The Beasts Of Valhalla

you'll pay, along with expenses. And you will pay it. The first expense is the biggest. I'm flying in a hacker from New York.'

'What's a hacker?'

'Never mind. You can't even take care of your own business, so don't start worrying about mine. I sure as hell don't want this farm, or any money out of it, which means that you're going to have to haul your ass out and go to work someplace so you can pay me. Maybe I'll talk to some of my relatives, see if one of them will take you on as a hired hand-which means that the nasty dwarf you 'heard tell' about will personally break your ass into little pieces if you drink on the job or otherwise fuck up.'

'Robby, I- '

'I've been known to carry client accounts for a time, so I may not bill you until you've got a job and saved some money. The first thing you do in the morning is take a bath, shave, find some clean clothes, and hitch a ride into Peru City. Go to the welfare agency. Don't tell them about me, do tell them you need help. Drag somebody out here; once they see this place, they'll fall all over themselves giving you emergency assistance.'

He drew himself up straight, stumbled, braced himself on the cabinet shelf. 'I'm not taking any charity.'

'You'll do exactly as I say, Coop!' I snapped, picking my way through the garbage and heading for the door. 'Otherwise, you can start thinking about mortgaging your farm. And you can be damn sure I'll check to make sure you go there.'

5

Cockadoodledoo.

My father had retired five years ago, sold the animals, and leased out most of his acreage. Nevertheless, he and my mother still rose at dawn; consequently, I found my parents, along with a big breakfast of ham, eggs, and potatoes, waiting for me when I went downstairs early the next morning. We made small talk in an atmosphere that was at once warm but oddly strained. I couldn't tell whether their discomfort arose from the fact that they weren't accustomed to the idea of their son the private detective tilling home soil, or anxiety in the face of all the emotions I was bound to keep stirred up. I finished quickly, went into the living room, and checked the telephone directory.

There was no listing for the Volsung Corporation, and Information wouldn’t even tell me if they had an unlisted number. Volsung, obviously, thought money was all the public relations they needed, and they were probably right. I borrowed a map of the county from my father and was out of the house before seven.

My first stop was Coop Lugmor's farm. Not a creature was stirring in the house, so I parked my sister's car in the driveway and hiked back of the barn in the general direction Lugmor had indicated the night before. I had no trouble finding the creek, or the area where the killings had taken place; there was only one willow tree, and there were still bloodstains on its trunk. But that was all I found. It had rained hard, twice, since the killings, and not even the depression in the bank where Tommy had fallen was left. If there had been footprints, they had been washed away. Just for form I searched around in the grass and poked with a stick in the mud, but found nothing.

Here, by myself, I sat down on a log for a few minutes and, lasting the salt of my own sorrow, honored the memory of a slight, beaming boy with boundless energy who had looked upon New York City as a vast amusement park and thought of death merely as something his uncle always seemed to be involved with.

Lugmor still wasn't up by the time I came back. I pounded on the door until I heard him shuffling around inside, then shouted something through the door to the effect that I'd castrate him if he wasn't cleaned up and on his way to welfare in Peru City within the hour.

I got into the car, checked the map, then drove southwest on the highway toward the small town of Duck Pond and the prairie beyond. There was no indication on the map, but the Volsung Corporation turned out to be just about where my sister had said it would be, about twenty miles west of the town.

Somebody went in and out of Volsung on land; on a barely discernible dirt road cutting off the main highway there were tire tracks and crushed weeds. I drove up the road three-quarters of a mile, came over a rise, braked hard, and backed up. I turned off the engine, got out of the car and walked slowly to the crest of the rise.

Below me, perhaps three hundred yards away, was one of the strangest sights I had ever seen. The building housing the Volsung Corporation appeared to be a single windowless cube covering at least a half dozen acres and painted the color of the prairie. There were no signs, no company logo, just the brownish-green structure. To the east, I could just make out a section of a concrete landing strip, inside a double fence.

There were no guards, only the whistling of the prairie wind to challenge me as I walked down the dirt road to a mammoth steel gate that rose perhaps fifteen feet into the air. The gate was very strong, very solid; where there should have been a bolt plate or keyhole there was only a single rectangular notch.

A fifteen-minute walk in either direction convinced me that the Volsung Corporation was impregnable to anything on legs with the possible exception of a monster kangaroo. The entire complex was surrounded by an electrified fence. There were signs, in English, every twenty yards or so warning of danger, along with skulls and crossbones for the benefit of the illiterate. There was a second fence inside the first, also electrified, topped with barbed wire. What looked like small car antennas sticking up from the ground at random intervals inside the no- man's-land between the fences made me strongly suspect that the area was laced with sensory devices. It was all very neat, very simple, very effective, and-I assumed-astronomically expensive.

I walked back to the car and drove to Peru City, the county seat. After a brief stop at what passed for the local deli, I headed for the county sheriff's office. Jake Bolesh was in.

'Hello, Robby,' Bolesh said, rising from the padded swivel chair behind his desk and extending his hand. 'I heard you were in town.'

I hadn't really expected to see all of my old enemies brought low in the fashion of Coop Lugmor, but I couldn't help but be slightly disappointed at seeing how good Jake Bolesh looked. But then, I reminded myself, Bolesh had always been smarter than Lugmor. This man was not the beady-eyed, club-fisted creature that had lurked for so many years in my memories. Bolesh had lost a lot of weight since elementary and high school; he looked tough and trim in his tailored uniform. The only remnant of the sixties in his appearance was his hair; he had kept most of it, and he still wore it in a large, wavy, out-of-date pompadour held in place with greasy pomade that gave off a slightly sweet odor. Good genes, lousy sensibility. The loss of weight made his coal- black eyes seem larger than I remembered. He still had a scar high on his right cheekbone where Garth had hit him with a two-by-four after Bolesh had worked me over in a bathroom.

'Hello, Jake,' I replied, taking his hand. Bolesh was Power in Peru County, the man who probably had the answers to all my questions. There was absolutely no percentage in not accepting his gesture of truce. 'It's been a time.'

'Better than seventeen years, as I reckon it. I'm glad you stopped in. Sorry about your nephew.'

'Okay. Thanks.'

'Where's Garth?'

'He had to get back to New York.' I opened the paper bag I was carrying, took out two containers of coffee, handed one to Bolesh. 'Research has shown that it's impossible to remain in police work without becoming addicted to coffee. I thought you might like a fix.'

Bolesh smiled thinly, opened the container. 'Thanks, Robby.'

'You take cream or sugar?'

Bolesh shook his head, then absently patted the sides of his head as though the motion might have messed his hair. 'I like it black. Sit down, Robby.'

I sat, opened my container, sipped my coffee. 'You're looking good, Jake.'

'You too. You've done pretty well for yourself since you left Peru County. From here to college on a scholarship, then on to star in the Statler Brothers' Circus. I saw you perform once. Did you know that?'

I shook my head.

'It was in Chicago. I was at a police convention, and your show was in town. You had a great act-especially