“Three eggs, scrambled. Rye toast. Maybe put some mushrooms and some cheese in the eggs.”

“Sharp cheddar?”

“How about Swiss?”

“You got it.”

He made the eggs and a little patty of hash browns and two large pieces of rye toast. When it was done, he put it all onto a heavy white plate, then he put the plate in front of me. I said, “Nice looking plate of eggs.”

He said, “Unh,” and went back to the Oprah.

I ate some of the eggs. “Just moved out from California. Transfer. Met Karen Lloyd at the bank yesterday.”

“Unh.”

“Nice looking lady.”

He said it again.

“You know if she’s married or seeing someone?”

“Nope.” An obese man in his sixties told Oprah that he could ejaculate twenty-six times a day. He attributed it to his bulk. The cook looked interested.

“Nope, you don’t know, or nope, she’s not seeing someone?”

“Ain’t none of my business.” The obese man said that when he was thin, he was sexually dysfunctional.

“She been working at the bank long?”

The cook leaned closer to the television. Something about high-fat content leading to increased fluids production.

I said, “Great day for a nuclear holocaust, huh?”

The cook nodded and cut himself a piece of cherry pie, still staring at the Oprah.

Maybe looking for intelligence in Chelam was going to be harder than I thought. I decided to shadow her every move.

Being a stranger in a small town is sort of like being a Martian in Mayberry. You tend to stand out. Aunt Bea sees you hanging around a parking lot, pretty soon Barney Fife is looking at your driver’s license. Opie rides by on his bike, pretty soon you got Andy in your shorts. Everybody in town knows you’re there, and then you get your thugs in string ties asking why you’re still around. You see how this works?

I drove back to the Howard Johnson’s, changed rooms, then drove down to the Hertz office in upper Westchester and traded the blue Taurus for a white one. I couldn’t do much about Aunt Bea and Opie, but I could make it tougher for Joey and his pal with the tie.

By nine-fifty I was back in Chelam. By nine-fifty-two the new white Taurus was parked in a little alley outside the John Deere showroom and I had picked the lock on a side door and let myself inside. From the showroom I could see the bank and the grocery store and a fair part of Main Street. Aunt Bea and Opie might wonder about the Taurus, but it was better than having them wonder about me.

Between ten-thirty and noon eight people pulled up to the First Chelam, went in, did business, and came out. None of them were fat guys with caviar skin or people who wore string ties, but I held hope.