to the first chair and
slipped into the high seat. His reflection in the mirror, strangely gray
in the dim light, made him groan. His clothes were a mess, and he needed
a shave. If only Brundage had been alive ...

He leaped out of the chair as voices sounded behind the door. Dawes was
kicking it open with his foot, his arms laden with two rather large
feet, still encased in bedroom slippers. Charlie was at the other end of
the burden, which appeared to be a middle-aged man in pajamas. The
Sheriff followed the trio up with a sad, undertaker expression. Behind
him came Mrs. Brundage, properly weeping.

"We'll take him to the funeral parlor," Dawes said, breathing hard.
"Weighs a ton, don't he?"

"What killed him?" Sol said.

"Heart attack."

The fat man chuckled.

The tableau was grisly. Sol looked away, towards the comfortingly
mundane atmosphere of the barber shop. But even the sight of the
thick-padded chairs, the shaving mugs on the wall, the neat rows of
cutting instruments, seemed grotesque and morbid.

"Listen," Sol said, as they went through the doorway. "About my car--"

The Sheriff turned and regarded him lugubriously. "Your _car_? Young
man, ain't you got no _respect_?"

Sol swallowed hard and fell silent. He went outside with them, the woman
slamming the barber-shop door behind him. He waited in front of the
building while the men toted away the corpse to some new destination.

* * * * *

He took a walk.

The town was just coming to life. People were strolling out of their
houses, commenting on the weather, chuckling amiably about local
affairs. Kids on bicycles were beginning to appear, jangling the little
bells and hooting to each other. A woman, hanging wash in the back yard,
called out to him, thinking he was somebody else.

He found a little park, no more than twenty yards in circumference,
centered around a weatherbeaten monument of some unrecognizable military
figure. Three old men took their places on the bench that circled the
General, and leaned on their canes.

Sol was a civil engineer. But he made like a reporter.

"Pardon me, sir." The old man, leathery-faced, with a fine yellow
moustache, looked at him dumbly. "Have you ever heard of Armagon?"

"You a stranger?"

"Yes."

"Thought so."

Sol repeated the question.

"Course I did. Been goin' there ever since I was a kid. Night-times,
that is."

"How--I mean, what kind of place is it?"

"