Free Signwave by Andrew Vachss

books, or the artist studios that don’t sell enough to pay the rent.”
    “But even those, they depend on tourists?”
    “Sure. That’s why they brought Mack out here. In fact, he’s a perfect example: The liberals say ‘homeless’ like it’s somesacred status, and the conservatives say it like they’re all a bunch of bums too lazy to work. Mack keeps track of them. The homeless. So he’s helping them
and
keeping them from making a scene outside any of the businesses at the same time. That pretty much sums up this place.”
    “So you don’t need money to get into politics?”
    “You need
some
money. Not much. Not unless you have an opponent, and most of the time, you don’t. That’s where the money comes in—making sure everyone knows who
their
candidate is. No point putting your own money against much bigger money.”
    “So why would he say you shouldn’t be running around half cocked?”
    “Who?”
    “Benton, Dolly,” I said, very patiently. I was calm and soft-voiced, but my wife knows me better than anyone.
    “Oh! I don’t know, actually. I mean, it was no secret that some corporation was buying up that whole strip of worthless land. Like I said, it was in—”
    “Right. And you wanted to know—?”
    “Those are
public
records, Dell. It isn’t like this corporation was trying to cover its tracks, anyway. The only thing people are wondering about it is
why
. And that’s just gossip, not some…investigation.”
    “Not like whatever you and those girls have tacked up all over the place, then?”
    “Dell, it’s nothing.”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “You don’t believe me!” she said, putting that little pout on her face that she knew always worked with me.
    I pulled her onto my lap, put my arm around her, said words I know she loves to hear.
    But I
didn’t
believe her, not for a second.
    —
    R ascal made a little growling sound.
    Dolly hopped off my lap, just in time to open the back door for three girls. I knew there would be more of them on their way, so I went downstairs.
    Buying up a tract of worthless land didn’t make sense. It couldn’t be what was underneath it, like that patch of dirt calling itself the Central African Republic where Hutu
génocidaires
might find more hospitality than in the Congo—provided they picked the winning side.
    But I knew the Darkville Rules: When it comes to land, there’s no such thing as “worthless,” it’s only a question of what it’s worth to take it. Or keep it.
    And whoever was buying up all the land knew that not hiding himself was a good way to hide his objective. A Judas goat never gets to make up his
own
mind, so you couldn’t call him a traitor. But the trick worked just the same.
    I spent a lot of time thinking about that.
    I knew there were ways for any Web site to collect information about anyone who clicked on it. Not a lot of information, probably. But maybe enough to finger Dolly as the instigator, working backward to the source. Maybe this was how Benton had known Dolly and her crew were poking around. Only I couldn’t see why
Undercurrents
would be cooperating with anyone seeking
their
sources.
    Was he just guessing? Or carpet bombing, covering all the possibilities? Dolly said he hadn’t really warned her off. He was just being friendly, asking her to get all the facts before she made up her mind.
    I didn’t believe that, either.
    —
    “T here’s a way to tell if a hedge fund is open to the public?”
    “Sure,” the lawyer answered. “Take me a minute.”
    Ever since he’d won an acquittal for MaryLou in a trial that had all the elements for national news coverage—“Star Softball Pitcher in School Shooting!”—Bradley L. Swift occupied the top spot on the statewide criminal defense pyramid.
    It had been an unwinnable case: MaryLou walked up to the high school’s heartthrob, shot him in the head, put down the pistol, and sat there waiting for the cops. But Swift had proved the “victim” had been the leader of a