But around the next bend he found what he was looking for. Hard, pounding music drifted into the car, rapidly increasing in volume as he cleared the turn. A giant sign on posts loomed straight up, and red neon letters buzzed and quivered like blurred vision, THE ANVIL, BEER TO GO, TOPLESS DANCING NOON TIL 2.

  Sanders grinned and touched the brakes. He pulled in.

  Jacked-up cars and pickup trucks filled the gravel lot. Two derelict youths stumbled between the cars, their faces drained by inebriation. Pitiless, Sanders shook his head, remembering years ago when he must’ve looked the same. He squeezed the station wagon between an old blue Ford and a van with things like portholes on the sides.

  In the bar, rock music assaulted him. It pounded and beat and blew into his face like a gust of wind. Cigarette smoke crept toward the ceiling; from all sides rose the smell of old beer, dust, and tobacco. Sanders’s brow hardened. A fat, bearded bouncer stared at him from a stool by the door.

  Standing in place, Sanders looked over the interior, facing a swarm of backs. There must’ve been a hundred people stuffed into the place. Waitresses had to squeeze between tables, like acrobats on balance beams. The clientele consisted mainly of rambunctious youths and dour, calloused working-class types. They whooped, chortled, and shouted at each other over the awful music.

  Sanders felt tempted to leave. This was just a frowzy Maryland strip joint. The walls were white-painted brick, which flaked like shedding scales. Elevated against the rearmost wall was the dance stage, drowned in throbbing light and occupied now by a skinny coif haired brunette. There was something obscene about the girl’s nakedness; she was nearly breastless, her body smooth, inchoate, only vaguely female. She danced off balance and guessing her steps, like a girl just off a roller coaster.

  “Sit down or split,” the bouncer said behind him.

  Sanders turned. He didn’t like civilians telling him what to do. “Eat much?” he said. “Christ, buddy, you’ve got enough lard on you to sink the Nimitz.”

  “Find a seat or get out,” the bouncer said.

  “I’ll find a seat when I’m ready, creamcake. You’re welcome to throw me out, if you think you can. If not, then shut your fat face. Or I’ll shut it for you.”

  Sanders waited to be “bounced,” but it didn’t happen. The bouncer just sneered from his perch atop the stool. Sanders wouldn’t have cared either way.

  Taking his time, then, he wended into the crowd. Most of the tables were full, but in a far corner he spotted a guy who’d managed to get one to himself.

  “Mind if I sit here?”

  “Feel free,” the guy said. He smiled and halfheartedly raising a bottle of Stroh’s. Sanders felt discomposed by this man’s eyes, they were tired and weary and didn’t look right on his face. He slid into the seat and said, “I’m surprised they don’t make you take a number here.”

  “This is about as busy as the Anvil gets,” the guy told him. “Not that I make a habit of coming here—it’s the only place in town where you can get a cold beer. Not a bad hang-out, actually, if you don’t mind hourly brawls, sky-high prices, and the atmosphere of a cockfight arena.” He sipped his beer soberly and went on. “You from around here? I don’t recall seeing you before.”

  Could you forget a face like this? Sanders thought. The guy’s foresight amused him. “I’m just passing through… Name’s John.”

  “Kurt Morris,” the guy said, and extended a hand over the table. “I’m a Tylersville original.”

  This guy seemed amiable enough, and much different from the rest of the rabble. It bothered Sanders, though; Morris seemed ostracized here, shunned, yet content to sit by himself in this wreck of a bar. Perhaps it was his “oneness,” like Sartre’s protagonist in Nausea, or who the hell knew? But Sanders decided he liked Kurt Morris.

  He ordered a Coke from a plump, boat-hipped waitress. He hoped she wouldn’t accidentally hit him in the head with her breasts, which were enormous. “Teetotaler,” he said to Kurt.

  “It doesn’t matter what you order here,” Kurt informed, lighting a cigarette and speaking at the same time. “Beer, Coke, glass of water. It’ll still cost you three bucks a toss.”

  “Pirates.”

  “They figure they can charge so much on account of the ‘erotic dancing.’”

  Sanders jerked around and comically craned his neck. The amorphous dancer was plodding narcoleptically across the stage, preparing to spin. She reminded Sanders of the Thorazine patients on the ward. Sweat glued her hair down as though she’d dunked her head in a tub of molasses.

