'Ahh—two hot dogs and a Coke. Make it three hot dogs.'
'You new in town, ain't ya? Related to anyone 'round here?'
'What's the occasion?' Rourke asked, something making him evade the question. He jerked his thumb toward the town square behind him.
'It's the Fourth of July, mister. Ain't you got no calendar?'
'I—I've been camping—up in the mountains. Kind of lost track of time.'
'I reckon you have.' The man smiled, handing Rourke the three hot dogs in a small white cardboard box. Rourke handed him the ten-dollar bill and took the Coke, then started away.
'Hey!'
Rourke turned around.
'You forgot your change!'
'Keep it,' Rourke told him. 'Maybe I'll wan! another hot dog later.'
Rourke turned and spat his cigar butt into a trash can near him. He walked across the square a short way, finding a tree and leaning against it, listening to the music, seeing the children clog. He took a bite from the hot dog nearest him in the box, the Coke set down beside Jiim on the ground. It wasn't near the Fourth of July.
The man who had sold him the hot dogs wasn't from here, either—he had said 'you' not 'y'all' and that went with the territory. Rourke had made the speech pattern as midwest em.
Maybe it was the Russians—something that would be a trap. But for whom?
The town, the dancing, the Fourth of July. If he wasn't crazy, all of them were.
He wasn't crazy, he reminded himself, feeling the comfort of his guns under his jacket as he nudged his upper arms against his body. 'I'm not crazy,' he verbalized. The hot dog had tasted good and he started to eat the second one, dismissing any worry it was drugged. The little girl was dancing around, helping the doggers; the only thing apparently wrong with her being terminal mustard stains. . . .
Rourke sipped at his Coke—it was real Coca-Cola. He hadn't had any since—He worked along the perimeter of the crowd, watching the faces, the genuine smiles. He nudged against a man and the man turned, smiled,
and said, 'Hey!'
It was the universal southern greeting that Rourke had learned long ago as a transplanted northerner.
'Hi.' Rourke smiled, as the man turned away to watch the clogging. This was a second group of doggers, dressed the same but in red and white rather than green and white. The green-and white-clad girls and boys stood at the edge of the crowd now, watching the others.
Rourke saw a face; it was the only face not smiling. It looked promising, he thought, and gravitated toward the woman belonging to it. par As he neared the woman,' the clogging stopped— abruptly—and an announcer, a fat man wearing a red-and white-checkered cowboy shirt and a straw cowboy hat, said through the microphone, 'Let's give these little folks a big, big hand!' Rourke held his cup in his teeth a moment and applauded, then kept moving toward the woman with the unsmiling face.
Slower country music started to play and the crowd started splitting up.
Rourke cut easily through the wave of people now, some of them gravitating toward the edge of the square, some pairing off and dancing to the music.
The woman with the unsmiling face apparently wasn't with anyone; she turned and started away. Rourke downed the rest of his Coke and tossed the cup into a trash can nearby, then called out to her. 'Hey—ahh.' The woman turned around.
Rourke stopped, a few feet from her, saying, 'I, ahh—'
'Y'all want to dance?' she smiled.
'All right.' Rourke nodded, stepping closer to her.
She slung her handbag in the crook of her left arm on its straps. Rourke took her right hand in his left, his right
arm encircling her wais*- She was about forty, pretty enough, but not a woman who seemed to try to be pretty at all.
Her face was smiling, but not her eyes.
'Who are you?' She smiled, coming into his arms.
'John—my name's John,' he told her.
'You're carrying a gun, John,' she whispered, her head close to his chest.
'I read a lot of detective stories. I'm the librarian. I know.'
'You oughta read more,' he told her softly. 'I'm carrying two.'
'Ohh—all right, John.'
'Hasn't anyone heard about World War III here?' he asked her, smiling as they danced their way nearer the blue-grass band.
'If anyone else heard you mention the war, John, the same thing would happen to you that happened to all the rest of them. We'll talk later, at my place.'
