‘Points’ by Lawrence Block. First published in Enough Rope (William Morrow, New York, 2002). © Lawrence Block. Reprinted by permission of the author.

‘The Resurrection of Bobo Jones’ by Bill Moody. First published in B flat, Bebop, Scat: Jazz Short Stories & Poems, edited by Chris Parker (Quartet Books, London, 1986). Reprinted by permission of the author.

A version of ‘Like an Arrangement’ by Bill James appears in the novel The Girl With the Long Back (Constable, London, 2003). Reprinted by permission of the author.

It began with a simple enough idea: a book which would collect together stories by those writers in the crime and mystery area whose work I respect, admire and enjoy most. Simple? Well, no.

For one thing, the choice would be too vast, the book too large. But then, unbidden, the title leapt to mind: Men from Boys. And once it was there, lodged in my brain, it wouldn’t leave. It was — it is — a kind of statement, a declaration, but also, and crucially, it provided a focus and a theme.

It also had the effect of cutting the number of writers I might have approached by half. No McDermid, no Fyfield, no Stella Duffy; no Grafton, no Paretsky, no Julie Smith. No Alice Sebold. No Suzanne Berne.

Just men.

Men writing, for the most part, about what it is to be a man.

To succeed; to fail. To open one’s eyes.

He was always Vincent at home.

At school there were a few boys who called him ‘Vince’, and ‘Vinny’ was yelled more often than not across the playground, but his mother and father never shortened his name and neither did his brothers and sisters whose own names, in turn, were also spoken in full.

‘Vincent’ around the house then, and at family functions. The second syllable given equal weight with the first by the heavy accent of the elder members. Not swallowed. Rhyming with ‘went’.

Vincent was not really bothered what names people chose to use, but there were some things it was never pleasant to be called.

‘Coon!’

‘Fucking coon...’

‘Black coon. Fucking black bastard...’

He had rounded the corner and stepped into the passageway to find them waiting for him. Like turds in long grass. A trio of them in Timberland and Tommy Hilfiger. Not shouting, but simply speaking casually. Saying what they saw. Big car. Hairy dog. Fucking black bastard...

Vincent stopped, caught his breath, took it all in.

Two were tallish — one abnormally thin, the other shaven-headed — and both cradling cans of expensive lager. The third was shorter and wore a baseball cap, the peak bent and pulled down low. He took a swig of Smirnoff Ice, then began to bounce on the balls of his feet, swinging the frosted glass bottle between thumb and forefinger.

‘What you staring at, you sooty cunt?’

Vincent reckoned they were fifteen or so. Year eleven boys. The skinny one was maybe not even that, but all of them were a little younger than he was.

From somewhere a few streets away came the noise of singing, tuneless and incoherent, the phrases swinging like bludgeons. Quick as a flash, the arms of the taller boys were in the air, lager cans clutched in pale fists, faces taut with blind passion as they joined in the song.

‘No one likes us, no one likes us, no one likes us, we don’t care...’

The smaller boy looked at Vincent and shouted above the noise, ‘Well?’

It was nearly six o’clock and starting to get dark. The match had finished over an hour ago but Vincent had guessed there might still be a few lads knocking about. He’d seen a couple outside the newsagent as he’d walked down the ramp from the tube station. Blowing onto bags of chips. Tits and guts moving beneath their thin, replica shirts. The away fans were long gone and most of the home supporters were already indoors, but there were others, most who’d already forgotten the score, who still wandered the streets, singing and drinking. Waiting in groups, a radio tuned to 5 Live. Standing in lines on low walls, the half-time shitburgers turning to acid in their stomachs, looking around for it...

The cut-through was no more than fifteen feet wide and ran between two three-storey blocks. It curled away from the main road towards the block where Vincent lived at the far end of the estate. The three boys who barred his way were gathered around a pair of stone bollards, built to dissuade certain drivers from coming on to the estate. From setting fire to cars on people’s doorsteps.

Vincent answered the question, trying to keep his voice low and even, hoping it wouldn’t catch. ‘I’m going home...’

‘Fucking listen to him. A posh nigger...’

The skinny boy laughed and the three came together, shoulders connecting, forearms nudging one another. When they were still again they had taken up new positions. The three now stood, more or less evenly spaced across the walkway, one in each gap. Between wall and bollard, bollard and bollard, bollard and wall...

‘Where’s home?’ the boy in the cap said.

Vincent pointed past the boy’s head. The boy didn’t turn. He raised his head and Vincent got his first real look at the face, handsome and hard, shadowed by the peak of the baseball cap. Vincent saw something like a smile as the boy brought the bottle to his lips again.

‘This is the short cut,’ Vincent said. ‘My quickest way...’

The boy in the cap swallowed. ‘Your quickest way home is via the airport.’ The smile that Vincent had thought he’d seen now made itself very evident. ‘You want the Piccadilly Line to Heathrow, mate...’

Vincent chuckled softly, pretending to enjoy the joke. He saw the boy’s face harden, watched him raise a hand and jab a finger back towards the main road.

‘Go round.’

Vincent knew what he meant. He could walk back and take the path that led around the perimeter of the estate, approach his block from the other side. It would only take a few minutes longer. He could just turn and go, and he would probably be home before they’d finished laughing.

‘You heard.’ The skinny boy leaned back against a bollard.

He could easily turn and go round...

‘Now piss off...’

The edges of Vincent’s vision began to blur and darken, and the words that spewed from the mouth of the boy with the shaven head became hard to make out. A distant rhythm was asserting itself and as Vincent looked down at the cracked slabs beneath his feet, a shadow seemed to fall across them. A voice grew louder, and it was as if the walls on either side had softened and begun to sway above him like the tops of trees.

The voice was one Vincent knew well. The accent, unlike his own, was heavy, but the intonation and tone were those that had been passed on to him and to his brothers and sisters. It was a rich voice, warm and dark, sliding effortlessly around every phrase, each dramatic sentence of a story it never tired of telling.

His father’s voice...

The Knicks were hosting a first-year expansion team at the Garden, and when the two men arrived, thirty minutes before game time, half the seats were empty. ‘I’m afraid it’s not going to be much of a game,’ the younger man said, ‘and it looks as though I’m not alone in that opinion. Last time I was here the Lakers were in town and there wasn’t an empty seat.’

‘We’re early,’ the older man said. ‘They won’t sell out tonight, but they’ll come closer than you might guess. Remember, this is New York. A lot of guys don’t even leave their desks until seven-thirty for a game that starts at eight.’

‘That’s me you’re describing. Not tonight, but the Laker game? There were points on the board by the time I got to my seat. And it would have been the same story tonight if I hadn’t put my foot down. Carrigan came into my office at half past six with something that had to be done and would only take me a minute, swear to God. “Not tonight,” I told him. “I’m meeting my Dad.”’

Anyone looking at them would have suspected they were father and son. The resemblance was unmistakable, in their faces and in their easy loose-limbed grace. Both were tall men, standing several inches over six feet. Both had been slim in their youth and both had thickened some around the middle with age, the father more than the son. The son was perhaps an inch taller than the father, a fact which had not gone unremarked at their meeting a few minutes earlier.