  “If that’s erotic dancing,” Sanders commented, “then my name’s Dick. She must have some zombie in her blood. Christ, I’ve seen better looking tractor seats.”

  Kurt Morris chuckled smoke.

  When the waitress reappeared, Sanders paid for his drink, frowning. He looked up then and saw a ruddy vandyked character coming toward the table. The guy’s face looked like a bombed airfield, and he had sagacious slits for eyes. A girl in a black tube top and G-string followed him up like an exotic mascot.

  “Hey, Morris,” the guy said, sniggering. “How come you ain’t in uniform these days?”

  “Short vacation, thanks to you,” Kurt told the guy. “But I can’t say it wasn’t worth it. By the way, Lenny, how’s your jaw?”

  “My jaw’s fine. It’ll take more than one sucka punch ta hurt me, an’ if I was you I’d be watchin’ out fer my own jaw.”

  “Sure, Lenny,” Kurt said, a dismissive drone. “Why don’t you go haunt a shit pit or something. You’re scaring the bubbles out of my beer.”

  The guy guffawed, then shot Sanders a cold, funky look. He walked away, tugging his nearly nude girlfriend with him.

  “Who’s the Rhodes scholar?” Sanders asked.

  Kurt tapped out another cigarette, a mixture of disgust and amusement working on his face. “Lenny Stokes,” he answered. “Dirtball, dropout, town pain in the ass. The crab queen with him is Joanne Sulley, one of the dancers here. Certain parts of her are quite well known to the male population… I got five days’ suspension for punching Stokes in the mouth.”

  “You’re a cop?”

  Kurt nodded. “Local. Been on the force about five years.”

  That was good. Sanders generally got along well with police, civilian or military. Even the worst police officers seemed more in touch with reality than the average sap.

  Suddenly the Anvil’s din of harsh music and palaver gave way to a cannonade of hoots. “Class act, huh?” Kurt said. He pointed to the stage. “This is her grand finale before the next dancer.”

  Sanders turned again. The dancer was now on her back, with her legs straight up in a wide V. She had a hand in her G-string, while the other hand rubbed her breasts alternately, bringing the nipples up like beads.

  “Piss-poorest floor show I ever seen,” Sanders remarked. What a joke. This was nothing compared to some of the things he’d witnessed. Like the whore/waitresses in Nürnberg who could actually puff cigarettes with their vaginas, or pick up empty beer bottles off the floor for a couple of deutschemarks. During his TDY tour at Fort Hamilton, he’d often gone to clubs on 8th Avenue and seen strippers insert eggs or tomatoes into themselves and then splatter them out by contracting their pelvic muscles. And in Mexican border towns such as Acuna, dancers would routinely fellate and have intercourse with dogs and mules.

  The juke tune faded out abruptly; the current dancer got up and, with not much eloquence, left the stage. The next song thumped on directly, filling the Anvil with waves of razor-edged guitar and percussives like pistol shots in an empty parking garage. The crowd flew into a tangled uproar as Joanne Sulley set foot on stage. She went into her number smooth as velvet, the gyrations of her trim physique almost too well done. She danced with a balletic ferocity, an easy intricacy of timing and motion. Sanders was impressed in spite of himself.

  “At least she knows what she’s doing.”

  Kurt conceded, a reluctant nod. “As much as she curdles my stomach, I have to admit she can dance. And wait’ll you see her floor show. She sticks matches on her nipples and lights them.” Kurt put his hands on the table and stood up. “Funny, though, every time I see her up there I get this sudden urge to go to the John. Be right back,” and then he weaved away toward the men’s room.

  Sanders continued to watch, half fascinated and sipping his Coke. Then he glanced left; he saw Lenny Stokes conversing with the bouncer by the door. Sanders could smell trouble. They were both glaring at him.

  Stokes parted and began walking toward the table.

  “Hey, man. My buddy ova there tells me you were givin’ him a hard time.”

  “That’s right,” Sanders said. He was looking at the dancer. His hands were in his lap.

  “How come you wanna give my buddy ova there a hard time?”

  “’Cause he’s an asshole.”

  “That so?”

