Eustace Weed was sick with fear over the impending order to contaminate Isaac Bell’s aeroplane fuel and had no desire to go to a carnival. But Mr. Bell insisted that “all work and no play made Jack a dull boy.” He backed up this observation with five dollars’ spending money and strict orders not to bring any change back from the midway. A friend of Mr. Bell’s, a guy Eustace’s age named Dash who’d been hanging around, placing a lot of bets on the race, ever since Illinois, walked over with Eustace from the rail yard and promised they’d meet up later to walk back to the support train.

Eustace won a teddy bear by knocking over wooden milk bottles with a baseball. He was debating mailing it to Daisy or delivering it in person—as if somehow everything would turn out fine—when the toothless old barker who handed him his prize whispered hoarsely, “You’re on, Eustace.”

“What?”

“Tomorrow morning. Drop it in Bell’s gasoline tank right before he takes off.”

“What if he sees me?”

“Palm it when you fill the tank so he don’t.”

“But he’s sharp as all heck. He might see me.”

The toothless old guy patted Eustace’s shoulder in a friendly way and said, “Listen, Eustace, I don’t know what this is about and I don’t want to. All I know is, the fellows who told me to pass you the message are as bad as they get. So I’m advising you, whoever this sharp Bell is, he better not see you.”

The carnival had a Ferris wheel in the middle. It looked eighty feet tall, and Eustace wondered would they leave Daisy alone if he rode to the top and killed himself by jumping off. Just then, Dash showed up.

“What happened? Lose all your money? You look miserable.”

“I’m O.K.”

“Hey, you won a teddy bear.”

“For my girl.”

“What’s her name?”

“Daisy.”

“Say, if you married her, she’d be Daisy Weed,” Dash joked like it was a new idea. Then he asked if Eustace was hungry and insisted on buying him a sausage and a beer that went down like sawdust and vinegar.

TWO HARD-FACED MEN with hooded eyes were waiting for Isaac Bell outside the Eagle Special’s hangar car. They were dressed in slouch hats, shirts with dirty collars, four-in-hand ties loose at the neck, and dark sack suits bulging with sidearms. One man had his arm in a sling that was noticeably fresher and whiter than his shirt, as was the bandage on his companion’s forehead. Josephine’s detective-mechanicians were eyeing them closely, scrutiny the two men returned with sullen bravado.

“Remember us, Mr. Bell?”

“Griggs and Bottomley. You look like you tangled with a locomotive.”

“Feel that way, too,” Griggs admitted.