‘You’re taller,’ Richard Parmalee had said. ‘I don’t suppose your pituitary gland kicked into overdrive when nobody was looking. Have you been taking growth hormone?’

The son, whose name was Kevin, shook his head and grinned.

‘Then the odds are you’re not taller,’ the father said. ‘So, I guess you’ve got lifts in your shoes...’

‘Just insoles, but they don’t make you any taller.’

‘That’s what I was afraid of. Well, where does logic inexorably lead us? I’m shrinking.’

‘You look the same to me.’

‘Hell, I’m not melting away like the Wicked Witch of the West. Everybody shrinks, starting around forty or forty-five, but it takes fifteen or twenty years before it’s enough to notice. You’re not even forty for another year and a half, so you’ve got a while before your cuffs start scraping the pavement.’

‘That hasn’t happened to you.’

‘No, if I’ve lost half an inch that’s a lot. It’s enough to notice, but only just. And I only just noticed it myself within the past month or so. I knew it was something that happens to everybody, but I figured I was different, it wouldn’t happen to me. Same as right now you’re listening and nodding and telling yourself it won’t happen to you.’

The younger man laughed. ‘Got me. Exactly what I was telling myself.’

‘And who knows? You might be right. You’ve got a few years and by then they may have something to prevent it. I wouldn’t put it past them.’

As Richard Parmalee had predicted, there were a lot of late arrivals and most seats were occupied by game time. The Knicks, eleven-point favorites according to the line in the papers, jumped off to an early lead that opened up to twenty-two points at half-time.

‘Well, it’s not much of a game,’ the son said. ‘I was afraid of that.’

‘No, but it’s still fun to watch them. I remember coming here to see the Harlem Globetrotters when I was still in high school. They were playing an exhibition game against somebody, probably the Knicks. I couldn’t believe the things they did. Now everybody does that, but without the clowning.’

‘They’re still around, the Globetrotters.’

‘And they’re probably as entertaining as ever, but less remarkable, because everybody plays like that. It’s a completely different game than when I played it.’

‘It looks completely different to me,’ the son said, ‘so I can only imagine the difference from your point of view.’

‘In my day we played on our feet. Your generation played the game on your toes. And now it’s a game played in the air.’

‘It’s true.’

‘And I swear the rules are different.’

‘Well, the three-point shot...’

‘Of course, but that’s not what I mean. They routinely commit what would have been a travelling violation, but you never see it called. If a guy’s driving to the basket it doesn’t seem to matter how many steps he takes.’

‘I know. There’s a rule, but I can’t figure out what it is.’

‘And they’ll turn the ball over when they’re dribbling. Double dribble, that used to be, and you lost possession. Not any more.’

‘I like the three-point shot, though,’ Kevin Parmalee said.

‘Improves the game. No question. But only at the pro distance. The college three-pointer is too close.’

‘It’s ridiculous. And yet the college game’s more fun to watch. It’s not as good a game, but it’s more exciting.’

He hated the job but loved the drive home at night. The streets were always empty and a lot of the time shiny from rain. Steam would rise like intrigue off the asphalt. Just like in the movies, the old black and whites his father liked to watch on the tube. It seemed as though the city did not even begin to cool off until this time, until after midnight. Cruising along the beach with the windows down he would always encounter stragglers. Girls older than he but still just girls, making their way home or to last call at the last bar on the circuit. Some would flag him down, ask for a ride. Sometimes he would stop and oblige, the thrill of being with a stranger smelling of beer and suntan oil in the dark overcoming the potential of danger — and embarrassment. They were always surprised at how young he was. How young he looked. Some of them even laughed, thought he was thirteen years old and out joyriding in a stolen car.

At the end of the beach cruise he would turn inland and head over the drawbridge and toward home. Toward a shower and bed, maybe a talk with the old man if he was still awake and sober.

It was coming over the drawbridge and heading home one night when he encountered the running man. The boy had worked a double shift that day and was tired. It was a night for no riders. He had cruised the beach quickly and was heading west on Sunrise Boulevard. Close to home. He had just cleared the bridge but caught the traffic light by the closed gas station. He stopped at the deserted intersection and waited for the green. He knew no one would know the difference if he ran it but he waited for the green anyway. His father had taught him that the rules were in place whether anybody else was there to watch or not.

And that was when he saw him. A man running. A big man with a big beard and long hair. He cut across the dark parking lot behind the gas station. He came right out of the darkness and headed for the bridge. He was no jogger. He wasn’t running for sport or fitness. The boy could tell that. The man was fully clothed — open lumberjack shirt over a T-shirt, jeans, work boots. No, he wasn’t just running. He was running to something or away from something.

The boy studied the darkness from which the man had come. His eyes peered into the parking lot behind the gas station. Nothing moved there. Nothing was recognisable. Farther down the street he could see the dim glow of the Kwik Mart, but nothing else.

The traffic light turned green. Ready to dismiss what he had seen — maybe the guy was just trying to make last call at one of the beach bars — the boy turned to take a final glance at the running man. He immediately noticed that the man no longer wore the outer shirt. He had removed it while running. And at the moment the boy glanced back he also saw the running man slow his pace just long enough to shove the red lumberjack shirt into the hedge that lined the sidewalk before the bridge. He then kept going.

The light was still green. But the boy sat there in his beat-up Volkswagen and thought about what he had just seen. He had a decision to make. Pop the clutch, press the gas pedal and move on toward home. Or turn the car around and check it out. Why had the running man stuffed his shirt into that hedge?

The boy was on the edge of manhood. Not in physical size or development — he had always been small and was stopped regularly by police who thought him to be too young to be driving. But inside, in thinking about his life and his options and in the way he studied the girls that walked the beach road at night. Inside, where it counted. His father kept the chorus going, all the time chiding him for his mistakes. It’s time to be a man.

The light turned yellow. As if he was out of time and desperate, the boy hit the gas and dragged the bug into a squealing U-turn. He drove back toward the bridge. The running man was gone now, having gone up and over the bridge, dropping down past the span toward the beach. The boy stopped at the curb near the hedge. He left the car running and got out. He went to the hedge and saw the spot where the branches had been freshly disturbed. He reached in for the shirt, the interior branches scratching at his arm.

As he pulled his arm back he felt something hard and heavy buried in the shirt. Slowly he unwrapped it and looked down at its contents. A blue steel revolver as shiny as the wet streets was in his hand. He felt a little thrill go through him, coming all the way up from his testicles.

A gun. The boy had never held one before, had never even seen one this close. His father had a rule, no guns. He picked it up with his hand and hefted its weight. It felt warm to him. He put his nose to the barrel and sniffed. A sharp, bitter odor invaded his nostrils. Was that gunpowder? Was the gun warm because it had been fired?

