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trouble. We should cut our losses — we leave now, go full tilt, don’t run into any more trouble on the road, we can still make Jersey by nightfall.”
    “We’re here. We might as well scope out the place. And at the very least... sample the local wares.”
    “So, what do you think is gonna kill you first? Your liver crapping out or an OD?”
    “OD, if I have anything to say about it...” Rudy’s voice trailed off as the main drag emptied out into the city-state’s central square. His eyes lit up. “Thank you, karma.”
    The square was alive with activity, focused around a junk-sculpture fountain, dry and overgrown with weeds, and the dozen vendor stalls surrounding it. Beer vendors. Crowds milled around the stalls, most of them double-fisting jugs and mugs of beer, and lined up for more.
    Trip eased the Wound to the side of the square and twitched her into park. “Just great. I’m never gonna be able to drag you out of this town, am I?”
    “No,” Rudy said, reaching for the door latch, “no you are not.”
    Trip watched Rudy get out of the car, then shook his head, reaching up behind his ear to yank the patch cord from its socket with a SNICK . He let it go and it retracted back into the dash then leaned forward, groping under his seat to grab his .85 caliber three-shot elephant revolver in its fast-draw holder before getting out of the Wound himself.
    Strapping the holster on over his narrow hips, Trip walked around the front of the Wound to join Rudy, staring through the milling, rowdy crowd at the stalls and already salivating.
    “Want me to make a hole for you?” Trip slapped the holster’s massive, polished-to-gleaming “Big Rig” belt buckle shut. “Haven’t shot anything since dinner last night. I’m getting itchy.”
    “No need,” Rudy said. “This is obviously paradise.”
    “Huh?”
    “In paradise, they bring the beer to you.” Rudy nodded towards a smiling 13 year old redhead in Lederhosen adroitly skipping their way through the crowd, an overflowing mug of beer in each hand.
    “Welcome to Shunk, strangers,” she said with a broad, welcoming smile, holding the mugs out at them. “I’m Brenda. May I offer you a complimentary beer, courtesy of Stan’s Beer Stand, home of the best double-fried cockroach sandwiches you’ll ever bite in to?”
    “Why yes, yes you may,” Rudy said, taking a mug with both hands.
    Trip shook his head. “No thanks. Never drink the stuff.” He thumbed at Rudy. “Softens the mind. But the cooling system could use a top-off. How about we throw it in the radiator?”
    “Okey dokey, then, sir!”
    “Philistine!” Rudy yelped, grabbing the second mug from out of the girl’s hand before she had a chance to pull it away. He gulped the first one down, then started in on the second, his eyes darting back and forth, worried someone was going to steal it from him while he drank.
    Trip sighed, embarrassed for Rudy. “So, kid... Where’s the outhouse that passes for a bank around here? We’ve got some valuables we’d like to keep safe while we’re here.”
    Brenda stared up at him with bright blue eyes. “Bank? I don’t think we have a bank...”
    “Of course you don’t.” Trip scowled at Rudy. “Last time I let your addictions pick a target. Finish that — we’re going to Jersey.”
    Brenda continued, “...we just keep all the money and stuff in the warehouse.”
    “Warehouse?” Trip and Rudy asked simultaneously.
    Brenda pointed past the fountain in the direction of the brewery and its smoke-billowing stacks. “Yep. The beer warehouse.”
    Rudy leaned closer to Trip, lowered his voice. “Sounds to me like we could pull another Reno here.”
    “Don’t get your hopes up.” Trip smiled down at Brenda. “So, they ever let people park in this warehouse?”
     

     
    “You see anything that could possibly be a vault?” Trip asked as a worker with a mohawk and tribal-tattoos, wearing grimy coveralls, guided the Wound to the empty center of