Strong stood inside the phone booth--the kind that always seems to have been designed by someone a foot shorter and fifty pounds lighter than its current occupant--at the station and listened.

"Yeah, Mr. Strong. The Onett Motor Lodge. Sorry, it was the best I could do on short notice. They're AAA, if it's any consolation."

"That's all right, Sophie, I can't imagine it gets any classier than that. How far off is it from Lexington's house?"

"I called Information, but--oh, I was so embarrassed, they thought I wanted the guy's autograph. But anyway, you know Jim, the one that pushes the mail cart around?"

"The one that's got a thing for you?"

"Yeah. I mean, I think he’s just being nice, I don’t want to sound conceited or anything--but the one you think has a thing for me. He's got family in Onett, apparently, so he tells me that Lexington lives way up on a hill in the middle of nowhere. I mean, even further than Onett out in nowhere. A little eccentric, I guess."

"That kid Jim'd tell you the nuclear ignition codes, if he had them."

"Hey, he's kind of cute. Just not my type."

"Right. They just called for boarding, so I've gotta go. Thanks."

"Good luck."

"Yeah, thanks. If anything important comes up wire me at the motel, I'm sure there's at least a Pony Express station out there somewhere."

The bus to Onett--no train tracks out that far, and no budget for it even if there were--was stocked with more hayseeds than a horse's gut. Alden, wearing his usual gray suit, his hat over his eyes, stood out as he took a window seat near the back. He had just gotten his newspaper unfolded to the box scores, no easy task, when the man in the seat next to him drawled: "Fourside's a lovely place. I take it you live there, I mean?"

"Hm?" Alden continued meaningfully to peruse the box scores, but his travel companion took fewer hints than the last Czar.

"Well, mostly this route takes people back to Onett from Fourside. But you're a little classed up for that, right? I mean--"

"Yeah." Alden folded his newspaper with tense, quick hands and found that the man addressing him was as close to him as you can get in public without being married. Strong pushed himself as far into the window as he could and continued: "Heading over there on business."

"What kind? I do a little business, but you can tell that by the suit." Seersucker. "You and me, we're a little past these unambitious types. A sort of, ah, you know. Style."

"Right. Your style speaks louder than you do, which is no mean feat."

"Thanks. You know, I like you. You're a classy guy. I was just in Fourside getting a bite of a big shipment of discount radios. Fell off the truck, if you catch my drift."

"Ah, right? I like you, too--Alden Strong's the name. I'm in the law enforcement racket." Without any hesitation Alden pulled hard on the man's seersucker jacket; he had guessed right, and instead of fleeing as planned the businessman found himself as close as one can get to a G-Man without being arrested. "You want to know how I can still like you, and you can still like me, and things can still be all lovey-dovey?"

"Well, I'm willing to, ah, explore all options. Let's look at this pragmatic-like, one businessman to another."

"Sounds fine. Now, you're going to--"

"I hear you're looking for somebody."

Strong raised an eyebrow. "I might be." In the meantime he had exchanged his grip on the man's jacket for a stronger one on his shirt-collar.

"Oh, you are. That girla yours talks loud on the phone, and you oughtta be more careful about closing the booth at the station."

"Go on."

"Sounds like a cute kid, by the way. Who gets the fringe benefits, you or her?" Strong tightened his grip just enough to be noticeable. "Christ, man, just--all right, all right. Well, here's the thing: you aren't the only person looking for this guy. That's all I know."

"That so?"

"Come now, would I give you the runaround? A businessman to a businessman. Now, if you'll excuse me, a window seat far, far away appears to have opened up." Strong let him go.

"Hey, businessman--you dropped your wallet."

"Thanks, thanks. For a cop, you ain't so bad." Strong flipped the man his wallet, and deposited his ex-neighbor's driver's license safely into his pocket for future reference.

Alden never left the city, if he could swing it; it's not that there's nothing interesting outside of Fourside, but an appreciation of things quaint and slow-paced had never developed in him. Aside from agency business, he hadn't been as far out as he was now, halfway between Onett and Fourside, since he was sent to his Grandma's house in Twoson every summer as a boy.

The bus lurched forward, overcrowded and hot and smelling like someone had dropped a particularly pungent sandwich filling-out onto the floor on an earlier route, no matter how many windows they opened. Strong, having long ago disabused himself of any far-away notions of getting through the newspaper in the din, had leaned back as far as he could and was in that strange place between consciousness and sleep when the bus came to a sudden, jarring stop. He rubbed at his eyes with his handkerchief for a moment, and then looked outside. They were in Threed--too many buildings for a village like Onett, and even a city dweller like Strong noticed the town's ever-present Autumnal luster.

There was silence for a moment, as it began to occur to the passengers that something out of the ordinary was happening. The engine was cut off, and the only noise was the slow buildup of perfect strangers whispering innuendo and guesses and theories to one-another. Windows began to close, carefully, casually.

There was a squealing bit of feedback as the bus driver turned on the public address. "Just some technical difficulties, folks. We'd be much obliged if you’d have a seat and remain calm while we work them out." That was Alden's cue to stand up.

The woman in the aisle across from him, a stocky type in a plaid frock that could only have come from Onett, asked him what he was doing. "Just stretching my legs, ma'am. Not used to all this standing around, you know?"

She was about to agree, and had ramped herself into a jocular tone to do it, but she was interrupted when the loudspeaker howled once more. "Will Alden Strong please join the driver in the front of the cabin? Alden Strong, please come to the front."

The woman, as skilled a small-talker as one could possibly hope to find, was about to begin again, but when she turned around Strong was gone. Were her arthritis not acting up at that very moment, she would have turned a little further and seen him leap out the bus's rear window and then, agitated, reach back over the top to retrieve his hat.

He broke into a dead run away from the bus, not sure what it was he was running from but knowing he had to. When he had finally gotten enough distance to chance a look around, he could make out only several men--in some sort of uniform, it looked like--surrounding the vehicle. Having seen enough, he continued his dash and ducked into the first building he reached.

He charged past the receptionist, panting something or another about a federal agent, and once again chose a door to burst through primarily on proximity. It was an office, or a dressing room, or something, but it was the telephone with which he was most concerned. He grabbed it from the wall. "Operator? Oper--hi. Alden Strong's offices in Fourside, please. Fast as possible."

Fast as possible meant the usual delay. Finally: "Sophie? Sophie, 'tsme, yeah. No, I'm in Threed. They stopped the bus. Yeah, stopped it. I don’t know who they are, either, I'm gonna--"

"Boss? Boss? Mr. Strong?" Sophie's voice, tinny and quiet, came out of the ancient handset right before the handset came out of the wall, separated by a flash of light like out of the muzzle of a big gun. Strong turned around to find a small, gangly man with wild eyes staring him down, but before he could get his gun up the man bounded away.

Strong stood holding the severed handset for a few seconds.