He quickly wrapped the gun in the shirt again and took it back to the car. He stuffed the shirt and gun into the glove box and closed it. He then pulled away from the curb and drove back over the bridge. It only took him a minute to catch up to the running man. He watched as the man stopped before he got to the beach and turned right into the street behind the big white hotel. The boy drove by, turned right on the beach road and then took the next right. He came to the same street the running man was on but a block further down. The boy dropped the clutch and slowed. He saw the running man was now walking. He finally came to a stop and then calmly stepped through the front door of a bar called The Pirate. It was a place the boy knew about from the outside. A rough place. Motorcycles always parked out front in a line. He knew that the men that came out of that bar had a habit of coming out mean.

The boy picked up speed and kept his car moving. He made his way back to Sunrise and once again headed west to the bridge and home.

But as he crested the bridge his eyes were greeted by all of the lights. Blue and red and yellow. Police lights, seemingly everywhere. A spotlight from a helicopter cutting through the parking lot behind the gas station. The traffic signal was red again. He slowed to a stop and looked back at the spot in the hedge. He could still make out the place where the manicured wall of leaves had been disturbed. He knew he had another choice to make.

A car pulled up next to him. A police car. Just as the boy turned to look the bright beam of a flashlight hit him full in the face. He could see nothing. A voice sounded from behind the light. ‘Hey, kid, are you old enough to drive?’

‘I’m sixteen,’ he responded. ‘I have a license.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘Home from work.’

‘Pull into the gas station when the light changes.’

‘Okay.’

He turned away but was still blind. He tried to focus on the traffic signal. When he finally could see it, it was green. He pulled forward and then turned left into the closed station. The patrol car followed him.

There were two of them. They got out simultaneously. One of them put his flashlight on the boy’s face again.

‘You’ve gotta be kidding me,’ he heard one say.

He knew they were talking about his size. Barely five-four and a skinny frame. Barely a hundred pounds. He felt his face burning red in the bright beam of their scrutiny. ‘I have a license,’ he said again.

‘Then let’s see it,’ said the one behind the beam.

The boy unsnapped a pocket and brought out his thin wallet. He took out the license and held it out. He noticed that his hand was shaking. The one with the light took the license and thankfully lowered his beam to look at it. He turned it over and studied the edge as if to check for counterfeiting. Other cops who had stopped him had done the same thing.

‘Where are you coming from?’ asked the other cop.

‘Work. I’m a dishwasher at Bahia Mar. The banquet center.’

‘Working late.’

‘Yes. We had two banquets.’

‘Busy night. You own this car?’

‘Yes.’

He suddenly realised the registration was in the glove compartment. Along with the gun. ‘What is everybody looking for?’ he asked.

‘Not what, who,’ he said. ‘We’re looking for a scumbag. An armed robber.’

The boy thought about the gun in his glove box again. A tremor of fear went through his chest. He had touched the gun. He’d held it. Fingerprints. He knew about fingerprints from movies and TV. He and his father watched Kojak together every Sunday night.

‘Does anybody know what he looks like?’ the boy asked.

‘Why, you seen somebody?’

The beam suddenly came back up to his face, blinding him again.

‘Did you, kid? What did you see?’

The boy almost said not what, who. But he didn’t think that would be received so well. The two policemen had tensed. They were keyed up about something. He thought about the gun again — remembered that it had been warm to his touch — and realised he could be in trouble. He chided himself for taking the gun. How stupid!

‘Hey, kid, you still there?’

‘Yes. I was just thinking. I saw a man running. Down near the beach.’

‘Running? What did he look like?’

‘I noticed because he was fully dressed but he was, you know, running.’

‘Give us a description.’

‘He was big. He—’

‘You mean compared to you?’

‘No, compared to anybody. He was tall. He had a beard and his hair was long.’

‘White, black, brown?’

‘White.’

‘Okay, what else? What about the clothes?’

The clothes. He wasn’t sure how to answer. Describe the man before or after he’d taken off the red shirt? He decided if there had been a robbery, the victim would have seen the red shirt.

‘He had on blue jeans and a white T-shirt. And he had on a red lumberjack shirt — you know, like with a pattern.’

‘If he had that on how do you know about the T-shirt?’

‘The red shirt was open. Unbuttoned. I could see the T-shirt.’

The one without the flashlight peeled away and started talking into a radio mike attached to the shoulder of his uniform. He could hear him putting out the description and he wondered why they didn’t already have it.

‘That’s a pretty good description, kid,’ said the one with the flashlight. ‘What were you doing that you saw this guy so well?’

The boy shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I saw him running. I thought it was strange because he was fully dressed. I saw where he went, too. He went into a bar. The Pirate.’

‘Mendez, you hear this?’

‘Let’s go,’ his partner answered.

‘Okay, kid, let’s get in the car.’

The boy was put in the back seat and then they took off for the bridge. The cop in the passenger seat announced their destination on the radio and asked for back-up. A minute later they were in front of The Pirate. Half a minute later the back-up car was there. And a third car was not long behind. By radio it was directed to the back of the bar.

The driver of the first car, the one called Mendez, turned round to look at the boy. ‘You are going to stay here. We’re going in. We’re going to look for the guy. What we’ll do is bring anybody we want to talk to outside. You watch through the window. If you see the guy, you give the nod. Okay?’

‘I nod if I see him?’

‘Right. Now sit tight.’

The cops got out and made their way around the line of motorcycles. They met the two uniformed men from the back-up car. The boy watched them talk for a few moments and then one opened the bar’s door and they went in. The boy saw that the last cop to go in was holding his baton down at the side of his leg.

He waited for what seemed like an hour but was only a few minutes. When the bar’s door opened next, it wasn’t a cop who came out. It was a customer. A man with a white T-shirt and a black leather vest. He quickly moved to one of the motorcycles and carefully pushed it out into the street between the two patrol cars. He saddled it, kick-started the engine and took off. He never saw the boy watching and the boy wondered if he had snuck out of the bar or had been allowed to leave.

As he considered this the door to the bar opened again and the two officers from the back-up car escorted two men out. Both had beards and long hair, but neither was the running man the boy had seen. Then the other two cops came out with two more men. The boy now recognised the running man. They had him.

The cops instructed the four bearded men to face the front wall of the bar and put their hands against it. The men complied slowly, with the worn acquiescence of men who faced this sort of intrusion on a daily basis.

Mendez stood back while the other officers checked the men leaning against the wall for weapons. He turned and looked at the boy in the patrol car. The boy nodded and Mendez nodded back. He then surreptitiously pointed a finger at the first man in line and the boy shook his head. They repeated this until Mendez pointed at the third man in line and the boy nodded.

But just as he nodded, the third man turned his face from the wall and looked directly at the boy. Whether he understood or not that an identification was being made didn’t matter. The boy was frozen to the bone. The man said something — just a couple of words — but the boy could not hear it because the windows of the car were up. Their eyes locked and held until Mendez barked a command at the man and he turned back to the wall. Mendez then came up behind the man and pulled his arms off the wall and cuffed them behind the man’s back. The man did not struggle as he did this. Again there was a casual acquiescence, as if what was being done to him had been done before. As if it was expected.

The officers told the other three men they could return to the bar. Mendez then pushed the running man toward the two officers from the back-up car and they walked him to their car. As they were pushing him into the back seat the man began to struggle for the first time. Not to get away but just to keep his head up. He looked over at the boy again and said the words again, this time exaggerating the movements of his mouth because he probably understood that the boy could not hear. He then relented and let them push his head down and then into the back of the car. The car took off quickly and the boy watched its blue light go on as it sped away.

