Clive busied himself closing up the bar. He kicked his ladder across the floor, smashing to pieces the pink Barbie castle that stood in the Kiddie Korner. His mood was as black as the outside night, if not darker. His brow was a tangled mass of knotted furrows. How could they all be so goddamned stupid? Were these idiots in possession of functioning brains, or what? Clearly not. No matter. After all these years, it was finally coming to a head. Joe was back. That meant basically one thing. The paradigm was going to shift; it could go this way, it could go that way – who could tell? It was if events had taken control of themselves and fate had cast itself to the wind. Someone needed to guide it.
He slowly opened the door to his secret cabinet, the one place he could call his own. As he withdrew his .44 Magnum Colt Anaconda he knew intuitively that things would not, could not, ever be the same after this. Dull metallic silver, the firearm was preternaturally heavy in his hand. It felt good, right. There was a score to be settled. Perhaps several, he wasn’t quite sure. There was so much happening at once – Rowena was the only one who understood the big picture. But she was out there, out on the web, he couldn’t talk to her. It was against the rules, wasn’t it? He felt miserably alone.
Having packed the piece in an old rag, he picked up the phone and began to dial. There was nothing for it. Fate had just gotten a direction. He had to get hold of . . .