In the meantime, the woman who had been bitten during the debacle of the bats, came down with rabies. County animal-control agents were ordered to the caves to destroy the bat colony. When the agents arrived, they found Homer Styles crouched over a tray of psychedelic mushrooms.

The agents offered Homer the option of walking away and leaving the mushrooms, but Homer refused, so they radioed the sheriff. Homer was led away in handcuffs, the animal-control agents left with their pockets filled with mushrooms, and the bats were left alone.

When The Breeze was released on Monday, he found himself in search of a new scam.

A few months later, while incarcerated at the state prison in Lompoc, Homer Styles received a letter from The Breeze. The letter was covered with a fine yellow powder and read: “Sorry about your bust. Hope we can bury the hatchet.”

Homer buried the letter in a shoe box he kept under his bunk and spent the next ten years living in relative luxury on the profits he made from selling psychedelic mushrooms to the other inmates. Homer sampled his crop only once, then swore off mushrooms for life when he hallucinated that he was drowning in a sea of bats.

35

BAD GUYS, GOOD GUYS

Rachel was drawing figures in the dirt of the cave floor with a dagger when she heard something flutter by her ear.

“What was that?”

“A bat,” Catch said. He was invisible.

“We are out of here,” Rachel said. “Take them outside.”

Effrom, Amanda, and Jenny were sitting with their backs against the cave wall, tied hand and foot, and gagged.

“I don’t know why we couldn’t have waited at your cabin,” Catch said.

“I have my reasons. Help me get them outside, now.”

“You’re afraid of bats?” Catch asked.

“No, I just feel that this ritual should take place in the open,” Rachel insisted.

“If you have a problem with bats, you’re going to love it when you see me.”

A quarter mile down the road from the cave, Augustus Brine, Travis, and Gian Hen Gian were waiting for Howard and Robert to arrive.

“Do you think we can pull this off?” Travis asked Brine.

“Why ask me? I know less about this than the two of you. Whether we pull it off depends mostly on your powers of persuasion.”

“Can we go over it again?”

Brine checked his watch. “Let’s wait for Robert and Howard. We still have a few minutes. And I don’t think that it will hurt to be a little late. As far as Catch and Rachel are concerned, you are the only game in town.”