Jason Frost - The cutthroat

While the bald man gathered potential customers, a teenaged version of the man hunched over a Corbin Swaging Press, turning a.22 Long Rifle case into a.224-caliber bullet for a woman in a red hunting cap clutching a Mini-14. A spool of copper refrigeration tubing was coiled on the ground next to the press, soon to be turned into bullet casings.

Next door to him a fat woman in a cowboy hat was gluing feathers to shafts, while an even fatter woman fastened nocks onto the ends of the arrows. "We got arrows," she barked to no one in particular. "Reasonable prices." She saw Eric looking at her and spoke directly to him. "Fletching is real turkey feathers, mister."

Eric inspected the feathers, tossed them back down on the table. "Pigeons."

She threw her hands up and cackled out a laugh that had people turning to see what the noise was. "Pigeons is right," she said, and cackled again.

Next door to this booth was a shoe repair shop. An old man with quivering hands and a kindly face did his best to patch up shoes and sneakers. Some customers he turned away, unable to help, always giving them a sad smile of apology. Eric noticed the faded blue numbers tattooed on the underside of his wrist and felt a sharp pang of humility. Here was a man who had survived the concentration camps of Germany and who was surviving still, offering good humor to those around him. Of all the sights he'd seen so far in Liar's Cove, this one impressed him the most.

"Those guys with the Hearst Castle T-shirts," Blackjack said, tugging on Eric's sleeve, "those are the security force around here. They'll know Rhino and his gang and probably can tell us where to find them." He walked over to one of the security force, a skinny kid with a.22 Hi-Standard Durango revolver sticking out of the pocket of his corduroy pants. He wore a white T-shirt with an image of Hearst Castle on it and five stripes of dirt across the chest where he'd wiped his fingers. He was talking to a young girl, no older than fifteen, who wore a thin steak knife in her belt. Eric watched Blackjack talk to the kid, who grudgingly answered, anxious to brush the black man off so he could get back to the girl. But Blackjack wouldn't be brushed off. He kept smiling and talking, leaning his six feet four inches over the kid until he got what he wanted.

"Bad news," he said, when he returned.

"Is there any other kind around here?" Tracy asked.

"Rhino and Angel are in the Main Vestibule."

Eric shrugged. "So?"

"So, that's where the guy who runs Liar's Cove is. The guy I was hoping we'd be able to avoid. You see all this scum around here?" He swept his hand in a wide arc. "Well, multiply it by a hundred and you get a feel for the moral level of BeBop."

"BeBop?" Tracy laughed. "What's a BeBop?"

"BeBop is the dude who decides who lives and dies in here. And his word is final."

Eric started off toward the entrance to Casa Grande. "I guess it's time we met him. And he met us."

Howling laughter rumbled through the building as they squeezed their way through the rowdy crush of bodies. Most of the people in Casa Grande were slurping from metal cups.

"What are they drinking?" Tracy asked Blackjack. "Smells like gasoline."

"Close," Blackjack said. "A home-brew that BeBop cooks up himself. I once saw him drink a quart of it, then pour the rest into an empty motorcycle and drive it around the courtyard. I wouldn't give two cents for any of their livers a year from now."

A drunken woman wearing a Padres' baseball cap leaned over Tracy's shoulder and laughed. "Man, who cares what happens a year from now." She drained the contents of her cup and sprayed it through her lips straight up into the air. It rained back down in her face and she laughed again before disappearing into the boiling crowd.

"This is a little like some fraternity parties I've attended," Tracy said. A stricken look crumpled her face. "Oh no. Look at that." She pointed to a couple standing by an ornate doorway. The man was carving a big heart in the column with his knife. The girl giggled coyly, flipping a curtain of long, greasy hair over her shoulder. "Jesus, stop him. That doorway is solid marble, created by Andrea Sansovino, a sixteenth-century Florentine sculptor." They watched as the man continued to jab his knife at the marble, chipping and scratching his crude heart with wobbly initials.

"It's too late to try to save this place," Eric said softly.

"Yeah, you're right," she said, forcing a smile. "But I'll bet you're impressed by what I know for a change, huh?"

"I am," Blackjack said.

Eric winked at her and she smiled broadly as she limped ahead, pleased. The information wasn't medicine or survival, just the most useless of fields in this crazy world: art. But still, it was all hers. Something she knew that they didn't. Something she could be proud of.

As they pushed their way closer to the Main Vestibule, the pounding beat of music wafted to them.

"Somebody's beating that guitar within an inch of its life," Blackjack said.

"Do you play?" Tracy asked him, shouting to be heard above the noise.

"I know three chords. Enough to play twenty-three verses of 'Louie, Louie.'"

"That sounds like two more chords than whoever's playing knows," Eric said.

Finally they wedged through the arms and legs of the multipede blob of stinking bodies into the Main Vestibule. Standing in front of a magnificently carved fireplace mantel, his leg up on a squat black table, stood a bony man of about thirty. He wore a poncho made from a large American flag, a slit cut in the middle for his head, the field of stars flapping against his blue-jeaned shins. His feet were bare. He was whacking the guitar with broad strokes, singing loudly, a mouthful of braces reflecting light.

"I don't care what people say, rock 'n' roll is here to stay." Behind him a kid about thirteen banged on a set of drums in a haphazard rhythm that ignored the song they were both singing.

"That's BeBop on guitar," Blackjack explained. "The kid on the drums is his, uh, protйgй. Calls him Tsetse, like the fly."

Eric nodded, then directed their attention to the corner of the room, where Rhino and Angel were standing, flanked on all sides by some of their crew from The Centurion. A couple of crew members were slurping from metal cups. Rhino tugged restlessly on the rubber band around his wrist. Angel watched BeBop's performance with piercing eyes, like a chef studying a pheasant it was about to carve. It was the only look she had.

Abruptly, BeBop stopped hammering the guitar and waved a hand at the drummer to stop too. Everyone applauded dutifully, whistling and yelling. BeBop took a deep bow, turned his back to the crowd a moment, flipped up his poncho, and began pissing into the fireplace.

Tracy shook her head. "That sixteen-foot high fireplace he's pissing into is from the French Renaissance. The marble busts surmounting it are by, uh…"

"Francois Duquesnoy," Eric finished.

She looked up at him, trying not to show her annoyance. "Figures. It goddamn figures."

He slipped an arm around her waist and felt her lean into him, shifting weight from her bad hip. She felt good there.

When BeBop had finished zipping his pants and turned around, everyone applauded again even louder. He flashed his mouthful of braces.

"Hey, lookie, lookie," he said, pointing over the heads of the crowd. "It's my old buddy, Black Jack."

"That's Blackjack, man. One word, like the card game."

"Right, man. I didn't mean anything of a racist nature by it. After all, you're the guy who helped me concoct my world famous BeBop's Brew." He hoisted a metal cup and took a deep swig. Everyone cheered and did the same.

Eric and Tracy turned curious eyes on Blackjack, who shrugged. "A little medicinal consultation. For a fee, of course."