Sanders swung his stool so he was facing the bar. He didn’t need to face Ratigan. That’s what bar mirrors were for. Plus, he doubted Ratigan would pick up on that before it was too late. Sanders sipped his beer, no more panicked than a doe feeding with her fawn in their safe glade.

As anticipated, Ratigan’s size sixteen snowmobile boots thudded across the decaying tile floor, and soon his hulking frame appeared in the bar mirror. Describing Ratigan as a big guy was an understatement. He was six foot seven inches and at least three hundred pounds—most of it muscle. He was the prototype U.P. logger, a big axe man who owned even bigger acres.

Sanders frowned as Ratigan’s beer and pretzel breath wafted towards him.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Ratigan asked, his brows furrowed deep as splotches of red bloomed across his face.

Dear lord he took up the whole damn mirror.

Sanders didn’t answer. Instead he reached for a bowl of stale pretzels, the corner of his eye watching the giant in the cracked bar mirror.

“I SAID what the hell you doin?” Ratigan’s voice was louder this time, far deeper and more powerful than a typical male voice.

Sanders shrugged. “Just havin’ a beer, eh?”

Still facing the mirror, his grip tightened on the thawing beer mug. It wasn’t so cold as the Silver no more.

The giant leered at him in the cracked mirror, like a funhouse spook. “Funny thing is, my girl tells me a pervert hit on her at Finn’s Market. You wouldn’t happen to know who that was, do you Bob?”

The patrons quieted. Anneli disappeared into the back room.

Ratigan shifted his feet. “So I asks her what the pervert looked like. She told me he was real ugly. Ugliest motherfucker she’d ever seen. Said she’d seen better looking catfish. So I says, ‘Did he smell?’, and my girl says he was the foulest-smelling son of a bitch you could ever imagine, smelled so bad it made you want to lop your nose off just to get rid of the stank. Finally, I ask my girl if this pervert was dumb. She tells me he was the dumbest, stupidest jaw-flapper she’d come across, dumber than a rock, dumber than a bowling ball, and that the pervert would be better off if his brains were made of whip cream.”

Sanders fingered a pretzel, the salt nubs rough on his skin.

Ratigan bellowed in the mirror. “Now who could this perv be? I wonder, Bob. Maybe you could help me find him? It shouldn’t be hard, what with the smell and all. And hey, I think I smell him now . . .”

Ratigan sniffed the air like a bear and slammed his colossal left hand on Sanders’ shoulder. In the mirror, Sanders saw Ratigan’s other hand coming at him in a fist.