"You just gonna throw Wuvvy out into the street?"

Hap craned his neck and squinted his pale blue eyes, looking out into the darkness, trying to see who the speaker was. Jackson Poole dropped the arm that had been draped around Miranda.

"Yeah. What happens to me?"

It got very quiet in the bar. Then Wuvvy was pulling herself up onto one of the rickety barstools. Backlit by the blue light atop the back bar, every frizzy strand of her steel gray hair seemed to jut straight out from her head. She stood there, swaying slightly, her red-rimmed eyes searching the crowd for a friendly face.

"What a long, strange trip," I murmured.

"Bad trip, if you ask me," Bucky said.

"Ask these f.u.c.kers why they kicked me out," Wuvvy cried, pointing a finger first at Hap and then at Poole. "Ask 'em where I'm supposed to go. Ask 'em why they turned on Wuvvy."

She swiveled on the barstool and put out a foot to try to climb onto the bar. But her foot slipped, and she would have fallen smack on her face, except that people were crowded together so tightly she merely landed on the shoulders of a group of guys who'd been standing near the front, jockeying for a good position in front of the judges. The guys were dressed in matching white shirts, red knit shorts, sneakers, and extravagant wigs. Their T-shirts proclaimed them to be the Black Widows. A cross-dressing girls' softball team.

"Sons of b.i.t.c.hes," Wuvvy roared. "They sold me out. The yuppies are taking over, y'all. Ain't noplace in Little Five Points for a cosmic wanderer. It's the greedheads now. Yuppies and corporations and blind ambition-and greedheads like Hap Rudabaugh."

Hap shook his head and laughed a little bit. "Okay, Wuvvy. You know we all love you. Doesn't everybody love Wuvvy?"

A loud cheer came up from the crowd. "We love you, Wuvvy!" a guy back by the dartboard screamed.

"They not only all love her, they've all f.u.c.ked her," Bucky whispered in my ear.

"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked. Men are such gossips. Much more vicious than women. Especially when it comes to s.e.xual innuendo. That's why I prefer hanging out with men.

"Just what it means," Bucky said. "You know Wuvvy. She'd just as soon screw as shake hands."

"All right," Hap was yelling. "To show Wuvvy we really do love her, the house is standing everybody to a round. How's that? Free drinks on the house!"

Miranda reached over and gave Wuvvy a big bear hug, but Wuvvy pulled away, stony-faced. Hap was whispering something in Wuvvy's ear then, but her expression didn't change.

"f.u.c.k all of y'all," she shouted, then she slid down off the bar and melted into the crowd.

"What'll you have?" a waitress was at my elbow.

"A martini," Bucky said. "Stoli with a twist."

"Are you out of your mind?" I asked. "This is Little Five Points, not Buckhead."

"Wrong!" Bucky crowed. "Hap's got a martini menu going now. Cigars, too. Miranda finally talked him into it. Pretty uptown, huh? If I win that prize tonight, I'll buy us a couple of Macanudos."

"That's a Stoli with a twist," the waitress repeated. "What about you?"

"Another greenie," I said gloomily. "I can't take all this change. What's next? Clean bathrooms? Valet parking?"

"Lighten up, will you?" Bucky said. "They're having people get up on the bar for the contest. Let's go."

"You go," I said, taking the beer the waitress was offering me. "I want to see if I can find Wuvvy."

"Waste of time," Bucky said.

A moment later he was parading up and down the bar, in between the cross-dressing girls' softball team, a woman got up in a black leotard with purple balloons pinned all over her (The Grapes of Wrath), and a guy dressed in a white disposable paper zip-front coverall, his face, hands, and neck swathed in white bandages, dark gla.s.ses covering his eyes. He kept telling the judges he was a Chern.o.byl survivor, urging them to write anti-nuclear messages on his jumpsuit.

Bucky was the crowd's obvious favorite. They cheered and stomped every time he did one of his little Jackie moves. He would have won the money, too, if the biker b.i.t.c.h hadn't shown up at the last minute.

She came roaring up to the doorway of the Yacht Club on the back of a big black Harley Fatboy, sending spectators diving to get out of the way. The driver didn't get off, didn't remove his helmet or goggles. But his pa.s.senger did. She handed her helmet to the driver, shaking the long, oily blond hair over the shoulders of her black leather jacket. She strode over to the bar and pulled herself up onto it. She planted her black leather boots and with a single defiant gesture unzipped the jacket, writhing her shoulders and throwing her head back, so everybody could get a good look at the red and blue Harley-Davidson double eagle tattooed right across an amazingly ripe pair of bare b.r.e.a.s.t.s. They were Ds at the very least.

The place went nuts. Screams, catcalls, people reaching out to try to touch her. But there was more. She waited until the audience was in a fever pitch-the b.o.o.bs were that good-and then she took a silver whistle that had been hanging on a lanyard on her neck and let out a long shrill SHRREEEEE.

