Death Takes a Honeymoon by DEBORAH DONNELLY Page B

different view on that point, I kept it to myself. But at least my blood was back where it belonged. “The wedding plans sound spectacular. I think I’ll be helping out a little, but I’ll have to talk with Cissy about that—”
    “I knew it, I knew it, she’s hitting on the groom!” B.J. was back, her tears scrubbed away and a manic note in her voice. “Girl, I can’t leave you alone for a minute, can I? What’s Tracy going to say?”
    Jack rose at her approach. Back in the Muffy summer they had charmed me to pieces, these old-fashioned courtesies from lean, laconic Jack the Knack. B.J., less easily charmed, stayed standing and aimed a playful punch at his middle.
    “You two taking up where you left off? Where
is
Tracy, anyway?”
    Jack was unfazed. “Still in Portland. Gets back in the morning. How you doing, B.J.?”
    “I’m fine, Jack.” She fumbled for her wallet and dropped some bills on the table. “My treat. Hey, let’s get over to the bar. They’re starting the Talent Show!”
    “Talent Show?” I had a momentary vision of karaoke, or worse, but B.J. bounded away before I could ask. As we followed her toward the boisterous crowd at the other end of the room, she sent me a look over her shoulder that said the rest of our conversation about Brian Thiel was going to come later—if it came at all.
    “The Talent Show’s a jumper thing, started last season.” Jack grabbed a couple of beers from a passing tray and handed me one. I noticed the friendly wink he gave the young waitress, and the flustered smile she offered in return. The notorious Knack was still operational. “The Tyke takes on a guy at arm wrestling, and if he loses he has to perform. Watch.”
    Everyone in the place was watching, gathered in a tight, shifting semicircle around two stools at the bar. On one of them sat a woman in her twenties, stocky and suntanned in shorts and flip-flops, with a honey-brown ponytail pulled through the back of her red baseball cap. Her turned-up nose might have been cutesy on someone else, but on that broad-boned Nordic countenance it just looked cocky, ready for a fight. Her legs were muscled like a marathoner’s, and her biceps were fit for a Nautilus ad.
    Suddenly I felt pale and stringy, like spaghetti.
    The Tyke said something to the brawny fellow on the second stool, and he nodded his blond crew-cut head. I couldn’t see his face, but he was obviously another firefighter: the back of his T-shirt read “You Can’t Send Us To Hell, We’d Put It Out!”
    Slowly, deliberately, the two of them planted their right elbows on the bar, then locked fists. The crowd bellowed.
    “Who’s the challenger?” I asked Jack.
    “Todd Gibson. We call him Odd Todd. He’s a Ned.”
    Decades ago, “Ned Newboy” was the nickname for a firstseason smoke jumper, and the “Ned” part stuck around as another word for “rookie.” A second-year jumper was a “Sned” or a “Snookie.” These guys loved nicknames.
    It occurred to me that the Tyke and Odd Todd were two of the jumpers who found Brian’s body. I looked around for the third, Danny Kane, but couldn’t spot him.
    “Tyke, Tyke, Tyke!” the crowd began chanting, with an occasional cry of “Yo, Toddy!”
    The wrestlers’ fists were trembling, but still upright. Seconds passed. The Tyke bared small, even teeth, and her opponent’s arm inched back and downward ever so slightly. I found myself gulping beer just to break the tension.
    Abruptly the Tyke grunted low in her throat, Todd’s shoulders twisted in defeat, and his knuckles smacked the surface of the bar with a sound that was drowned by a new chant and a chorus of shouts.
    “Talent Show, Talent Show, Talent Show!”
    “Sing a song, Toddy!”
    “No, dancing!”
    “Yeah, belly dancing!”
    But Todd, nursing his arm with a good-natured groan, deferred to the victor. The Tyke, it seemed, was the only one who could pronounce the loser’s penalty. She hiked herself up to sit triumphantly on