Anyway, I decided that my first order of business should be to get to the Custer Hill Club and see what, if anything, Madox was up to. If I needed more ammo, I knew Madox had plenty of guns lying around.

I began driving, and I turned on the radio and listened to a talk show in French, live from Quebec.

I had no idea what they were saying, but everyone seemed really worked up about something, and I could pick out the words "Iraq," "America," "Bush," and "Hussein."

The melodious French language was giving me a headache, so I scanned the channels, trying to find a news channel that might mention the hunting accident, but all I got were DJs and local commercials. I locked in to a country-western station, and Hank Williams was wailing "Your Cheatin' Heart." Why I like this music is a mystery to me and a secret I don't share with many people.

The weather was still good, and the country road was decent and lightly traveled, so I was making good time.

I opened the Ring Dings and sharked the first one, then savored the second. Truly an exploration of chocolate.

I noodled while I drove and listened to Hank singing "Hey, Good Lookin'."

First, Kate was safe enough back in Wilma's B&B if she didn't get an attack of duty, honor, and country, and call Walsh or Griffith.

Ms. Mayfield is a bit more savvy than she seems, and I hoped that she was in her post-9/11 mind-set, and understood that something very odd was going on in New York and Washington, and that she shouldn't be calling anyone about that.

Second, the last time I checked with Major Schaeffer, he was on our side. But that could change very quickly. Or maybe he never really was on our side. If a state trooper pulled me over in my Enterprise rental car, I'd have the answer to that before I got to the Custer Hill Club.

Third, Tom Walsh. He really wasn't clued in to whatever was going on, and now he was probably in trouble for sending the absolutely most wrong agents up here to work the case of the missing Harry Muller. Well, if he was in deep shit, he got what he deserved. On the other hand, he'd originally wanted me here in place of Harry. What was that all about?

Fourth, Liam Griffith, the Enforcer. I recalled that he was a friend of my enemy, the happily departed Ted Nash, CIA officer, so, as the Arabs would say, Any friend of my enemy is my enemy. Especially if they're both assholes. I needed to avoid this guy until I had the power to take him down.

And last but not least, Mr. Bain Madox, who had apparently once tried to start a thermonuclear war to see how it turned out. I mean, this was so far off the chart that I had trouble grasping it. But all the little pieces that I'd seen for myself, including meeting the gentleman, seemed to point in that direction. I thought maybe Madox had watched too many James Bond movies during his formative years, and related too well to the sicko villains.

Bain Madox, however, was not some movie bad guy with a foreign accent; he was an all-American boy, a war hero, and a success story. Sort of like Horatio Alger with a thermonuclear death wish.

But as my therapist would say, if I had one, "John, the thermonuclear-war thing is in the past, and we need to move on." Right. The problem now was to figure out what Bain was doing in that big house to turn his past failure into success.

I got off the back road at Colton, headed south on 56, and entered the sleepy hamlet of South Colton. And there was Ratso Rudy chewing the fat with some guy in a pickup truck.

I couldn't resist, so I pulled into the station. "Hey, Rudy!"

He saw me and ambled over to the car. I said, "I'm lost again."

"Yeah? Hey, how you doin'?" He observed, "You got a new car."

"No, this is the same one."

"You sure? You had a Taurus yesterday."

"I did? Hey, did you see Mr. Madox last night?"

"Well, yeah, I wanted to talk to you about that. He didn't want to see me."

"He told me he did."

"You sure?"

"That's what he said." I added, "Sorry about telling him you said I should get the money up front."

"Yeah ... I tried to explain that to him, but he thought that was funny for some reason."

"Yeah? What else did he say?"

"Well ... he said you was pulling my leg. He said you was a wise guy. And a troublemaker."

"Me? Is that the thanks I get for fixing his ice maker?"

"He said there was nothing wrong with his ice maker."

"Who are you going to believe? Me or him?"

"Well ... it don't matter."

"The truth matters." I asked, "Does he still have houseguests?"

Rudy shrugged. "Didn't see nobody. But there was a car out front of his house, and I thought it was you. Blue Taurus."

"I have a white Hyundai."

"Yeah, now you do. But yesterday you had a blue Taurus."

"Right. Hey, did anybody from Madox's place stop in for gas today?"

"Nope. You need gas?"

"No, this thing burns rice wine. Did anybody stop here and ask you for directions to his place?"

"Nope ... Well, a guy came in from Potsdam, and wanted to check my map."

"Why?"

"He had these directions to the Custer Hill place, and he wanted to check them out. I told him he wasn't going to find it on my wall map, so I checked his directions and gave him some landmarks to look for."

There are different ways to ask nosy questions, and I inquired, "Was he a tall, thin guy with a handlebar mustache, driving a red Corvette?"

"No, he was a repair guy from Potsdam Diesel."

This caught me by surprise, and I was nearly at a loss for words. "Oh ... right. Charlie from Potsdam Diesel. The generator guy."

"Yeah. But I think his name was Al ... Yeah. This is the time of year you need to get the generator checked. Last November ... maybe December, we got this ice storm out of nowhere. Lines down all over the-"

"Right ... so, is Al still there?"

"Don't know. That was maybe a hour ago. Didn't see him go by. Why? You lookin' for this guy?"

"No ... just ..."