  “Yeah, an asshole. Just like you.”

  Stokes stood casually, arms akimbo. He grinned. “Hey, man. What happened ta yer face? Looks lak ya tried ta shave with a boat motor.” Then he reached over and took Kurt’s half-smoked cigarette out of the ashtray. He held it up, watched the smoke coil toward the rafters, and then flicked an inch of ash in Sanders’s lap.

  Expressionless, Sanders stood up. “That was a mistake.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Stokes came back, sharpening his grin. “See, I thought ya were an ashtray, on account of the fact that it looks lak folks’ve been puttin’ out butts in yer face fer years.”

  Sanders spat on Stokes’s right shoe. He must make Stokes throw the first punch.

  “You must wanna wheelchair ta go along with that fucked-up face of yers, pal.”

  “Outside, or right here,” Sanders said. “It’s your choice.”

  “Okay, Frankenstein. Outside.”

  The two men waded through tables and went out the front door.

  Sanders had killed men with his bare hands before, he’d been trained to. The average person would be surprised at how easy it was. Less than thirty pounds of pressure on the proper vertebra could snap a neck. A palm-heel upthrust at a specific angle could shatter the pre-sphenoid bone table, behind the sinuses, and drive the fragments into the brain. A single, precise blow six inches under the armpit could penetrate a lung with broken pieces of ribs. Tracheas could be crushed with a modicum of physical force, and eighty percent of the blood supply to the brain could be occluded by two well-placed fingers. Sanders’s sole fear in a fight was maintaining the necessary level of restraint, which was harder than one might think, since he’d never been taught to fight halfway—he’d been taught to kill. He knew he’d have to be careful here. No man, Stokes included, deserved to spend a year in traction just for being a shithead.

  “You are one ugly muthafucka,” Stokes reflected. “And I am personally gonna make you uglier.”

  Outside, Sanders procured immediate tactical advantage; he stood with the light over the door behind him, and in Stokes’s face. He didn’t expect Stokes to fight fair—life had taught him to always keep an eye to the rear. He was ready when the bouncer slipped out and sneaked up from behind.

  When Sanders felt the bouncer’s hand on his shoulder, he said, “Here’s one for your mother,” simultaneously driving the tip of his elbow into the bouncer’s solar plexus and then flattening his nose with a quick upward back fist to the face. Sanders did this without turning, without taking his eyes off Stokes.

  The bouncer collapsed, one hand clutched at his gut, the other to his face. His nose dripped out blood like a leaking faucet.

  Stokes sprang forward, the element of surprise ruined. He was very fast. He fired a fist, but Sanders’s forearm swerved up firm as a steel rod and blocked the punch. Flustered, Stokes shot out his other fist. Sanders caught it and held it in his palm, as if he’d just caught a line drive. He smiled traceably at Stokes, then shoved him backward.

  “I hope you can do better than that,” Sanders said. “I know women who can fight better than that.”

  Stokes stared him down, shifted his footing, which he’d barely been able to keep. Sanders waited. Behind him he heard a small crowd gathering round to watch.

  Careful, he thought.

  Now, it seemed, Stokes had the advantage.

  With a heavy thud, an unopened bottle of beer smacked Sanders square in the middle of the spine. Someone in the crowd had thrown it, behind his back. And it was a good throw.

  He gritted his teeth, tried to will off the thudding spread of pain, but Stokes was on him before he knew it. Back-stepping, Sanders could only block some of the strikes. Stokes’s fists marauded him, and blurred his line of sight.

  He continued to retreat, to bide time to clear his head. Then he planted his feet and quickly jabbed Stokes with a good, hard knife-hand to the armpit. Stokes dropped his fists, tilting.

  Now Sanders had time. A fast web-chop under the jaw and a clean, solid shot to the mouth sent Stokes flying backward over two parked motorcycles.

  Sanders turned to face the crowd. “Who threw the bottle?” he asked. “Come on, step right up.” But the smirking cluster had already begun to disband. The bouncer glowered at him, then staggered back inside with the others. Blood made his beard glisten red.

  In groggy, cautious movements, Stokes picked himself up to his feet, his mouth a bloody smear. “Ugly cock-sure muthafucka,” he said, but it sounded like he was talking through a mouthful of beans. “You’ll get what’s comin’, jus wait an’ see.”

