Durwood stood to investigate. Before he could start toward the noise, Carol Bridges tugged him back by the sleeve. He allowed himself to be pulled into a corner, out of sight from the hall.

She whispered, "Could they have bugged the office?"

Durwood hunched forward over a knee, ready to draw his M9. The mayor's hand rested on his side.

"It's possible," he said.

Companies like Raines Financial and Fitzgerald, Combs, and Doucey don't generally keep muscle on the payroll, but they deal in large sums of money. Money has a way of attracting muscle. Call it Corporate Security, Risk Mitigation. Corporate espionage. It boils down to muscle.

Three quick taps sounded on the mayor's door.

Carol Bridges edged forward to look.

"Alonso, my goodness." Her bosom rose and fell in a sigh. "Scared me half to death."

She got the door. Deputy Gomez apologized for the fright, then shook Durwood's hand for the second time today. He was still wearing his badge and uniform.

"I was just driving by and I saw the van out front." His eyes shone. "The mobile Third Chance headquarters—wow! Guess I missed it before. It's a beaut."

Durwood devoted little time to following his own clippings, but he knew the Vanagon sometimes made it into published reports. When they'd jumped that broken span of the New River Gorge Bridge in it. The time it'd withstood a direct hit from Fabienne Rivard's space laser a few years back, chasing drug mules across the Mohave. Quaid Rafferty would crow about anything to get Third Chance Enterprises in the news.

Durwood said, "She gets us where we need to go."

Carol Bridges was redoing her hair. Her smooth underarms were visible.

Deputy Gomez said, "What're you guys up to, making a plan? What's the plan?"

Durwood recovered his attention from the mayor. "I'm about to head back to The Sawyer House."

Carol Bridges dropped her hair.

"No, you can't," she said. "You have no proof."

"That's the point of going. To get proof."

Deputy Gomez watched them argue like he was sitting at the fifty-yard line of a West Virginia Mountaineers football game.

The mayor said, "They'll just deny, deny, deny."

"Sure, with their mouths," Durwood said. "But there must be files. Records of what they been doing."

"You think they're just going to hand over that sort of thing to you?"

"No." He hitched a thumb into his bluejeans pocket. "Don't expect they will."

He thought back to the steakhouse. Those thick embroidered napkins and buttery bites. Sybil Fitzgerald's golden wine. It all firmed the set of his jaw.

The mayor said, "What exactly are you going to do then?"

"Tell 'em we know. We know they're playing both sides. They don't hand over the files, we'll expose them."

"Expose them how?"

"Well..." Durwood raised one shoulder, aware that he'd swum a stroke too far from shore. "You got your fax machine. Those cities fax us the court documents in the morning, we'll send 'em on ahead to the Washington Post."

"They're going to drag their feet. They're going to stall you, Durwood." She put a pleading quiver into his name. "They'll file their motions, they'll evade. It's what they do. Their PR people will go to work."

"PR."

"Public relations," she clarified.

Durwood was aware of the term.

Carol Bridges said, "Just because we're in the right doesn't mean we'll prevail."

In his mind, Durwood saw one buttery bite after another.

He said, "The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are attentive to their cry."

"Psalm 34:15," she said.

He smiled.

She tipped her head, spunky. "The prudent sees danger and hides himself, but the simple go on and suffer for it."

"Proverbs, 22:3," Durwood muttered by reflex. "So I'm simple, am I?"

"Not at all," the mayor said. "Which is how I know you're going to be prudent."

They stood opposing each other, at an impasse. Durwood understood how Carol Bridges might view his opinion as rash and stubborn, but they had two days. The town had two days.

Sometimes in tough missions, an opening appears—a soft unguarded belly, just for a moment. Your adversary slips. You gain insight a tick earlier. If you fail to strike in these moments, swiftly, decisively, the opening closes.

Deputy Gomez offered, "What I heard is the lawyers keep two sets of records, a box of fake ones for the taxman and another that's legit."

Carol and Durwood faced him.

"I got a source!" the deputy said defensively. "I do, an inside source—he says there's black boxes and plain boxes, the black ones nobody's ever allowed to see."

Durwood asked where they kept these black boxes.

"I dunno." Deputy Gomez shuffled in place, then added, "I think the hotel."

This struck Durwood as sheer conjecture. Though he supposed the boxes had to live someplace.

He announced, "I'm going."

"Durwood, please," Carol Bridges said.

"Can I come, come and help?" the deputy said.

"No," Durwood said.

He looked into Carol Bridges's earnest face and took her hand. Durwood rarely found the right words for such situations. He hoped his touch would help.

He said again, "I'm going."

—

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