"My guiltiest pleasure is Harry Stephen Keeler. He may been the greatest bad writer America has ever produced. Or perhaps the worst great writer. I do not know. There are few faults you can accuse him of that he is not guilty of. But I love him." — Neil Gaiman

Who are those six mysterious figures that are looming outside the owner's trailer of Angus MacWhorter's Mammoth Motorized Shows? And why would they want the copy of a pulp magazine that he bought for ten cents? The answers have something to do with a gangster, the tong of the Lean Grey Rats, and a group calling itself the Society of Retired Clergymen.