  Sanders had to frown. “What’s wrong with your brain, son? Don’t you know when you’re beat? Your daddy must’ve had shit on his dick when he knocked your mama up with you. Go on home, or else I might have to kick your ass.”

  Stokes stumbled away for his car.

  A moment later, Kurt came outside. “Someone said Stokes was mixing it up. You?”

  “Yeah,” Sanders said. He was disappointed with himself. “Not much of a fight. He asked for it, and he started it. Couldn’t really back down, you know? Sometimes you just have to break bad on these kids—how else will they learn to act civilized?” He glanced at his knuckle, checking for damage. “Anyway, I sent him down the road.”

  Kurt seemed secretly pleased. He watched Stokes’s Chevelle rumble out of the parking lot and squeal off.

  Sanders said, “I’m looking for a guy named Willard.”

  “Dr. Willard?” Kurt returned. “Early fifties thereabouts, beard, and a bank account like Andrew Carnegie’s?”

  “Yeah, you got it. We’re definitely talking about the same guy.” Though Sanders couldn’t quite picture the man with a beard. “We’re old friends from way back. You know where I can find him?”

  More luck. Without even pausing, Kurt gave him a current address.

  “That’s great, thanks,” Sanders said. “But do me a favor, okay? If you should run into him, don’t let on that I’m in town. We haven’t seen each other in years. I’d like it to be a surprise.”

  “Sure,” Kurt said. “I won’t mention it, not that I see him much myself… Say, we better get back inside before some stoner walks off with our drinks.”

  Sanders smiled.

  ««—»»

  Midnight.

  “Hurry,” Cathy said.

  “I am,” Lisa insisted.

  “Are you sure we’re not lost?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Then hurry.”

  Lisa steered her father’s big silver Lincoln with a kind of naive confidence. It was a plush, comfortable car, and had a stereo better than the one in her room. Too bad all the decent FM went off the air—nothing but shit-music on the radio these days. Of course, she’d never say that to Cathy, whose favorite band was Culture Club. Lisa’s favorites were Black Flag, Sex Gang Children, and 9353. Greaseman, my ass, she thought. Not while I’m driving.

  Lisa and Cathy were seniors at Bowie High. Graduation was coming up, and U of M soon after. It was an exciting time.

  They both possessed an unstrained, pedestrian attractiveness, had dark, simple, shoulder-length hair, bright eyes, and a propensity for faded jeans; they could’ve been sisters. They’d been vague friends since tenth grade, better friends for a year, and special friends for a month, since the Senior-Skip party at that wimp Art Cado’s, when someone had suggested a mass late-night skinny dip in Artie’s indoor pool. It had begun uncertainly, first with shared, knowing glances, then accidental touching, then the rest.

  “Where are we, anyway?” Cathy asked, and reached down into the bag to pull up a second bottle of Amstel. Tonight had been Lisa’s turn to buy the beer; she always bought the high-priced imported brands, which generally tasted no better than whatever was on special. But Lisa’s pop was loaded, so it didn’t matter.

  “Governor Bridge Road,” Lisa answered. She wore a beige T-shirt that said MINOR THREAT across the chest. Her modest bosom made the letters look crooked. “The other side of Tylersville.”

  Cathy gaped. “Tylersville! That’s where we went last time and got caught by that creepy-looking security guard.”

  “Relax,” Lisa assured her. “That was private property. We’re miles away from that guy.”

  “So what. The farther we are from Tylersville, the better I’ll feel. All kinds of crazy stuff happening out there.”

  “What stuff?”

  “Don’t you read the Blade?” Cathy couldn’t believe it. “First somebody dug up a grave, then a cop disappeared in the woods, and after that some hick crippled girl got abducted. It’s probably one of those southern death cults. Satanists, or something. Using ’em for human sacrifice.”

  Lisa giggled. She felt a gentle heat between her legs. “Don’t worry. I won’t let the satanists get you.”

  Cathy looked around impatiently, one hand resting her beer on her knee, the other squeezed under her leg. Through the passenger window she saw a high water sign punctured by a single silver-rimmed hole from a deerslug. It seemed to hover postless from the trees, a pallid, one-eyed face in the dark.