That got everybody's attention.

With Hap and Jackson Poole standing there, their tongues hanging out, the biker b.i.t.c.h hooked the thumb of her left hand onto the waistband of the skin-tight blue jeans, dragging them down, way down below her belly b.u.t.ton.

"Got something for you," the blonde announced. And with her right hand she unzipped the jeans, exposing what Bucky would later admit was her/his winning a.s.set.

A collective gasp went through the audience. "That ain't real," a guy next to me hastened to tell his girlfriend.

A second later, the b.i.t.c.h had zipped up. She tossed her hair again and got right in Hap's face. "Gimme the money," she demanded, holding out one hand.

Hap bent over double laughing, then conferred with Jackson Poole, who nodded his agreement. Miranda pulled a stack of twenties from her cleavage and counted them out into the biker b.i.t.c.h's hand. Another cheer went up.

"Thanks," the b.i.t.c.h said. Then she reached up and pulled off the long blond wig.

"Cheezer?" I looked around for Bucky, who'd taken off his own wig and pillbox hat and thrown them to the floor in a fit of pique. "It's Cheezer!" I said.

"Big f.u.c.king deal." Bucky sulked, draining his martini. "Anybody can show off fake t.i.ts."

I would have tried out some words of condolence then, except I was too awed by the coup my employee had just pulled off. Besides, at that moment I saw Wuvvy slipping toward the bar's rear exit.

"Wuvvy," I called, "wait. I want to talk to you."

She shrugged, shook her head impatiently, but she didn't leave.

"What now?" Up close, I could see what a wreck Wuvvy was. Her eyes were dull and bloodshot, her skin dried and tanned to the consistency of an old boot, hands and nails grimy.

"Isn't there anything anybody can do?" I asked. "Take up a collection, something like that?"

"Like what?" she said dully. "I'm f.u.c.ked. Even if they hadn't taken my store, everything's screwed up. It's like I can't get a break."

"What's been happening?"

She brushed a strand of hair out of her face. "Everything. G.o.dd.a.m.n shoplifters. I'm losing a hundred dollars a month in pilferage. Break-ins. Three times in the past six months. Last time they just took a sledgehammer and knocked a hole in the wall. Cleaned me out, tore the s.h.i.t out of my apartment, stole my CD player and microwave oven. h.e.l.l, I had a load of stuff stolen right off the UPS truck last month. My best suppliers, they cut off my credit. I got no stock to sell."

"Did you talk to the cops about the crime problem?"

"You're kiddin', right?"

"The Candler Park Commandos, I thought they'd gotten the cops to double manpower, start foot and bicycle patrols," I said. "I thought the merchants were a big part of that."

"Some people," she said sullenly, nodding her head in the direction of Hap and Miranda. "Not me. The cops f.u.c.kin' hate me. Especially that f.u.c.k-head Deavers. You know Deavers? Hangs around here all the time? Him and his cop buddies claim I'm selling drug paraphernalia. Just because I stock Grateful Dead s.h.i.t and rolling papers. Had a uniformed cop standing around outside for a week, stopping everybody who came out of here, asking them about drugs and s.h.i.t. It's hara.s.sment, but I can't do d.i.c.k about it."

"Bucky Deavers has been hara.s.sing you?"

I found that hard to believe. Bucky worked in Homicide, not Vice. Why would he be bothering somebody like Wuvvy? Although, come to think of it, I'd wondered about the racks of rolling papers and bongs and pipes YoYos sold. Wuvvy kept the stuff in plain view on a gla.s.s counter near the door. Other shops in L5P sold much more blatant merchandise geared toward drug use, but then they were head shops, where you expected to find that kind of stuff.

"f.u.c.kin' pigs," Wuvvy said. Her eyes were half shut, she was slurring her words, and she swayed as she talked. She was wrecked.

"You'll probably find another s.p.a.ce pretty quickly," I said, trying to sound upbeat. "What about the place up the block, where they sold crystals and incense? I saw they've shut down."

"You know what kind of rent they want? Fifty dollars a square foot. n.o.body in L5P can afford that kind of rent. n.o.body except Hap, maybe. And dear old Miranda. f.u.c.kin' greedheads."

Bedlam broke out again. It sounded like a jet engine had landed right on Euclid Avenue. The real source of the problem was that Cheezer and his escort had wheeled the Harley into the middle of the room and were busy revving the engine to the delighted screams of the captive audience.

I turned around to watch the show. When I turned back, Wuvvy was slipping out the back door. A woman I hadn't noticed before was right behind her. She hesitated, looked around, and then went out. Another refugee from the Buckhead fern bar scene, probably. She had carefully coiffed, light brown hair, a well-cut red business suit, heels, and chunky gold earrings that matched her thick gold necklace. A lawyer, I thought, or maybe an accountant.

4.

