John Case - Ghost Dancer aka Dance of Death

“We take Visa and Master. Also PayPal, if you prefer.”

He pulled out his wallet, and read off the numbers from his Visa card. When she had finished giving him directions on how to access his “Great Eight,” he asked her again. “The thing is, about Jack and Irina-”

“You go to wedding?

He paused, realizing he didn’t know if the wedding had occurred or not. “I… no, ” he said, “but I’d really like to send a present.”

“Very nice, yes, for bride couple.”

“The thing is, Jack gave me his new address, but I don’t have it with me.”

She hesitated, but she came through. “Oh? Is beautiful place, my goodness! Irina shows me pictures. She is lucky lucky girl.” He heard typing on a keyboard, and then, as he held his breath, he listened as she read out the address.

“Post Office Box one-two-four, Juniper, Nevada.” She gave him the zip code.

“Thanks so much,” he said, thinking – shit, a post office box. “Do you have a telephone number?” He was thinking that he might be able to pull up a street address using a reverse-lookup directory.

The Russian was quiet for a moment, then said. “This, I don’t release. Privacy rules, yes?”

“It’s just that sometimes FedEx wants a phone number, that’s all.”

“There is possibility of UPS,” she told him. Then changed the subject. “Such a couple!” she declared. “This one, I can tell it works out. Sometimes, you can tell… no! It’s… what do you say? A train wreck! But this one? This one is marriage made in heaven. And for Irina? I am so happy for this girl. If nothing else, God forbid, at least she gets good medical care.”

Burke thought he’d misheard. “Medical care?”

“Sure! You have best medical care in America. I tell her this.”

“That’s what they say.”

“In Ukraine, it’s not so good. Doctors, they are all becoming taxi drivers and waiters. I can’t blame them. It’s more money. So… U.S.? It’s better for my little Irina.”

“Is she… ill?”

“No-no-no-no-no-no-no. She’s perfectly healthy, of course! Her condition, it’s perfectly under control. Ukrainebrides guarantees this: healthy young women. Every girl can have children.”

“But she has a condition,” Burke said. “If I’m going to hook up with someone-”

“Yes, but I’m telling you it’s not serious.”

“I understand, but…” He could sense her thinking on the other end of the line, worrying that she was about to lose a client.

“Okay,” she said, “but maybe you don’t mention this, okay? Irina, she’s shy about this. You’re promising?”

“Not a word. I just want to be sure – for myself.”

“Well,” Madame Puletskaya said with a sigh, “it’s like this…”

A post office box might not be the most useful address, but it was all Burke had. And when he looked up the location of Juniper, it seemed like it just might be enough. Juniper was a speck (Pop. 320) near the Idaho border, the kind of place where people would know about the new guy in town, especially if the new guy had a lot of money.

It was close to noon when he checked out. And he was beginning to worry. For the first time, the question arose in his mind: What if I actually find the sonofabitch? Then what? As he recalled, Francisco d’Anconia was kinda big. And, seemingly, pretty fit. Which wasn’t surprising when you considered that he’d spent the last ten years doing push-ups, lifting weights, and jogging around his cage.

Fortunately, this was Nevada, and gun stores were about as common as Dunkin’ Donuts shops in Massachusetts. On the way out of town, he passed a store with a rearing wooden Grizzly outside, and a sign that read “Gun & Sun.” Making a U-turn, he parked in the lot and went inside. It was a gun store that doubled as a tanning salon.

The girl behind the counter couldn’t have been more helpful. She would probably have sold him an RPG, if he’d asked. But there was a problem. “The phones are down,” she said.

“So what?” Burke asked, eyeing a sleek Beretta.

“We have to do an instant check with the state police before we can sell you a gun – to see if you have a criminal record. You don’t have a criminal record, do you?” she teased.

“No,” Burke replied.

“Sometimes they’re down for a minute – if there was a storm, or something? But sometimes it’s an hour or more. You want to wait? I could put you in one of the pods at the back, get you some color.”

Burke shook his head. “Not today. I’m kind of busy. How about a gun show? They don’t have to do a check, do they?”

“No. And you can get anything you want at one of them. Only I don’t think there is one until the weekend,” she told him. “And we’ll have our phones up before then. You sure you don’t want to get a tan?”

“No, but… is that a cell phone?” He pointed to a glass case, which held an arsenal of handguns and miscellanea. A crossbow. Some kind of… wands. Cell phones.

“It looks like a cell phone,” she said. “But it’s a stun gun. One hundred eighty thousand volts.”

“What do you do with it?” Burke asked.

“Basically, you just touch someone and… he kinda loses it.” She paused. “I could sell you that!” she said. “Cuz it’s nonlethal.”

He took I-95 to I-80 and followed it all the way to Elko. Eight hours later, he veered north in the direction of Jackpot. Soon, the pavement gave way to dirt and gravel. He drove on in a cloud of dust, locking headlights with a single car.

It was close to ten p.m. when the darkness brightened a few miles ahead. Juniper. The town consisted of two stick-built houses, facing each other across the road, and a cluster of trailers. “Downtown” was a post office, a general store, and a bar with a sign that read BUCKET OF BLOOD.

The saloon reminded Burke of the nightmare bar in Quentin Tarantino’s vampire film, but it was the only place that was open – and he was thirsty.

The Bucket of Blood had been decorated at the whim of its eccentric owner. Driven by a solar battery, a porcelain Hello Kitty sat on the bar, waving its paw unceasingly. A collection of dusty plastic horses marched along a ledge near a sign for the restroom. There was an entire wall covered with postcards, and a television set framed by a rack of elk antlers.

The Diamondbacks were at bat.

In a corner of the bar, a poker game was in progress. An old woman – her scalp visible beneath her thin red hair – pulled listlessly at one of the slots near the door. Burke bellied up to the bar, where a weedy man in a camouflage jumpsuit lifted his chin with a questioning look, as he dried a glass.

“Beer,” Burke said.

“Sierra Nevada’s on draft. Coors Light, Bud, Bud Light-”

“Sierra Nevada would be grand.” He was so tired that he didn’t really want to get into it. What he wanted was to go to bed. So he was halfway into his second beer before he got up the gumption to ask the question.

“You know a guy named Jack Wilson… lives around here?”

The bartender eyed him warily. “Who wants to know?”

Burke was about to answer, when one of the poker players looked up and laughed. “What do you care who wants to know, Denny? It’s not like the guy’s a friend of yours.”

“Maybe not, but what do you care if I care?” the bartender asked. “Play the fuckin’ game.”

“Yeah! Play the fuckin’ game,” one of the other players said.

“You in or not?” asked a third.

Burke didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

The bartender put a glass of beer in front of him, and raised an eyebrow. “So?”

Burke took a sip. “Jesus, that’s good.” After a moment, he added, “Mike Burke.”