Mendez stood on the street and spoke at length over his radio mike before he and his partner returned to the car in which the boy sat. Mendez got behind the wheel but turned to look back at the boy before turning the ignition. ‘We got him, kid. Good job.’

‘What did he say?’

‘He didn’t say anything but we don’t need him to say anything. With your ID we’ve got him. The detectives are heading over here to search the joint for the gun. They find that and its bye-bye dirtbag. You did good.’

‘What about the robbery? The victim. You need him to say he did it.’

‘Actually, there are two victims. But we’re not very likely to get that from either one.’

‘They’re afraid?’

‘No, both got shot. During the robbery. One’s dead and, last we heard, the other wasn’t going to make it either.’

The boy felt the air go out of his lungs. Not because of what Mendez said, though that certainly put a different inflection on things. But because he had suddenly realised what the running man had said before being put into the patrol car.

‘He said, “You’re dead.” When he saw me. He said, “You’re dead,” didn’t he?’

‘Don’t worry, it’s bullshit. He was trying to intimidate you but he was too late. He’s going to be in lock-up until you’re an old man. He can’t get to you.’

‘What about his friends? Is he in a motorcycle gang or something?’

‘Not hardly. He doesn’t even have a bike. Why do you think he was running when you saw him?’

Mendez turned round and started the car.

‘Let’s go downtown now and see the detectives.’

He put it in drive and the car lurched forward. He reached over and punched his partner on the shoulder. ‘We got it, McHugh. We got the arrest.’

McHugh didn’t answer.

‘What about my car?’ the boy asked.

‘What about it?’ Mendez replied. ‘It’s in a safe place. Someone will take you back to it when you’re finished with the detectives.’

‘I need to call my dad.’

‘We can do that at the station. First thing.’

Fifteen minutes later the boy was sitting at a desk in the detective bureau. Mendez handed him the phone and told him to dial nine first to get an outside line. Mendez said the boy could tell his father to come to the station if he wanted.

The boy dialed his home number but after ten rings the old man didn’t pick up. He hung up. He thought it was strange that there was no answer. His father had not said anything about going out. If he had gone out for cigarettes or beer it seemed as though he would have done so earlier. The boy dialed the number a second time but once again got no answer. He hung up the phone.

‘Pop’s not there, huh?’ Mendez said.

‘No answer.’

‘Okay, well, the lead detective on this case wants to talk to you so we’re going to move you into one of the interview rooms and then he’ll be in to see you as soon as he’s free. We’ve got to get our paperwork done and then get back out on the street.’

He followed Mendez and McHugh to a small room with a table and two chairs. There was also a mirrored window that the boy figured led to a viewing room. He’d seen it on Kojak before.

They left him there and an hour drifted slowly by while the boy thought about what the running man had said before they shoved him into the patrol car. Then the door opened and a man wearing a suit stepped in. He had fiery red hair and a grim smile. He said his name was Sonntag and offered his hand. The boy said his own name as they shook and the detective, for just a moment, stopped shaking then started again. He then pulled out the chair and sat across from the boy.

‘Where do you live, kid?’

He gave his address and watched the detective’s face turn grimmer.

‘What? What’s wrong?’

‘I need to some questions first. Who lives there with you? Your mom and dad?’

‘Just my dad.’

‘Where’s your mom?’

‘I don’t know. She’s been gone a long time. What does this have to do with anything? I saw a guy running. What does it matter where my mother is?’

‘It doesn’t. I’m just asking questions. Tell me about the man you saw running.’

The boy repeated the story he had told the first two cops. He added no new details, believing the less said with Sonntag the better. The detective asked no questions until the story was finished.

‘And you are sure the man they took into custody was the man you saw running?’

‘I don’t know. I guess so.’

‘You guess so?’

‘Well, so far, I haven’t gotten to look at him, except from the car.’

‘We’ll take care of that in a minute. Now you said you saw this running man coming from the direction of the drawbridge, right?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you see him on the bridge?’

The boy didn’t know what to do. The one lie he had told had cascaded. Now he had to keep lying to stay clear. He wished he could talk to his father.

‘You either saw him on the bridge or you didn’t,’ Sonntag said.

‘I didn’t. Can I use the phone again? I want to call my father.’

Sonntag stared at him a moment before speaking. ‘Not yet. Let’s get the story down first. So you didn’t see him on the bridge but you’re pretty sure he was coming from that direction.’

‘Yes.’

‘We’re having trouble locating the weapon. Is it possible that he threw it into the river when he was coming over the bridge?’

‘Yeah, I guess so. It’s possible.’

‘Did you see him do that?’

‘No, I told you, I didn’t see him on the bridge.’

The boy knew that Sonntag was trying to trick him, or get him to agree to seeing something he didn’t see. The boy sat frozen. He knew that now was the time to tell. Tell about the gun and try to explain it. But he couldn’t.

‘I want to talk to my father.’

Sonntag nodded like he understood and would arrange for the request right away. But that’s not what he said when he opened his mouth. ‘Your father’s name is Edison Chambers, correct?’

‘Yes, that’s right,’ the boy answered, his voice rising with suspicion. ‘Is he here?’

‘No, I’m afraid not. I feel awful about this, kid, but I have to tell you. It looks like your father was one of the people this dirt bag shot.’

The boy’s mouth shot open. He felt the room and the bright lights crashing in on him. He heard Sonntag still talking.

‘Edison Chambers. We got the ID from his wallet. He was in the store, getting a six-pack from one of the coolers in the back. He bent down to get it from the bottom and we guess the shooter didn’t see him in there. He came in and went to the register. The woman there, he probably shot her first. That was when your father stood up. The shooter saw him then...’

Sonntag didn’t have to finish. The boy leaned forward and put his face into his hands. In the blackness he heard the detective ask him if he had any other family living in the area.

‘My aunt and uncle,’ he said.

‘We need to call them when we’re finished here.’

‘I want to go to my house.’

‘We’ll release you to your aunt and uncle and the three of you can decide.’

The boy didn’t say anything. He didn’t know what to say or to think. He suddenly flashed on the gun in the glove box. He wanted to get back to his car.

‘We’re setting up a line-up,’ Sonntag said.

The boy straightened up. Tear trails marked both sides of his face. ‘What do you mean?’

‘We’re putting the suspect in a line-up of men and we’ll see if you can pick him out. Don’t worry, he won’t see you. You’ll be behind a mirror.’

But he already did see me, the boy thought but didn’t say. He just nodded his head. A plan was formulating. He concentrated on it instead of thinking about his father.

‘You ready, then?’ Sonntag asked.

‘I guess so.’

‘Okay, then. Let’s do it and then we’ll get your aunt and uncle on the phone. Let’s go do this thing for your dad.’

The boy stood up and followed Sonntag through the door. He was taken to a dark room where a window looked into a well-lighted room. The far wall was white and spotless, except for the hash marks that marked feet and inches so an observer could gauge height. After a few minutes six men were led into the well-lit room in a line and they stood facing the boy against the wall.

