Vance pulled back behind the tree and whispered, “Holy shit, Hoyt, you know who that is? That’s Governor Whatsisname, from California, the guy who’s supposed to speak at commencement!” Commencement was Saturday. Tonight was Thursday.

“Then wuz he doing here now?” said Hoyt a little too loudly, causing Vance to put his forefinger to his lips again.

Vance chuckled deep in his throat and whispered, “That’s pretty fucking obvious, if you ask me.”

They peeked out from behind the tree again. The man and the girl must have heard them, because they were both looking their way.

“I know her,” said Hoyt. “She was in my—”

“Fuck, Hoyt! Shhhhh!”

Bango! Something grabbed Hoyt’s right shoulder from behind in a terrific grip, and a tough-guy voice said, “What the fuck you punks think you’re doing?”

Hoyt spun around and found himself confronting a short but massively muscled man in a dark suit and a collar and tie that could barely contain his neck, which was wider than his head. A little translucent coiled cord protruded from his left ear.

Adrenaline and alcohol surged up Hoyt’s brain stem. He was a Dupont man staring at an impudent simian from the lower orders. “Doing?” he barked, inadvertently showering the man with spit. “Looking at a fucking ape-faced dickhead is what we’re doing!”

The man seized him by both shoulders and slammed him back against the tree, knocking the breath out of him. Just as the little gorilla drew his fist back, Vance got down on all fours behind his legs. Hoyt ducked the punch, which smashed into the tree trunk, and drove his forearm into his assailant—who had just begun to yell “Shiiiiiit” from the pain—with all his might.