Midnight Crossroad

Manfred nudged Olivia. “Sic him,” he said. “There’s your blind date.”

Olivia narrowed her eyes. “Well, damn, no wonder the waitress was surprised.” She got to her feet with a smooth economy of movement.

As she made her way to the bar, Manfred turned to Fiji. To his surprise, she was watching him with sharp eyes. “You’re not as drunk as you sounded,” he said.

“I do think the bouncer’s cute,” she said. “And I’m a little tipsy. But I’m not likely to get drunk. It’s too dangerous.”

“For you?”

“For other people.”

Manfred remembered the frozen woman in Fiji’s yard. He had to agree with her policy. He glanced over to see what progress Olivia was making with Deck. Deck was clearly startled but delighted. He didn’t seem to be questioning his good luck.

“Such fools,” Fiji muttered, and Manfred said, “Hey, I’m a man, remember?”

“Sorry,” she said. “You’re a better man than most.”

“Thanks,” he said, though he didn’t feel truly mollified. Olivia worked her way through the crowd to arrive back at their table. Along the way, she commandeered another chair for her new acquaintance.

Olivia introduced them all, first names only, and then began a convoluted conversational path designed to discover more about Zane Green, the Man of Liberty who’d punched Deck out at this very bar. If Manfred hadn’t known her strategy, he never would have guessed her goal. He helped as much as he could by telling an utterly fictitious story of a bar fight he’d been in. Fiji, who’d been mostly silent, said, “Manfred here got knocked clean out, and he pressed charges against that ass**le.” That proved to be the clincher.

“Wow, you did? My hat’s off to you, man,” Deck said. “When I got knocked out here at the saloon, the guy who beat me up was such a badass I thought I’d be worse off taking him to court. As a matter of fact, the next night his posse, along with the head honcho, showed up at my house and told me I better not, or they’d burn me out. And I believed them.”

“That’s awful,” Olivia said. “Who was this . . . head honcho?”

Deck leaned in to indicate this was very confidential news he was telling his friends of ten minutes. “Price,” he said, and waited for them to react with shock and horror. When they didn’t react at all, he said, “Price Eggleston. The rich guy. He belongs to one of them militia-type groups, and he’s one mean sumbitch, ’scuse me, ladies.”

“You mean, this group isn’t just all e-mails and threats . . . ?”

“No, they are the real deal,” Deck said solemnly. “You do not cross them.”

Fiji said, “Sounds pretty hard-core. And they’re based here?”

Deck nodded, after a swig of beer. “Two miles out of town. But enough about those bastards,” he said, “let’s have some fun! Livvy, you want to dance?”

“Sure,” Olivia said, and off they went, two-stepping around the floor.

“It’s not fair that she can dance, too,” Fiji said. “But I’ll forgive her, since that was a masterly interrogation.”

“I can’t dance at all,” Manfred confessed.

“I can dance a little,” Fiji said. “I can cook. I can cast spells. Dancing? Not so much.”

“You’re a good friend,” Manfred said. “You can do friendship well.”

“Thanks,” she said. “That’s a fine compliment. And you know what, I’m going to give that bouncer my phone number on my way out.”

“Bold move.” Manfred was confused, because he was sure Fiji was nuts about Bobo, but he wasn’t about to bring it up, not with her mood being so peculiar.

“Do you think he’ll call me?”

That was a trick question if Manfred had ever heard one. “He’d be a fool not to,” he said, and Fiji laughed.

It took Olivia an hour to extricate herself from Deck, an hour in which Manfred and Fiji had a third drink apiece, though they sipped them as slowly as they could.

On their way out, Fiji handed a piece of paper to the bouncer and introduced herself. He did not seem startled by this, but he nodded at her politely and introduced himself right back. “Travis McNamara,” he said. “You have a good night, you hear?”

“You, too,” Fiji said, with a sideways smile full of fun.

Manfred had never seen her look so—flirty.

“Could have gone worse,” Fiji told them, as she walked carefully across the gravel to Olivia’s car. She was talking about the bouncer, but Olivia answered about Deck.

“Yes,” Olivia agreed. “He looked like a guppy with a beard, but he could really dance. Plus, eventually he gave me all the information I needed to know.”

“Which was?” Manfred said, buckling his seat belt.

“That Price Eggleston and his buddies have a house about two miles east of Marthasville. Which you heard. But he narrowed down the location. It’s on the way home. It’s the MOL Big Secret Clubhouse. I bet they only let girls in if they put out for the membership.” Olivia looked calm, but it was an angry, tight-jawed sort of calm.

Sure enough, a couple of minutes’ drive out of the Marthasville city limits, there was a driveway on the right. As a ranch had to be, it was fenced, and the driveway was crossed by a gate that had to be opened and closed every time a car drove through. Also, like many ranches, the name of the place was on an iron sign arching over the gateway. MOL, it read.

“Nothing like being up front about it.” Manfred was leaning down in the front seat to look up at the sign. “And I see the gate is locked.”

“So what do we do with that information?” Fiji asked. “It’s good to know where the evil hatemongers hang out, I see that. But how are we going to stop them from coming after Bobo again?”

There was a moment of silence. Manfred couldn’t think of any procedure on earth that could be done openly and legally. And it was out of the question to kill the MOL members. At least, it was to Manfred. Maybe Fiji was thinking of freezing them all permanently.

“We’ll think of a way,” Olivia said. She was smiling, and it wasn’t a pleasant smile. Maybe Olivia had something else in mind.

To Manfred’s bemusement, Fiji looked at Olivia with a sort of exasperation, and said, “You can’t do that to all of them.”