‘They can’t see me?’ he asked.

‘No,’ said Sonntag. ‘It’s one-way glass.’

The boy looked at the men in the line-up. Only two had beards. And one was the running man. He could tell. He was looking at the man who had killed his father. Thoughts blasted though him with sounds like waves crashing on the beach. He felt weak in the knees but strong in the heart. He felt a tear slide down his soft, whiskerless cheek. He wiped it away and heard the waves replaced by his father’s voice. Time to be a man.

‘Well,’ Sonntag said, bending down close to the boy’s ear to whisper. ‘Which one?’

The boy didn’t answer. He was working a plan out in his head.

‘Pick him out, son,’ said the detective.

The boy shook his head. ‘No,’ he said slowly. ‘You don’t have him. He’s not there.’

The boy could literally feel the detective tense.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean the guy I saw isn’t there.’

‘Kid, come on. We’re talking about your father.’

‘I know. I want to get the right man and he’s not there.’

Sonntag bent closer to him again to whisper, ‘Don’t be afraid. He can’t hurt you. Just pick him out.’

‘I’m not afraid. He just isn’t there.’

‘But one of those men over there is the one you picked out at the bar.’

‘It was dark and I was sitting in a patrol car. I saw the beard and thought...’

‘Thought what?’

‘I thought it was him but it’s not. You have the wrong guy.’

Sonntag exhaled loudly, angrily. His voice returned to normal volume. ‘Let me tell you something, besides you we’ve got nothing. No weapon, no witness, no camera in the store. The guy you say you picked by mistake does have one thing, though. Gunshot residue on his hands. We know he fired a gun in the last few hours. But if we don’t get an ID or recover that weapon and connect him to it, then guess what, he walks out of here like nothing ever happened. They’ll have his beer waiting on the bar for him at The Pirate. So do me a favor and look again and pick him out.’

The boy shook his head. ‘I can’t. He’s not there.’

‘Well, kid, then I hope you can face your father’s ghost. Let’s go.’

Sonntag roughly clapped the boy on the shoulder and pushed him toward the door.

Twenty minutes later the boy sat on a bench in the front lobby. His uncle was on the way. Sonntag had told him he had twenty-four hours to change his mind about the identification. That was how long they could hold the running man. After that they had to charge him or let him go. That was fine with the boy. Twenty-four hours was plenty of time to do what he needed to do.

His uncle wasn’t happy to see him. He had been told by Sonntag about the failure to make an identification of the running man. ‘He was your father but he was my brother,’ the uncle said. ‘If he was the guy you should’ve said it was the guy.’

‘I would’ve, but they don’t have him. They just wanted to arrest somebody, doesn’t matter who.’

‘That detective told me on the phone that they had the right guy. That it was you who messed it up.’

‘He’s wrong. Can you take me to my car?’

‘You are supposed to come home with me. The police said you—’

‘I am coming to your place but I can’t leave my car in the middle of a gas station all night. I also need to go by the house to get some clothes. So drop me off at my car and I’ll come by later.’

‘Don’t make it late.’

‘It already is late.’

They said very little the rest of the way. They drove by the Kwik Mart where the shooting had taken place. There were still police cars and a white van in the parking lot. There was yellow tape all around.

‘Is that where...?’ the uncle asked.

‘Yeah.’

The boy looked away. In a few minutes they pulled into the closed gas station and the lights of his uncle’s car washed across the boy’s Volkswagen.

‘Still there,’ the uncle said.

‘Yeah. Thanks for the ride.’

‘We’ll see you in a little while?’

‘Yes.’

‘Look, Bobby, I’m sorry. About your dad. My brother. You know. He wasn’t the nicest guy to you, I know. But something like this... It shouldn’t have happened, you know?’

‘Yes, I know.’

He said goodbye and closed the door. After his uncle pulled away the boy looked around. The streets were dark and empty. The police were gone. He looked up toward the bridge and the hedge that ran alongside the sidewalk. No police, only darkness.

He thought about the plan and decided it was a good plan, a plan that would work. He went to his car and opened the passenger door. He punched the button on the glove box and the lid dropped open to reveal the red plaid shirt containing the gun was still in place. He pulled it out and held the bundle close to his chest. With his other hand the boy reached into the glove box for the Swiss Army knife he kept in there, mostly for emergencies, or if he needed to turn the fuel feed screw on the car’s carburetor.

The boy closed the car door and headed on foot toward the bridge. He chose to stay off the sidewalk, walking instead in the dark shadows along the hedge line.

‘I want into one of your games,’ the boy said.

Sitting hunched over a hamburger in Angela’s Diner, Keller looked up at the blond kid, who stood with his hip cocked and arms crossed, trying to be cool but looking like an animal awkwardly trying to stand on its hind legs. Handsome enough even though he wore black-rimmed nerd glasses and was pale and skinny.

Keller decided not to ask the kid to sit down. ‘What games?’ He ate more of his burger and glanced at his watch.

The kid noticed the move and said, ‘Well, the one that’s starting at eight tonight, for instance.’

Keller grunted a laugh.

He heard the rumble of one of the freight trains that bisected this neighborhood on the north side of town. He had a fond memory of a diesel rattling bar glasses six months ago just as he laid down a flush to take a fifty-six thousand three hundred and twenty dollar pot away from three businessmen who were from the South of France. He’d won that pot twenty minutes after the first ante. The men had scowled French scowls but continued to lose another seventy thousand over the course of the rainy night.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Tony Stigler.’

‘How old’re you?’

‘Eighteen.’

‘Even if there was a game, which there isn’t, you couldn’t play. You’re a kid. You couldn’t get into a bar.’

‘It’s in Sal’s back room. It’s not in the bar.’

‘How do you know that?’ Keller muttered. In his late forties, the dark-complected man was as strong and solid as he’d been twenty years ago. When he asked questions in this tone you stopped being cute and answered straight.

‘My buddy works at Marconi Pizza. He hears things.’

‘Well, your buddy oughta watch out what he hears. And he really oughta watch who he tells what he hears.’ He returned to his lunch.

‘Look.’ The kid dug into his pocket and pulled out a wad of bills. Hundreds mostly. Keller’d been gambling since he was younger than this boy and he knew how to size up a roll. The kid was holding close to five thousand. Tony said, ‘I’m serious, man. I want to play with you.’

‘Where’d you get that?’

A shrug. ‘I got it.’

‘Don’t give me any Sopranos crap. You gonna play poker, you play by the rules. And one of the rules is you play with your own money. If that’s stolen you can hike your ass outa here right now.’

‘It’s not stolen,’ the kid said, lowering his voice. ‘I won it.’

‘At cards,’ Keller asked wryly, ‘or the lottery?’

‘Draw and stud.’

Keller enjoyed a particularly good bite of hamburger and studied the boy again. ‘Why my game? You got dozens you could pick.’

