sometimes tossing one up under his arm and yelling 'Hoy!' each time he did it.
  An elderly man wearing Oshkosh bib overalls and a checked shirt began handing out 
fliers. The lovely young woman who had caught the bowling pins and tossed out the Indian 
clubs now jumped lightly down from the van's doorway with an easel. She set it up and 
Halleck thought: She is going to exhibit bad seascapes and perhaps some pictures of 
President Kennedy. But instead of a painting, she propped a bull's eye target on the 
easel. Someone from inside the van tossed her a slingshot.
  'Gina!' the boy juggling the Indian clubs yelled. He grinned broadly, revealing the 
absence of several front teeth. Linda sat down abruptly. Her concept of masculine beauty 
had been formed by a lifetime of network TV, and the young man's handsomeness had been 
spoiled for her. Heidi stopped fiddling with the collar of her cardigan.
  The girl flipped the slingshot to the boy. He dropped one of the clubs and began to 
juggle the slingshot in its place. Halleck remembered thinking That must be almost 
impossible. The boy did it two or three times, then flipped the slingshot back to her and 
somehow managed to pick up the club he had dropped while keeping the others in the air. 
There was scattered applause. Some of the locals were smiling - Billy himself was - but 
most of them looked wary.
  The girl stepped away from the target on the easel, produced some ball bearings from 
her breast pocket, and shot three quick bull's-eyes - plop, plop, plop. Soon she was 
surrounded by boys (and a few girls) clamoring for a turn. She lined them up, organizing 
them as quickly and efficiently as a nursery-school teacher prepares pupils for the 10:15 
bathroom break. Two teenage Gypsy boys of approximately Linda's age popped out of an old 
LTD station wagon and began to scruff the spent ammunition out of the grass. They were 
alike as two peas m a pod, obviously identical twins. One wore a gold hoop in his left 
ear; his brother wore the mate in his right. Is that how their mother tells them apart? 
Billy thought.
  No one was selling anything. Quite carefully, quite obviously, no one was selling 
anything. There was no Madame Azonka telling the tarot.
  Nevertheless, a Fairview police car arrived soon enough, and two cops stepped out. One 
was Hopley, the chief of police, a roughly handsome man of about forty. Some of the 
action stopped, and more mothers took the opportunity the lull afforded to recapture 
their fascinated children and bear them away. Some of the older ones protested, and 
Halleck observed that some of the younger ones were in tears.
  Hopley began discussing the facts of life with the Gypsy who had been doing the 
juggling act (his Indian clubs, painted in jaunty red and blue stripes, were now 
scattered around his feet) and the older Gypsy in the Oshkosh biballs. Oshkosh said 
something. Hopley shook his head. Then the juggler said something and began to 
gesticulate. As the juggler spoke, he moved closer to the patrolman who had accompanied 
Hopley. Now the tableau began to remind Halleck of something, and after a moment it came. 
It was like watching baseball players argue with the umps over a close call in a game.
  Oshkosh put a hand on Juggler's arm, pulling him back a step or two, and that enhanced 
the impression - the manager trying to keep the young hothead from getting the boot. The 
young man said something more. Hopley shook his head again. The young man began to shout, 
but the wind was wrong and Billy got only sounds, no words.
  'What's happening, Mom?' Linda asked, frankly fascinated.
  'Nothing, dear,' Heidi said. Suddenly she was busy wrapping things. 'Are you done 
eating?'
  'Yes, please. Daddy, what's going on?'
  For a moment it was on the tip of his tongue to say, You're watching a classic scene, 
Linda. It's right up there with the Rape of the Sabine Women. This one is called the 
Rousting of the Undesirables. But Heidi's eyes were on his face, her mouth was tight, and 
she obviously felt this was not a time for misplaced levity. 'Not much,' he said. 'A 
little difference of opinion.'
  In truth, not much was the truth - no dogs were unleashed, there were no Swinging billy 
clubs, no Black Maria pulled up to the edge of the common. In an almost theatrical act of 
defiance, Juggler shook off Oshkosh's grip, picked up his Indian clubs, and began to 
juggle them again. Anger had screwed up his reflexes, however, and now it was a poor 
show. Two of them fell to the ground almost at once. One struck his foot and some kid 
laughed.
  Hopley's partner moved forward impatiently. Hopley, not put out of countenance at all, 
restrained him much as Oshkosh had restrained Juggler. Hopley leaned back against an elm 
tree with his thumbs hooked into his wide belt, looking at nothing in particular. He said 
something to the other cop, and the patrolman produced a notebook from his hip pocket. He 
wet the ball of his thumb, opened the book, and strolled to the nearest car, a converted 
Cadillac hearse of early-sixties vintage. He began writing it up. He did this with great 
ostentation. When he had finished, he moved on to the VW microbus.
  Oshkosh approached Hopley and began to speak urgently. Hopley shrugged and looked away. 
The patrolman moved on to an old Ford sedan. Oshkosh left Hopley and went to the young 
man. He spoke earnestly, his hands moving in the warm spring air. For Billy Halleck the 
scene was losing whatever small interest it had held for him. He was beginning not to see 
the Gypsies, who had made the mistake of stopping in Fairview on their way from Hoot to 
Holler.
  Juggler abruptly turned and went back to the microbus, simply allowing his remaining 
Indian clubs to drop onto the grass (the microbus had been parked behind the pickup with 
the woman and the unicorn painted on the homemade camper cap). Oshkosh bent to retrieve 
them speaking anxiously to Hopley as he did so. Hopley shrugged again, and although Billy 
Halleck was in no way telepathic, he knew Hopley was enjoying this as well as he knew 
that he and Heidi and Linda would be having leftovers for supper.
  The young woman who had been shooting ball bearings at the target tried to speak to 
Juggler, but he brushed by her angrily and stepped into the microbus. She stood for a 
moment looking at Oshkosh, whose arms were full of Indian clubs, and then she also went 
into the bus. Halleck could erase the others from his field of perception, but for a 
moment she was impossible not to see. Her hair was long and naturally wavy, not bound in 
any way. It fell to below her shoulder blades in a black, almost barbarous flood. Her 
print blouse and modestly kick-pleated skirt might have come from Sears or J. C. 
Penney's, but her body was exotic as that of some rare cat - a panther, a cheetah, a snow 
leopard. As she stepped into the van the pleat at the back of her skirt shifted for a 
moment and he saw the lovely line of her inner thigh. In that moment he wanted her 
utterly, and he saw himself on top of her in the blackest hour of the night. And that 
want felt very old. He looked back at Heidi and now her lips were pressed together so 
tightly they were white. Her eyes like dull coins. She had not seen his look, but she had 
seen the shift in the kick pleat, what it revealed, and understood it perfectly.
  The cop with the notebook stood watching until the girl was gone. Then he closed his 
notebook, put it back in his pocket, and rejoined Hopley. The Gypsy women were shooing 
their children back to the caravan. Oshkosh, his arms full of Indian clubs, approached 
Hopley again and said something. Hopley shook his head with finality.
  And that was it.
  A second Fairview police cruiser pulled up, its flashers turning lazily. Oshkosh 
glanced at it, then glanced around at the Fairview town common with its expensive 
safetytested playground equipment and its band shell. Streamers of crepe still fluttered