He picked up the sandwich, opened his mouth to take a bite, and laughed briefly, deeply in his throat. A sudden vision of his mother, scolding him for eating breakfast at the counter one morning, ordering him to a chair because eating standing up offended her fragile sense of permanence. Even if you are in a hurry, she had told him sternly, there's no cause being rude, announcing it to the world.

"Sure thing, Ma," he whispered, flicked on the radio because he couldn't take the soft sounds of his moving around any longer, and took the plate to the table. Sat. Stared at the pale green radio dial until the station number blurred. Blinked once and shook his head when he realized he was listening to Eula Korrey, somewhere in the middle of what had become, in so short a time, her trademark song. . . . you ready?

And the chorus, it must have been a million strong, answered a joyful, affirmative ready!

are you ready?

Finally he took the first bite, and the song became the background, and it occurred to him that neither Sir John nor Lady Beatrice had asked him that fourth question. He had walked out on both of them before they'd had the chance. Not that it would take a Strip magician to figure out what it would be.

"So tell me, Mr. Falkirk," he said softly, badly mimicking Sir John's accent, "what will happen to you if you ever leave the city, do you suppose?"

No supposing about it.

ready!

The way his luck had run, the next beating he took would be the last one he'd ever have. Thrashed and trashed, just like his sister. End of story. That's all she wrote. Put a fork in him, Ma, this boy's done.

He grunted. Shook his head.

It was, now that he thought about it, a monumentally, stupid notion. Obviously, what had begun as a series of unfortunate incidents had evolved over the years into a full-blown superstition, and he sure wasn't the first gambler in the world to have at least one superstition riding hard on his back.

are you ready Most of the men and women he had come across off and on the Strip had theirs so ingrained they didn't even think about it, hardly knew it existed. It had taken on the strength of a powerful habit; you did it unconsciously until someone pointed it out to you. Maybe you shrugged in embarrassment, maybe you didn't. But you didn't drop it, either; the consequences simply didn't bear thinking about.

Yet neither of the Harps had even suggested his touching each machine to find the right one was a simple superstition. They had accepted it, apparently, as a given. A fact. That without the touch he wouldn't know one machine from another.

are you ready That made him sit back and frown.

A glance to the back door, another to the front.

The implication was, they didn't think his not wanting to leave Las Vegas was superstition either.

They believed it was true.

"Oh, yeah," he muttered. "Right."

Yet Beatrice had told him he would have to leave, to find one guy he'd never heard of and another whose name he had heard only in passing from a couple of kids who didn't even know what the hell they were doing. And how did the Harps know that Chisholm's name, anyway? Did they know those kids? Did-- "Whoa!" he said, almost shouting. "Whoa!"

That feeling again, the slipping into some kind of weird warp thing, unreality sneaking in behind his back, whispering things in his ear in an unknown language. Panic over something that had no name, no face. A threat without definition.

are you ready, are you ready for a miracle'?

He slapped the table hard with a palm, stood so quickly the chair skittered back against the wall, and stomped to the counter, snapped off the radio and turned its face around, pulled the plug from its socket. What he didn't need now, tonight, was that woman's voice in his home.

It grated.

He had no idea why, but it grated.

He grabbed the remains of the sandwich off its plate, muttered a. "Sorry, Ma," and ate as he wandered through the house, sliding fingers along a wall, brushing them over the top of a chair, the surface of a table, turning on a lamp and turning it right back off, slapping the crumbs from his hand against his leg, trying to whistle but his lips and mouth were too dry, returning to the kitchen where he grabbed three bottles out of the fridge and twisted off the cap of one as he marched to the front door, yanked it open, stepped outside, and shivered at the startling, pleasant feel of cool and rough concrete on his bare soles.

Since the temptation to drain the bottle in a couple of swallows was strong, he forced himself to sip.

Since he wanted, very much, to get into the chariot and find one or the other of those...whoever, whatever they were, and wring their necks for unspecified crimes against his peace of mind, he forced himself to sit on the top step, set the unopen bottles beside him, and sipped.

Since there was no reason on earth why he should feel the way he did, he concentrated on the taste of the beer, the feel of the glass bottle in his hand, on the feel of the concrete beneath his rump, on the touch of the night breeze on his cheek, and forced himself to keep his mind a blank while he sat there, in the dark, and sipped.