The fading city of Ellridge, population two hundred thousand or so, squatted in steel-mill territory on the flat, gray Indiana river. What it lacked in class, though, the city more than made up for in sin. Hookers and lap dance bars, of course. But the town’s big business was underground gambling — for a very practical reason: Atlantic City and Nevada weren’t within a day’s drive and the few Indian casinos with licensed poker tables were filled with low-stakes amateurs.

‘Why you?’ Tony answered. ‘’Cause you’re the best player in town and I want to play the best.’

‘What’s this, some John Wayne gunfighter bullshit?’

‘Who’s John Wayne?’

‘Christ... You’re way outa our league, kid.’

‘There’s more where this came from.’ Hefting the wad. ‘A lot more.’

Keller gestured at the cash and looked around. ‘Put that away.’

The kid did.

Keller ate more burger, thinking of the times when, not much older than this boy, he’d blustered and lied his way into plenty of poker games. The only way to learn the game poker is to play — for money — against the best players you can find, day after day after day. Losing and winning.

‘How long you played?’

‘Since I was twelve.’

‘Whatta your parents think about what you’re doing?’

‘They’re dead,’ he said unemotionally. ‘I live with my uncle. When he’s around. Which he isn’t much.’

‘Sorry.’

Tony shrugged.

‘Well, I don’t let anybody into the game without somebody vouches for them. So—’

‘I played in a couple games with Jimmy Logan. You know him, don’t you?’

Logan lived up in Michigan and was a respected player. The stakes tended to be small but Keller’d played some damn good poker against the man.

Keller said, ‘Go get a soda or something. Come back in twenty minutes.’

‘Come on, man, I don’t want—’

‘Go get a soda,’ he snapped. ‘And you call me “man” again I’ll break your fingers.’

‘But—’

‘Go,’ he muttered harshly.

So this’s what it’d be like to have kids, thought Keller, whose life as a professional gambler over the past thirty years had left no room for a wife and children.

‘I’ll be over there.’ Tony nodded across the street at the green awning of a Starbucks.

Keller pulled out his cell phone and called Logan. He had to be cautious about who he let into games. A few months ago some crusading reporters’d gotten tired of writing about all of Ellridge’s local government corruption and CEO scandals so they’d done a series on gambling (THE CITY’S SHAME was the yawner of a headline). The police were under pressure from the mayor to close up the bigger games and Keller had to be careful. But Jimmy Logan confirmed that he’d checked the boy out carefully a month or so ago. He’d come into the game with serious money and had lost bad one day but’d had the balls to come back the next. He covered his loss and kept going; he walked away the big winner. Logan had also found out that Tony’s parents’d left him close to three hundred thousand dollars in cash when they’d died. The money had been in a trust fund but had been released on his eighteenth birthday, last month.

With this news Keller’s interest perked up.

After the call he finished his lunch. Tony delayed a defiant half-hour before returning. He and his attitude ambled back into the diner slowly.

Keller told him, ‘Okay. I’ll let you sit in tonight for a couple hours. But you leave before the high-stakes game starts.’

A scoff. ‘But—’

‘That’s the deal. Take it or leave it.’

‘I guess.’

‘Bring at least ten thousand... And try not to lose it all in the first five minutes, okay?’

The second or third time Kiley went out with Kate Keenan, it had been to the theatre, an opening at the Royal Court. Her idea. A journalist with a column in the Independent and a wide brief, she was on most people’s B list at least.

The play was set in a Brick Lane squat, two shiftless young men and a meant-to-be fifteen-year-old girl: razors, belt buckles, crack cocaine. Simulated sex and pain. One of the men seemed to be under the illusion, much of the time, that he was a dog. At the interval, they elbowed their way o the bar through louche suits and little black dresses with tasteful cleavage, New Labour voters to the core. ‘Challenging,’ said a voice on Kiley’s left. ‘A bit full on,’ said another. ‘But relevant. Absolutely relevant.’

‘So what do you think?’ Kate asked.

‘I think I’ll meet you outside.’

‘What do you mean?’

She knew what he meant.

They took the tube, barely talking, to Highbury and Islington, a stone’s throw from where Kate lived. Across the road she turned towards him, a hand upon his arm. ‘I don’t think this is going to work out, do you?’

Kiley shrugged and thought probably not.

Between Highbury Corner and the Archway, almost the entire length of the Holloway Road, there were only three fights in progress, one between two women in slit skirts and halter tops, who clawed and swore at each other, rolling on the broad pavement outside the Rocket while a crowd bayed them on. Propped inside a telephone box close by the railway bridge, a man stared out frozen-eyed, a hypodermic needle sticking out of the scabbed flesh of his bare leg. Who needs theatre, Kiley asked himself?

Boy Ansell awoke, had no idea where he was except that it wasn’t his flat and for a moment felt afraid.

Then he remembered and joy washed away his fear.

Cautiously he raised his head from the soft bank of pillows. A slight muzziness, nothing more. It was true what they said, the best champagne leaves little trace of its passage and last night he had drunk nothing but the best.

He slipped his hand under the pillow. Another moment of panic, then his fingers touched paper. It was there, but he needed to see it. He groped for an unfamiliar light switch. A golden glow touched his surroundings like sunlight. A hotel room. But what a room! You could fit all of his Brighton flat in here. Furnished in the stately home neo-classical style with a sky-blue ceiling from whose lofty rococo cornice gilded cherubim looked down on acres of thick white carpet, it was probably costing his publishers more for one night here than a whole week at the kind of dump they used to put him in.

But they could do better.

They would do better now that he had this to wave at them.

He read the magic words on the piece of paper.

Fifty thousand. With the kind of sales now in prospect, he could afford to smile at this paltry sum. It would, after all, buy him only five or six months in a room like this. He might even never bother to cash the cheque but keep it framed on his study wall.

Or better still, cash it but keep a convincing photocopy framed.

He swung his legs to the floor and viewed himself in a heavy gilt mirror nicely placed to catch the wide expanse of the king-sized bed. No sign that he’d had company last night. Not that it hadn’t been there for the asking, he told himself complacently as he turned his face slowly from left to right profile. Boy David they called him, and even in his mid-thirties his face and figure still retained enough of the youthful perfection of Michelangelo’s statue to justify the sobriquet. So pussy galore on offer. But at some point during all the back-slapping, cheek-pecking, body-hugging, champagne-swilling celebration, he had decided that this was a triumph he wanted to snuggle up with alone.

Molly had seen him safely back, he dimly recalled. Molly who was so sensitive to all his needs. Molly who, his sensual sensors told him, would not herself be averse to adding the remaining ninety per cent to the ten per cent of him she already had. But never sleep with your agent was the only useful bit of literary advice he’d ever been given.

Happily no one had ever said anything against sleeping with your agent’s secretary.

If Toni had been around last night, now that might have been different. Timid little Toni, a real country mouse, still wide-eyed and tremulous at finding herself in the big city, might have seemed an impossible challenge to some. But the Boy’s motto, as he boasted to his intimates, was Vidi, vici, veni. I saw, I conquered, I came. And as soon as he set eyes on this fresh young thing, a mouse in manner but a shapely pussycat in form, he’d known he had to have her.

