Callahan's Con
Spider RobinsonFor ten slow, merry years, life was good. The sun shone, the coffee dripped, the breeze blew just strongly enough to dissipate the smell of the puns, and little supergenius Erin grew to the verge of adolescence. Then disaster struck. Through the gate one sunny day came a malevolent, moronic mastodon of a Mafioso named Tony Donuts Jr., or Little Nuts (don’t ask). He’d decided to resurrect the classic protection racket in Key West—and guess which tavern he picked to hit first? Then, thanks to very poor accessorizing (she chose the wrong belt—and no, we’re not going to explain that one), Jake’s wife, Zoey, suddenly found herself in a place with no light, no heat, and no air. And no way home. The urgent question was where—precisely where—but that turned out to be a problem so complex that even the entire gang, equipped with teleportation, time travel, and telepathic syntony (you can look it up), might not be able to crack it in time. And while all this was going on, Death himself walked into The Place. But, this time he would not leave alone……