And when the last bottle was empty and he could find no excuse not to go inside and go to bed, he told himself that no nightmare could be as bad as the day he'd just had. At least, in their own bizarre ways, nightmares made sense.

He gripped the post and hauled himself up, swung toward the door, and heard the horse walking slowly up the street behind him.

He swallowed.

He held up a shaking finger as if to say there's no sense turning around, pal, because there ain't nothing there, and you're just spooking yourself so don't bother.

His hand began to tremble and he pulled it quickly to his chest, holding it there tightly, blinking rapidly because he was afraid, not of the horse but of the way his mind wouldn't stop tripping over things that weren't there. He was losing it. After all these years, he was losing it.

He didn't laugh with relief when he finally looked up the street and saw nothing but the night.

Nor was he tempted to look again for tracks, for signs, for hints or indications.

If they were there, he didn't want to know it; if they weren't there, he didn't want to know that either.

All he wanted to know, as he went inside and closed and locked the door behind him... all he wanted to know as he stumbled into the bedroom and stretched out on the bed without taking off his clothes ... no, he thought and clamped his eyes shut.

No, he thought an hour later, staring sleepless at the ceiling.

"Please," he whispered, angry and uncertain and maybe a little scared. "Please, who are you?"

A faint buzzing static from the kitchen.

And Eula's voice, singing, and laughing softly.

Part 3 Are You Ready For A Miracle?

1.

1.

T.

he moment Trey woke up, he knew the day was going to be a bad one. A disaster. The kind of disaster that strongly suggested he not bother to get up, just stay in bed and wait until tomorrow, when things had to get better, they sure couldn't get any worse.

It didn't take much effort to run down the reasons.

Sometime during the night, the air conditioner had evidently decided to take a few hours off. The unit hadn't clicked on when the temperature rose above the thermostat setting, and the house bordered on being uncomfortably warm.

Sometime during the night he had gotten up, undressed, and by the evidence of the bottles lined up on the floor beside the bed, he had finished all the beer in the fridge. He vaguely remembered heading for the bathroom a few times; he didn't remember taking off his clothes at all.

Sometime during the night, someone had exchanged his brain for a pile driver that pounded now in his head, a solid regular pounding that matched the rhythm of his heart. He groaned and rolled onto his side, pulling the thin blanket up over his shoulder, over his head, while he tried to find a way to burrow through the pillow so the agony of sunlight leaking around the blinds wouldn't take his eyes out.

Sometime during the night, the wind had come up, a hard steady blow that had moaned around the house, promising no one would be able to go outside without getting a mouthful of grit, eyes stinging with sand.

Sometime during the night, nightmares had tried to edge their way into his dreams, succeeding just long enough that he didn't get much real sleep and could still feel the breath-holding approach of terrors that were never quite made whole.

He felt like hell, and he felt like a jerk.

The last time he had lost such a battle with his drinking was the day he learned of his sister's murder, and he had realized that he was, at last, without family. Alone. Too old, maybe, to be called an orphan, but he had suspected the awful empty feeling was pretty damn close.

This time . . .

He threw off the blanket and struggled up to sit on the edge of the mattress, shoulders hunched, head down. Moaning, groaning, gingerly massaging his temples in case the gods were listening and needed to know how much agony he was in so they could toss a little pity his way. .

Or a new head.

But why should they?

Feeling like hell was one thing; feeling like a jerk was rubbing salt into the wound.

He deserved it, though; no question but that he deserved it.

His mother, when questioned about how and when to bluff, had explained that bluffing, no matter how you looked at it, was a simple matter of lying. The better liar you were, the better bluffer you were. All gamblers were liars to one degree or another, and if they had any innate talent at all, they eventually become damn good liars indeed. The hard part, she cautioned, was recognizing how good a liar the other guy was.

The Harps were damn good.

They had run some kind of weird scam on him, and he hadn't seen it coming. First one, then the other. Not a tandem, but a left jab, a right hook. A fast ball, a Curve. Run from one into the waiting, practiced arms of the other, and the next thing you know, you can't be sure of anything anymore. Off balance. Floundering. Ready for the final push.

