I went ahead and followed the guy to the camper. It was dark back there, and deserted, except for the mark and me. I took the silenced gun from out of my belt, where the light jacket had covered it, and went in right behind the guy, shutting the camper door behind us, flicking on the light and showing him the nine-millimeter.

And it should have been over just that fast. I should have squeezed the trigger, sent him on his way and me on mine.

But I was still pretty new at the game. I hadn’t learned the desirability of doing it fast, not yet. In fact I was just in the process of learning.

Because in the split second I wasted, the fat little Jew or Italian or whatever the fuck he was reached over to the little built-in stove and got hold of a frying pan and laid it across the side of my face, and I fired but the silenced gun thudded a shot into the cushion of a chair, and there was grease in the pan, not hot thank God, but grease, and some of it got in my eyes and the little fucker had pushed me aside and was scrambling past me, out the door, before I could get my eyes working and my gun hand around to make up for my mistake.

I put the gun back in my belt. I had to: from the doorway of the camper I could see the mark heading into the carnival, that Hawaiian shirt flashing into the crowd, and I had to pursue him. And that could hardly be done with the nine-millimeter hanging out. I zipped the jacket up a third of the way and went after him.

One good thing, though: he’d angled toward the space of open ground between the giant rat exhibit and the House of Mirrors. Right into Turner’s arms.

Only as I reached that point myself I saw the guy going into the House of Mirrors, nodding at the ticket-taker who knew him as a fellow carny and waved him by without a ticket.

And Turner was nowhere to be seen.

So I bought a ticket to the House of Mirrors.

It wasn’t very busy right now, but I wouldn’t be alone in there with him. I didn’t know what compelled him to enter that place, but chances were he didn’t know, either. It’s easy to be critical of the behavior of people in tense situations: not everybody functions well under stress.