna be full of cops," Sloan said. "That must be them." A dark Ford bumped into the lot, and Lucas could see that it was full of adult-sized heads.

"Can you see the name of that place?" Lucas asked. "Where he's at?"

"No light," Sloan said. Across the street, Dunn was getting out of his car. He looked up at the boot store and started toward it, ponderously. He carried a briefcase and slumped with it, as though it weighed a hundred pounds.

Lucas picked up the federal radio. "This is Davenport. We're in the same parking lot with your guys. If he tries to go into that building, I'm going to stop him. We need you to spread your people out on the street, set up a net and look at faces, see if you can spot Mail. He's around here."

Dumbo was sputtering. "Davenport, you stay the heck out of here. You stay out of here, we've got it under control."

Sloan was looking at him curiously, and said, "Lucas, I don't think…"

"Fuck me, fuck me," Lucas said. He pushed open the door.

"Lucas!" Sloan was whispering, though Dunn was a long way away.

A concrete loading dock ran along the front of the cowboy building, and Dunn was climbing heavily up the steps at one end. The building was dark, with no sign of movement. Dunn went to the door, and Lucas climbed out of the car, radio in his hand.

Sloan said, "Lucas…"

And Lucas put the radio to his mouth and said, "I gotta stop him. Get your men out." He tossed the radio back into the car and started running, yelling at Dunn: "Dunn, Dunn! Wait. George Dunn…"

Dunn stopped, his hand on the door of the store. Lucas waved, and, glancing back, saw Sloan coming after him. "Take the back of the building," Lucas shouted. Sloan yelled something and broke off, and Lucas ran toward Dunn, who simply stood.

"Get down off of there," Lucas shouted as he came up.

"You sonofabitch," Dunn shouted back. "You've killed my kids…"

"Get out of there," Lucas yelled. He ran up the steps-saw in the dark window the barely discernible words, "Bit amp; Bridle"-and reached for his gun.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" Dunn asked. His face was stretched with tension and anger.

"There's something wrong," Lucas said. "This whole thing is a setup."

"Set-up," Dunn shouted. "Set-up? You just fuckin'…" And before Lucas could stop him, Dunn turned the door knob and shoved the door open. Lucas flinched. Nothing happened. "… fuckin' killed my kids…"

Lucas pulled his.45 and stepped past Dunn into the building, groped for a light switch, found it, flicked the switch up. To his surprise, the lights came on. The store was empty, and apparently had been for some time. He was facing a long bare counter top, with vacant shelves behind it. All of it was covered with a patina of dust.

A fed ran up the steps. "What the hell are you doing?" he shouted at Lucas. Lucas waved him away, then said, "You oughta get out on the street and watch for Mail. He's watching this from somewhere."

"Watching what?"

"Whatever he's got going here," Lucas said. "This used to be a place called the Bit and Bridle. One of those Bible verses said something about a bit and bridle. It was all too fuckin' easy."

The fed looked around the empty room, then reached back under his jacket and pulled out a Smith amp; Wesson automatic. "You want to try that door? Or you think we should wait for the bomb squad?"

"Let's take a look," Lucas suggested. To Dunn, he said, "You wait outside."

"Yeah, bullshit."

"Wait the fuck outside," Lucas said.

Dunn dropped the briefcase and said, "You wanna find out right now if you can take me?"

"Ah, Jesus," Lucas said. He turned away from Dunn and went to a doorway that led into the back of the building. The doorway was open just an inch, and Lucas, standing well off to the back side of it, pushed it open another inch. Nothing happened. The fed moved in from the opening side, reached around the corner, groped for a minute, found the light switch, and turned it on.

The place was deadly silent until Dunn said, "There's nothing here. He's gone."

Lucas looked through the two-inch opening, saw nothing, then pushed the door open a foot, then all the way. The door opened into what looked like a storage room. A stack of shelves, covered with dust, sat against one wall. A handful of blank receipt forms was scattered over the wooden floor. A 1991 Snap-On Tool calendar still hung on a wall.

"Somebody's been here," the fed said. He pointed his Smith at the floor, at a tangled line of footprints in the dust. The prints came through another door further back. The door was open several inches. Lucas stood next to it and called out, "Mail? John Mail?"

"Who's that?" Dunn asked. "Is that the guy?"

"Yeah."

"There's a light switch," the fed said. "I'm gonna get it, watch it."

He hit the switch, and three light bulbs, scattered around the central shaft of the building, popped on. The building had been remodelled since it had last been used to store grain, and the grain storage shaft had been partitioned into storage rooms and a receiving dock. The rooms had no ceilings, but looked straight to the top of the shaft. The light inside the shaft was weak-the volume was too big for the three operable bulbs.