“You’re right,” Manfred told Olivia. “They’re not here to shop. But they’re not looking for you. They’re looking for Barry.”

He stood at his window, assessing the situation. There was a sign across the way on the front door of the chapel.

“Can you read that sign, Olivia?”

She joined him. “It says, ‘CLOSED today and maybe TOMORROW.’ With ‘closed’ and ‘tomorrow’ in caps.”

There was now another car at Home Cookin. But the restaurant wouldn’t be open for a while. A woman—at this distance he could only tell she was tall and thin and pale—crossed Witch Light Road after turning away from Home Cookin. She hesitated in front of Joe and Chuy’s shop, and then walked to Gas N Go. He saw her push open the glass door, and he could almost hear the electronic buzz.

“They’re everywhere,” Olivia said.

“Olivia, I don’t know who these people are or what they’re doing here. Barry is the guy who probably knows all about it, and I’m pretty sure it’s because of his senile grandfather that he’s in a fix. I don’t think this is connected to you.”

“Tell me.” She seemed to relax a little.

“In a nutshell, Barry Horowitz isn’t his real name. It’s Barry Bellboy, which is pretty strange, and I have to think that isn’t the name he was born with. Yesterday in the evening, Grandpa got lost, told the deputy who found him what his grandson’s name was, the deputy broadcast that name to find somewhere to return Grandpa, and apparently whoever Barry is so scared of heard it. They’re in Fiji’s shop now. You believed these people were looking for you?”

“Yes, I did believe that,” she said. “They’ll be here any minute. No matter who they’re looking for, they’ll go to every place in Midnight.”

“Are you gonna let them see you?”

“Hell, no! I’m going to hide in your kitchen and listen to what they say to you.”

“Thanks,” he said bitterly. “Jump in and save my life, okay?”

“They’re not going to kill you. At least, probably not. But if they get aggressive, I’ll take action.”

Manfred thought it was ominous she didn’t say what that action might be. Maybe Olivia would run out the back door.

He was almost relieved when he saw her put a gun ready on the table. He didn’t know anything about guns, and he didn’t like them. It was worse than having a snake on the table. But at least now he knew she was not planning to leave him defenseless.

She sat, hands folded, waiting.

She was better at it than Manfred.