By the time he had gulped some aspirin down with tepid water and had made himself the most bland breakfast he could-butterless toast and milkless cereal-he figured patience was the key here. Patience, until his head stopped exploding and he could think straight; patience, while he waited for them to make their next move.

The only thing that was clear-or as clear as things could get, considering how he felt-was that someone wanted him out of the city. The how and why and wherefore would have to wait until he didn't feel so much like dying just to find a little comfort.

Meanwhile, he whacked the side of the thermostat with the butt of a screwdriver to get it working again, then flopped onto the couch, arm draped over his eyes, and without planning it, fell asleep.

There were no dreams, but he whimpered once and rolled over to face the back of the couch, curled as tightly as possible on the narrow cushions.

There were no dreams, but the part of him that knew he was sleeping wished there was at last a little color in the dark.

When he woke, it was with a grunt, as if someone had poked him in the stomach. Blearily he sat up, rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, and squinted at the front window, trying to gauge the time by the light around the edges. Still daylight, and he praised himself sarcastically for such a brilliant observation, rubbed his eyes again, and scratched vigorously through his hair to chase the last of the sleep away. Although he felt a stir of hunger, he decided to behave as if this were a normal Saturday, and it was morning, not halfway to whenever.

Shower and shave; strip the bedclothes and replace them with clean sheets; wash the few dishes in the sink; avoid the radio like the plague because it was still unplugged and he still remembered; pick up here and there, and a glance in the bathroom hamper to remind himself that tomorrow he'd have to spend some quality soap time at the coin laundry before his clothes got up and walked away.

Taking his time in case his head decided to get back into construction.

Checking the refrigerator and wincing when he saw all the empty spaces where the beer had been, then grabbing the last can of soda and, with an unconscious deep breath for courage, walking to the front door and pulling it open.

"Sweet. . .Jesus!" he yelped, and jerked his face away from the sunlight, fumbling behind him to snatch up his sunglasses and put them on with one slightly trembling hand before stepping onto the porch and lowering himself, carefully, unsteadily, into the white wood lawn chair that badly needed a fresh coat of paint and something to brace its back legs.

The shadow of the house had already begun to slip toward the street, the day's heat waning. He reckoned it sometime between five and six, but fetching his watch would be cheating. Instead he looked up the street to see who had already left for work, who was waiting for the last minute.

He frowned.

Two doors up, the front bumper and grill of Cable's Oldsmobile poked out from under their carport. That's wrong, he thought. Even if Cable delayed a bit, Steph would be out on the porch, pacing, practicing a step or stride while she fretted. Something's wrong.

Speculation was forestalled when he heard a breathless tuneless whistling and looked to his left, just as Hicaya strolled up the street from the mailbox row. He wore shorts, the glove, and a nylon-net T-shirt. And from the looks of it, he was in no hurry to change into his penguin suit and get down to the Strip.

"Hey," he said as the man walked by the house.

Rick squinted over into the sun. "That you, Trey?"

"I think so. Most of me, anyway. I don't think my head has made up its mind."

Hicaya stuffed a couple of envelopes into his hip pocket, no response to the feeble joke. "Hard times last night, huh?"

He nodded. "How come you're not dressed?"

The man shrugged. "Ain't going in."

"A Saturday night, you're not going in?"

Another shrug, and he started walking again, abruptly veered toward the house, breaking through the invisible hedge. "You know," he said, keeping his voice low and angry, "those fatheads at the hospital down there, down in Boulder, they wanted to . . ." He gestured vaguely with his gloved hand. "Plastic shit, you know what I mean? Replace it with plastic shit filled with wires and shit."

Trey didn't quite know what to say. "You mean they wanted to-"

Hicaya nodded sharply, made a chopping motion with his good hand. "Bastards. Said it'd be good for my mental health. Showed me pictures and everything."

Trey shuddered sympathy at the image, unable to keep from glancing at his own hands. "Damn." He shuddered again. "So what are you going to do?"

Hicaya straightened, scowling. "You have to ask?" He sounded insulted. "No damn doctor's gonna take me apart, stitch me back together like some kind of monster, you know? I told them to shove it." An emphatic nod, and he headed back to the street. "Got other plans, loafer," he said over his shoulder. "Got other plans."