I was using a muskie rod to cast with, with the magnet tied on instead of a lure. The magnet was heavy, but if I got my shoulders into it, I could toss it twenty-five or thirty feet downstream and then crank it back upstream to the boat.

And I found the pistol, just about the time my arms started to tighten up. There was a clank transmitted through the rod, and I said, “Whoops,” and gave the rod to LuEllen and went back and eased up on the anchor. When we had the line running pretty much straight up and down, I slowly retrieved it. It was a .45. A good old government model from Colt. I detached the gun from the magnet, cut the magnet from the line, and threw it overboard.

“Why’d you do that?” LuEllen asked.

“I hate magnets. Damn dangerous things, around computers and software.”

We spent another hour poking along to the south, scanning the banks for any sign of a shirt. Bobby’s note said the shirt was what we’d see, since the decomposition gases gathered in the abdominal and chest cavities.

Nothing. I cleaned the gun as we went along, lubricated it with some WD-40, and put it back together. Good as ever. Some people like guns, some people don’t, but you can’t deny their quality as machines.

We hid the pistol with the money bag, down in the engine compartment; as the sun went down, we turned the Fanny’s nose upstream and headed back. Five minutes after we arrived at the marina, Marvel called.

“They’re going to quit,” she exulted. “It’s all over town. They had a meeting at Dessusdelit’s house, and St. Thomas went home and told his wife. They’re out of here.”

On Monday Dessusdelit called at nine-fifteen. I was still asleep, and LuEllen crawled over me to answer the phone, then handed it over.

“I’m

I really need

some help. Would it be

could you come to the City Hall, my office? And bring your tarot?” She sounded ragged, desperate.

“Now?”

“Yes. Right away. You’ll have to hurry. I’ve got a meeting at ten.”

We took quick showers, then grabbed my tarot and LuEllen’s crystal ball and drove up to the City Hall. Dessusdelit’s office was in the city council suite. There was a secretary’s desk in an outer office, a conference room, then a series of four closet-size offices for the councilmen, and a double-size closet for the mayor. A dozen people milled around the ground floor, outside the council meeting chambers, and a couple more slouched against the walls in the council’s outer office.