Like this fountain pen. Arn would’ve put it out to auction with no reserve price, happy to take the high bid of whoever happened to be online that day. Ten dollars or a hundred, Arn wouldn’t care, Braz thought scornfully. He was like any other carny. All he cared about was the quick profit. And yeah, Ames Amusement Corporation was growing, but it was never going to be big-time. And even if it grew big as Strates, wasn’t like his mother and Arn would ever cut him a major piece of it. Not while baby brother Val was around.

He completed the ad, using an e-identity that neither Arn nor Val knew about, then exited from the program and turned off the laptop. As the screen went dark, he closed the lid, neatened the makeshift desktop, switched off his lamp, and stood up to stretch his cramped muscles. It was a little past two A.M. and time to hit the hay, hay being a mattress on the floor by the rear door. He’d quit sleeping in the family’s two-bedroom trailer four years ago, preferring to stake out his own private space here in the back of the eighteen-wheeler’s van rather than share a pop-out with his younger half-brother when they were on the road.

Most of the trailers around him were dark and silent. Somewhere, though, a radio was playing soft jazz, and when he stepped out into the airless night, he heard a burst of laughter that sounded like his mother. She and Polly and some of the others were probably over there sipping ice-cold beers and cutting up jackpots. Arn and Val would already be asleep inside the trailer. Neither of them were the night owls he and Mom were.

He thought about going over and scoring a cold one himself, but on second thought, after what happened last night, maybe not, he decided.

A shower would feel good, but hot as it was, might as well wait and take one when he woke up. Be fresh for if that little blond townie came by tomorrow like she said she would when she was flirting with him at the Dozer tonight.

What couldn’t wait was the need to empty his bladder. Portable donnikers were down near the Tilt-A-Whirl, convenient to the midway. Quicker and easier was to go around back to the bushes that grew at the edge of the field where they were parked.

It was dark back there and he’d just finished his business and was zipping up when someone came around the corner.

Male.

Big.

Moving with purpose.

Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw a second figure by the truck’s front fender.

Before he could speak, an iron fist to his midriff bent him double with pain. Another to his chest spun him around so hard that the third punch landed bruisingly on his right shoulder blade as he crumpled to the ground.

“This is from Polly,” the man grunted as he gave a bone jarring kick to Braz’s left buttock and another to his ribs. Not enough to break one, just enough to hurt like hell.