Lester wouldn't work the ride anymore, so Perry took it on his own. Hilda was in town buying groceries -- his chest-freezer of gourmet surplus food had blown its compressor and the contents had spoiled in a mess of venison and sour blueberry sauce and duck pancakes -- and he stood alone. Normally he loved this, being the carnival barker at the middle of the three-ring circus of fans, tourists and hawkers, but today his cast itched, he hadn't slept enough, and there were lawyers chasing him. Lots of lawyers. A caravan of cars pulled into the lot like a Tim Burton version of a funeral, a long train of funnycar hearses with jacked-up rear wheels and leaning chimney-pots, gargoyles and black bunting with super-bright black-light LEDs giving them a commercially eldritch glow. Mixed in were some straight cars, and they came and came and came, car on car. The hawkers got out more stuff, spread it out further, and waited while the caravan maneuvered itself into parking spots, spilling out into the street. Riders got out of the cars, mostly super-skinny goths -- a line of special low-calorie vegan versions of Victorian organ-meat delicacies had turned a mom-and-pop cafe in Portland, Oregon, into a Fortune 500 company a few years before -- in elaborate DIY costumery. It shimmered darkly, petticoats and toppers, bodices and big stompy boots and trousers cut off in ribbons at the knees. The riders converged on one of the straight cars, a beige mini-van, and crowded around it. A moment later, they were moving toward Perry's ticket-taking stand. The crowd parted as they approached and in Perry saw whom they'd been clustered around. It was a skinny goth kid in a wheelchair like the ones they kept in the ride -- they'd get that every now and again, a guest in his own chair, just needing a little wireless +1/-1 box. His hair was shaggy and black with green highlights, stuck out like an anime cosplayer's. He was white as Wonder Bread, with something funny about his mouth. His legs were in casts that had been wrapped with black gauze, and a pair of black pointy shoes had been slid over his toes, tipped with elaborate silver curlicues. The chair zipped forward and Perry recognized him in a flash: Death Waits! He felt his mouth drop open and he shut it and came around the stand. "No way!" he said, and grabbed Death's hand, encrusted in chunky silver jewelry, a different stylized animal skull on each finger. Death's ruined mouth pulled up in a kind of smile. "Nice to see you," he said, limply squeezing Perry's hand. "It was very kind of you to visit me in the hospital." Perry thought of all the things that had happened since then and wondered how much of it, if any, Death had a right to know about. He leaned in close, conscious of all the observers. "I'm out of the lawsuit. We are. Me and Lester. Fired those guys." Behind his reflective contacts, Death's eyes widened a touch. He slumped a little. "Because of me?"