By the time I caught up with Bucky at the bar, the crowd had thinned out considerably. The amateurs had gone home to count their candy; now it was just us professional night-crawlers. Bucky was snout-deep in what I estimated was his fourth martini. His short blond hair was matted to his head from the discarded wig, his lipstick was smeared, and he was puffing away on a thick black cigar. He looked more like Aristotle Ona.s.sis than Jackie Kennedy.

Bucky was immersed in discussion with one of the members of the cross-dressing women's softball team. "Call that a costume?" Bucky raged, glancing in Cheezer's direction. "That ain't a costume. That's perversion."

The softball player nodded vigorously, absentmindedly shifting the fake b.r.e.a.s.t.s under his tight white jersey.

I ordered myself a Heineken and squeezed into a s.p.a.ce next to them. Bucky raised his martini gla.s.s in acknowledgment. "You know Callahan?" he asked the softball player. "She's s'posed to be Cher. She didn't win s.h.i.t, either."

"Hi," I said, extending my hand.

"I'm Chuck," he said, taking my hand in his. "I like your jacket."

"Thanks," I said, eyeing his costume. "I was just wondering about the b.o.o.bs, Chuck. They look pretty good. How'd you work out the nipples?"

"Yeah, how'd you do that?" Bucky demanded.

Chuck looked down at his chest like he'd forgotten about his newfound cleavage. "Oh yeah." He laughed. "That was my wife's idea. I used socks with golf tees. Pretty good, huh? Except the adhesive tape itches like crazy."

Bucky wasn't listening. He was watching somebody at the back of the room. "Look what the cat dragged back in," he said.

It was Wuvvy, making her way toward us, a swagger in her walk, a big grin pasted on her face.

Miranda and Hap had been standing at the back bar, their heads together, talking intently. They saw Wuvvy at about the same time I did.

"She's blitzed," I heard Miranda say. She started toward the other end of the bar. But Wuvvy intercepted her, catching her by the arm. "Where you goin', devil lady? The party's just startin'."

Miranda shook her off. "Go home, Wuvvy. You're drunk."

"d.a.m.n straight," Wuvvy said. She pulled a crumpled piece of paper from the pocket of her jeans and waved it under Miranda's nose.

"See this? It's a check. A check for three months' rent. And there's more where that came from. Where's that a.s.shole Poole? Tell him his deal's off. Wuvvy ain't goin' nowhere."

"Tell him yourself," Miranda said. Then she twitched off in a swirl of red satin.

Hap stood behind the beer pulls watching, his arms crossed over his chest, his face expressionless.

Wuvvy lurched over to where I was standing. "Hap!" she shouted, right in my ear. "Gimme a beer. Didya hear? I'm not moving after all!"

"That's good, Wuv," Hap said. "Where'd you get the money?"

Wuvvy looked down at the check, frowned, then stuffed it back in her jeans. "None of your G.o.dd.a.m.n business, Hap Rudabaugh. Just you get me a beer. And tell that Poole I wanna see him."

Hap looked from me to Bucky to Wuvvy and he shrugged. "Sorry, Wuvvy. Poole left fifteen minutes ago. I think he was meeting some work crews next door."

"Son of a b.i.t.c.h," Wuvvy roared.

She hurried off toward the front door.

"Hey, Hap!"

One of the bartenders was down at the end of the bar, pointing up at the wall-mounted television, which somebody had tuned in to the weather.

The guy on Channel 3 was hopping up and down, pointing at the Doppler radar map, which looked like it had a case of glowing green measles.

"They're saying the tornado's coming this way, Hap," the girl called out. "No s.h.i.t. A real tornado."

Hap hurried down to the opposite end of the bar and turned that television to Channel 6. He turned on the volume as high as it would go.

The Channel 6 weather guy had on a yellow rain slicker and was standing outside somewhere, hanging on to his yellow rain hat to keep it from blowing off in the sideways wind and rain.

"I'm live from East Point," he shouted into the camera. "A funnel cloud touched down here ten minutes ago, demolishing the East Point Pentecostal Church of G.o.d, injuring thirty teenagers who were attending a Halloween party here tonight. National Weather Service tracking devices report the storm system is moving north, packing heavy rain, golf ball-sized hail, and winds of up to eighty miles an hour."

Hap motioned for somebody to turn off the sound system. Then he climbed back up on the bar and turned the flashing blue light and sirens on again.

"Okay, everybody," he yelled. "Party's over. There's a tornado heading this way. We're closed. Right now."

Bucky tossed back the last of his martini. "Screw that. Let's go to Manuel's."

"Not me. I'm gone," I said. Even rock G.o.ddesses know when the party's over.

Edna met me in the driveway, flashlight in hand.

The wind was whistling Dixie now, bits of leaves and tree branches whipping past. She had to shout to make herself heard. "I was just coming to get you. That tornado's headed right this way."

"I know," I hollered, trying to herd her back toward the house. "I'm sorry I made you worry."