I woke up, later that night, back in the hospital and just laid with my eyes shut, feeling the pain of my aching hand and aching shoulder. I felt the bed shift, like someone was there, and I slowly opened my eyes. So this is death? That's what I thought, anyways, for at the foot of my dead, perched like seraphim, sat Lucky Day. "Hey stranger," she spoke, and reached out to pat my leg. I couldn't trust myself to speak, so I sat there, numb from the neck up.

She looked at me, worried almost, then took a deep breath and tried to explain. "It's me, really me.... What? Should I start singing Tom Jones or something to prove it to you? It was a joke, Blake, well, not really a joke.... Not so much funny ha-ha as funny strange...and...shit...." she paused and looked out the window. "Okay, I fell for the Nancy Drew gig. This wasn't supposed to happen, Blake. It was supposed to be as easy as pie. Theet was on the inside, you know." she looked at me again, "And the roadie was too. And it was something bigger than you and I could have ever imagined. That roadie was scouting me out from the first night he was in the tavern. Theet tried to explain to me that night on the sidewalk, that's why I looked so scared, and he told me that if I followed the note he gave me, I'd get to see their contact on Condolezza's side of the action. The same roadie. The plan would be to use the bar as a central communication spot, and I could go-between for the two of them."

She could see the big "?" floating above my head near the IV pole, but she continued, lit by the streetlamps and the glow from the carnival across the park. "Theet and Condolezza go way back, you know that already." I nodded. "She's just a fruitcake who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Obannion figures the guy who shot you was rum-soaked as well, and he's currently in a cell downtown writing "I will not shoot people anymore" on the wall 500 times..." she smiled, that was nice.

"Anyway, Theet is helping the roadie, who isn't exactly a roadie, he's government-proper, to get dirt on AftehWhoom and his shady dealings with COVAPID and PepsiCo. He's been filtering money left and right, and he's been speeding up operations. They had reason to think he was going to make a last grab soon, and take off with Condolezza to set up house in Buenos Aires or something...Condolezza, she has no idea, about anything."

"Don't give me that look, Madison. I know what I did. Marshall, that's the roadie, he and I talked it out that afternoon. It would have to work perfectly. Obannion provided us with a body from the morgue, Cosmo agreed to give a statement, and Marshall rented us a limo. Easy as pie. The only one it had to fool was you. And why? Simple. You were on the wrong track, big time. Now you know that, but before, you never would have. And since then, talking with Sheri and Obannion, it's been as plain as day. We just didn't see it."

She was right, it all clicked as soon as I'd put my hand through that mirror. "So now what?" I asked "Afteh is history. After your little lightshow last night, he got nervous and tried to get Condolezza to skip town. She wasn't having any of it, the show must go on. He tried to leave without her, and they nailed him at the airport. They've got him for money-laundering, attempted murder, conspiracy, you name it, he's got it tattooed on his ass right about now."

"What about Pepsi then?" I asked, groaning as I tired to sit up, growing more curious by the minute. "I dunno, from what I understood from Theets and Marshall, at this point it would be like trying to hunt sharks with a paperclip and a rubberband. You could do it, but the chances of you coming out whole are pretty slim. Theet is willing to take that risk, but I'm not. I got out."

"So now what?" "Like I said, I got out. Lucky Lazarus, that's me. I told Billy that I was quitting, and to kiss my ass, well before I bit the big one. I've sub-let the apartment, Tracy's got my plants. I think I'm going somehwere. I've never been anywhere. I just want to see something, prove to myself that there is at least one tiny section of this world that isn't ruled by big money, y'know?" I knew.