The woman took interminably long doing whatever she was doing back there. It seemed like forever before the woman pushed the ticket and Billy’s change toward him. He put the bills and quarters in his pocket, kissed the ticket, and held it up in the air.

“Freedom,” whispered Billy Constable, looking at the bus ticket.

The bus ticket was yanked out of his hand and ripped in half.

“Not so fast,” said the big ugly man wearing the leather porkpie hat. “You won’t be needin’ this where you’re goin’, putzo.”

The big ugly man grabbed one of Billy’s arms. Another thug grabbed the other arm, and the two frog-walked Billy out of the terminal. As the three headed for Eighth Avenue, one of the thugs said to the other, “I told you he would head for the bus terminal. You owe me a Twinkie.”

VII

“And now…the moment we’ve all been waiting for…”

And now…the moment we’ve all been waiting for,” said host Rip Puckett with forced drama and solemnity. As Puckett said those words, a huge sixty-second clock was lowered into place. It hung in the middle of the stage, casting a somber shadow like Death’s scythe.

“The moment of truth has arrived. The time has come to ask…the…big…question! Are you ready, Vera?”

“Yes!” answered Vera Bundle with spirit, a big smile on her face.

“Before I ask the big question, Vera, how do you feel right now?”

“Excited.”

“Scared?”

“Not at all.”

“Good for you. Okay, Vera Bundle, here is your big question. For one…hundred…million…dollars…or that goblet of dreadful poison…”

The studio went silent.

The audience seemed frozen in their seats.

It was deathly quiet in the control room.

Even the cold-blooded producer felt his throat catch.

“The Great Wall of China was built to protect the capital city of Datong by the Ming Dynasty,” read host Rip Puckett from a five-by-seven white card. Puckett had to hold the card with two hands to stop it from shaking. “Some sections of the wall were said to date from the seventh century B.C. The wall did not always work. Often invaders merely ran around its ends. Sections built by the Ming alone are said to be long enough to stretch from Washington, D.C., as far as Wichita, Kansas.”

Rip Puckett paused dramatically, as he was instructed to do.

“Vera Bundle, for one…hundred…million…dollars…or death!…how long is the Great Wall of China? You have exactly sixty seconds to give me a correct answer…starting now!”

Vera’s expression was inscrutable.

It was hard to figure out if she did or didn’t know the correct answer.

A spotlight pinpointed Vera Bundle. Another spotlight circled the gigantic sixty-second clock in the center of the stage. Fifteen seconds had gone by.

Nothing from Vera Bundle.

The lone arm on the gigantic clock now dropped to the thirty-second mark.