It had taken him a mere ninety minutes from the first time he got her alone. Molly had sent her down to Brighton with a bunch of contracts for him to sign. She claimed she’d posted the originals to him weeks back. Well, she might have done. He wasn’t responsible for the vagaries of the postal service. Now his signature was a matter of urgency, so shy little Toni got a day trip to Brighton. Tense at first, she soon relaxed under the glow of his famous charm. He could see she was ripe for plucking. It was in the stars, written there as reliably as a Fascist train timetable, a judgement confirmed when the phone rang and it turned out to be Molly with the news that her Booker mole had just given her the nod that Boy was on the shortlist. Pop! went the bubbly, and not long after, pop! went everything else, and as he put her on to the London train a couple of hours later, he was already looking forward to the next time.

But there hadn’t been a next time. Enquiring after Toni when he turned up at Molly’s office a couple of days later, he was told that family illness required her presence at home in the Midlands. Then, in the weeks that followed, he’d been swept up in a whirl of pre-Booker publicity, cashing in on being on the shortlist. You had to do it, Molly explained. Literary prizes were a lottery. Being odds-on favourite was no guarantee of success. Indeed, given the self-regarding vanity of some of the plonkers who did the judging, it could be counter-productive!

But this time they had been unable to resist the overwhelming evidence. In his mind he savoured the chairman’s words once more.

‘This was a shortlist of the highest standard. Each of these novels deserves superlative praise. Yet in the end we had no difficulty in choosing our winner. The Accelerant is a profound and moving modern fable. Superficially the story of a sexual predator who claims he never sleeps with any woman unless certain she wants to sleep with him, and who uses that certainty to justify all the short cuts both moral and chemical which he takes, at a deeper level this is a powerful parable of political degeneration, mapping the path from idealistic, altruistic beginnings to ruthless and bloody dictatorship, both in its blatant forms in Africa, the Middle East and South America, and in its subtler manifestations in our own Corridors of Power. Covering four continents and two decades, this is not easy material to deal with. But David Boyd Ansell has such a sharp eye for detail, such a keen ear for nuance, such a fine sense of balance and proportion that he keeps everything under perfect control. Truly here is a writer we can rely on to keep his head while all around are losing theirs...’

And so on, and so on. He’d stifled a small yawn at this point, ironically underlining on all the TV close-ups his indifference to such paeans. But oh! how the memory of them warmed his being like the memory of good sex.

He stood up, made the long journey to the window and drew the heavy damask curtains. Autumn sunlight streamed in, strong enough to make him blink. The view it lit up was undistinguished, anonymous rooftops mainly. But at least he could see a fair chunk of sky. London hotels charged for sky by the square inch.

A telephone rang. He found it, said, ‘Yes?’

It was Molly.

‘Good morning, Boy,’ she said breezily. ‘Just checking you’re conscious and mobile.’

Sometimes her breeziness irritated him.

‘Why shouldn’t I be?’ he said. ‘I’ve been up for ages.’

‘Excitement kept you awake, eh? That’s good. We need to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for the press call.’

‘The what?’

‘Come on, Boy, wake up, do! At last we’re an overnight success and that means we’ve got a busy day. Conference suite, second floor, 11 a.m. Pics and a few questions from the mob, then an hour for The Times supplement piece. One o’clock we lunch with the Japs. This afternoon, there’s a couple of telly things, then this evening Front Row. I’ll give you a knock at quarter to. Don’t wear that houndstooth shirt, by the way. You may not have time to change after lunch and it can look funny on the box. And dump that grotty leather jacket. We need to show the world that being a successful author doesn’t have to mean dressing like Worzel Gummidge. Bye.’

She really did go too far sometimes. And what was all this we stuff? Okay, in the five years since he’d used her, his sales had risen steadily, but what real part had she played in his success other than fielding the bids for his books? By rights, all this media crap should be the responsibility of those nice young publicists from his publishers, sexy young Emma, for instance, whom he’d teased to distraction on the last tour. Or roly-poly Clare with the huge knockers from the tour before. Molly needed to be reminded exactly who she was. It wasn’t just a question of responsibilities, it was also a question of manners. He didn’t expect deference, just a modicum of respect. But his appearance on the Man Booker shortlist, far from screwing him up a notch or two in Molly’s estimation, seemed to have been the signal for a marked increase in that offhand deprecatory familiarity which she liked to think of as her trademark. In the past he’d heard her refer to her distinguished client list as my performing fleas. Up till now, like the other fleas, so long as she did the job, he’d opted to grit his teeth and affect amusement. Now, though, he was past all that. Yes, it was time for a serious talk. Or perhaps more than just a talk. There was that flash Yank who’d assured him he could get double his American advance, no sweat, and that was before he’d joined the Booker pantheon. Maybe it was time to part company completely. He pictured doing it over a candle-lit dinner in a room like this. Good food, fine wine, soft music. Then, just as she was relaxing into the certainty of at last enjoying that part of him she’d clearly so long desired, he’d reveal that the only hard and pointed bit of his anatomy she was about to get was the elbow!

He was brought out of this pleasing fantasy by a gentle tap at the door.

He went to open it.

A large trolley stood there. It bore an elegant coffee pot, two plates covered with silver domes, a selection of breakfast cereals, a fresh grapefruit, a basket of croissants, a jug of orange juice, a bottle of champagne in an ice bucket and a vase of orchids. Pushing it was a dark-haired young woman in a fetching black skirt and bolero jacket.

‘Good morning, Mr Ansell,’ she said with a smile. ‘Your breakfast.’

‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Did I order this?’

He couldn’t recall filling in a breakfast card last night. Such trivialities had not been on the agenda.

‘Compliments of the management, sir. And may I add my personal congratulations?’

She pushed the trolley into the room alongside the table in the window bay.

Then, running what looked like an appreciative eye over his classical features and an even more appreciative one over his pyjama’d torso, she said, ‘Don’t let it get cold, sir. Enjoy your breakfast.’

And left.

Nice arse. Reminded him of Toni. Or perhaps it was just association of ideas. They all had nice arses.

Missed chance there, old son, he told himself. Should have asked her if she’d like to stay and serve me.

Still, there were other appetites which the smell of the fresh croissants had awoken.

He seized the handle of one of the silver domes and lifted it.

To his surprise, instead of the expected bacon, eggs, etc., he found himself looking at a white envelope with his name typed on it.

He picked it up and tore it open.

It contained a single sheet of paper.

He began to read what was typed upon it. After a few moments, he sat down on an elegant chaise longue and began to read again.

For a few seconds indignation overcame all other emotions. Then his gaze went to the breakfast trolley and fastened on the second silver dome.

‘Oh shit!’ he said.

Five seconds later he was running down the corridor. He didn’t stop till he’d put several other rooms and a right angle between himself and his own door. None of the few people he met showed much interest in the rapid passage of a man in pyjamas which said something for the class of guest you still got at an old-fashioned five-star hotel. He came across a cleaner talking into a telephone. He took it off her without apology and barked into it, ‘Security. Get Security to the fifth floor.’ From the look on the woman’s face, he saw that she thought this was a good idea too.

