What he didn’t expect was what happened. The crowd was still for a moment. Then they burst into laughter.

“Don’t laugh,” Gus commanded them. “This is serious. He could kill us!”

But the crowd only laughed harder.

“Has this whole town gone crazy?” Gus asked Shawn.

“Look behind you,” Shawn said.

Gus risked a glance over his shoulder. The mime had hidden his gun under his shirt. To the crowd of onlookers, it might well have been his finger. His painted face was alternating between a mask of furious anger and an impressively accurate impersonation of Gus’ fear.

“I so do not look like that,” Gus said.

“Really?” Shawn said. “This man is holding us at gunpoint, and you’re worried that his imitation of you is too mean?”

The killer mime said something urgent and harsh. It sounded like “ash oon.” Shawn and Gus turned back to look at him and saw that as he said the syllables again, his ruby lips were locked into an evil scowl. Because of course he couldn’t let his audience see him speaking.

“Ash oon?” Shawn said. “I’m afraid we don’t know what that is.”

There was a click from under the mime’s shirt. He had cocked the pistol.

“But if you wanted us to step into the bathroom, we could do that,” Shawn said.

As the crowd cheered them on, Shawn and Gus marched towards the public restrooms, a low, wide building faced with river rock and brown-painted wood.

“Inside,” the mime hissed. Shawn pushed the door open and led Gus in. The mime followed them inside and slid a latch locked behind them, as the faint sounds of applause came through the walls.

The bathroom was surprisingly clean for a public facility in midsummer. The linoleum floor was shiny and dry; the three stalls’ white paint was fresh and unmarked by graffiti. All the discarded paper towels had somehow made it into the receptacles. And the room deodorizer was a mild clove scent.