Not everyone realised that the thing about Assistant Chief Constable Desmond Iles was he longed to be loved. Among those who did realise it, of course, a good number refused to respond and instead muttered privately, ‘Go fuck yourself, Iles.’ A very good number. On the other hand, there was certainly a young ethnic whore in the docks who worshipped the A.C.C. unstintingly, and he would have been truly hurt if anyone said it was because he paid well.

What Iles totally abominated was people who came to esteem him only because he had contributed or helped in some way: say a piece of grand, devastating violence carried out by the A.C.C. for them against one of their enemies. He despised such calculating, quid pro quoism, as he called it. Once, he had told Harpur he utterly disregarded love that could be accounted for and reckoned up. Harpur felt happy the A.C.C. received from his docks friend, Honorée, and from Fanny, his infant daughter, the differing but infinite affection he craved. Also, Iles’s wife, Sarah, definitely possessed some quaint fondness for him, quite often at least. She had mentioned this to Harpur unprompted in one of their quiet moments.

To Harpur, it seemed that much of Iles’s behaviour could be explained by this need for completely spontaneous, instinctive, wholehearted devotion. Think of that unpleasant incident at the Taldamon School prize-giving, for instance. Although Iles would regard the kind of physical savagery he was forced into there as merely routine for him, it had made one eighteen-year-old girl pupil switch abruptly from fending off the A.C.C. sexually to offering an urgent come-on. This enraged Iles. He had been doing all he could to attract the girl, probably as potential stand-by in case Honorée were working away some time at a World Cup or Church of England Synod. Totally no go. And then, within minutes, the Taldamon girl suddenly changed and clearly grew interested in Iles, simply because he had felled and disarmed some bastard in the stately school assembly hall, and kicked him a few times absolutely unfatally about the head and neck where he lay on the floor between chair rows. Colin Harpur instantly knew the A.C.C. would regard this turnaround by the girl as contemptible: as grossly undiscerning about Iles, as Iles. That is, the essence of Ilesness, not simply his rabbit punching and kicking flairs, which could be viewed as superficial: as attractive, perhaps, but mere accessories to his core self. Harpur saw at the end of this episode that the A.C.C. wished to get away immediately from the girl and return to Honorée for pure, unconditional adoration even, if necessary, on waste ground.

It was some school: private, of course, and residential, and right up there with Eton and Harrow for fees. In fact, it cost somewhere near the national average wage to keep a child at Taldamon for a year, and this without the geology trip to Iceland, the horse riding and extra coaching in lacrosse and timpani. Harpur and Iles — Iles particularly — were interested in Taldamon because the police funded one of its pupils during her entire school career. This was an idea picked up from France. Over there, it had long been police practice to meet the education expenses for the child or children of a valuable and regular informant, as one way of paying for tipoffs. The scheme convinced Iles and others. It was considered less obvious — less dangerous — than to give an informant big cash rewards, which he/she might spend in a stupid, ostentatious way, drawing attention to his/her special income. That could mean the informant was no longer able to get close to villains’ secrets because the villains would have him/her identified as a leak. It could also mean that his/her life was endangered. A child out of sight at a pricey school in North Wales would be less noticeable. Or this was the thinking.

They had put Wayne Ridout’s daughter, Fay-Alice, into Taldamon, from the age of thirteen, and now here she was at eighteen, head prefect, multi-prizewinner, captain of lacrosse, captain of swimming and water polo, central to the school orchestra, destined for Oxford, slim, straight-nosed, sweet-skinned, and able to hold Iles off with cold, foul-mouthed ease until... until she decided she did not want to hold him off, following a gross rush of disgusting gratitude: disgusting, that is, as Harpur guessed the A.C.C. would regard it.

Harpur and Iles would not normally attend this kind of function. The presence of police might be a give-away. But Wayne had pleaded with Iles to come, and pleaded a little less fervently with Harpur, also. It was not just that Wayne wanted them to see the glorious results of their grass-related investment in Fay-Alice. Harpur knew from a few recent conversations with Wayne that he had felt down lately. Because of her education and the social status of Taldamon, Ridout sensed his daughter might be growing away from him and her mother, Nora. This grieved both, but especially Wayne. His wife seemed to regard the change in Fay-Alice as normal. Harpur imagined she probably saw it on behalf of the girl like this: when your father’s main career had been fink and general crook rather than archbishop or TV game show host, there was only one way for the next generation to go socially — up and away. Regrettable but inevitable.

Wayne could not accept such sad distancing. He must reason that if he were seen at this important school function accompanied by an Assistant Chief Constable, who had on the kind of magnificent suit and shoes Iles favoured, and who behaved in his well-known Shah of Persia style, it was bound to restore Fay-Alice’s respect for her parents. And it would impress the girl’s friends and teachers. For these possible gains, Wayne had evidently decided to put up with the security risk in this one-off event. Harpur doubted Fay-Alice would see things as her father did and thought he and the A.C.C. should not attend. But Iles agreed the visit and addressed Harpur for a while about ‘overriding obligations to those who sporadically assist law and order, even a fat, villainous, ugly, dim sod like Wayne’. The A.C.C. was always shudderingly eager to get among teenage schoolgirls if they looked clean and wore light summery clothes.

It was only out of politeness that Wayne had asked Harpur. As Detective Chief Superintendent, Harpur lacked the glow of staff rank and could not tog himself out with the same distinction as Iles. In fact, the A.C.C. had seemed not wholly sure Harpur should accompany him. ‘This will be a school with gold-lettered award boards on the wall, naming pupils who’ve gone on not just to Oxbridge or management courses with the Little Chef restaurant chain, but Harvard, Vatican seminaries, even Time Share selling in Alicante. There’ll be ambience. Does ambience get into your vocab at all, Harpur? I know this kind of academy right through, from my own school background, of course. I’d hate you to feel in any way disadvantaged by your education, but I ask you, Col — do you think you can you fit into such a place as Taldamon with that fucking haircut and your garments?’

‘This kind of occasion does make me think back to end of term at my own school, sir,’ Harpur reminisced gently.

‘And what did they give leaving prizes to eighteen-year-olds for there — knowing the two-times table, speed at dewristing tourists’ Rolexes?’

‘Should we go armed?’ Harpur replied.

‘This is a wholesome occasion at a prime girls’ school, for God’s sake, Col.’

‘Should we go armed?’ Harpur said.

Iles said, ‘I’d hate it if some delightful pupil, inadvertently brushing against me, should feel only the brutal outline of a holstered pistol, Harpur.’

‘This sort of school, they’re probably taught never to brush inadvertently against people like you, sir. It would be stressed in deportment classes, plus during the domestic science module for classifying moisture marks on trousers.’

Iles’s voice grew throaty and his breathing loud and needful: ‘I gather she’s become a star now as scholar, swimmer, musician and so on, but I can remember Fay-Alice when she was only a kid, though developing, certainly... developing, yes, certainly, developing, but really only just a kid... although... well, yes, developing, and we went to the Ridout house to advise them that she should—’

‘There are people who’d like to do Wayne. He’s helped put all sorts inside. They have brothers, colleagues, sons, fathers, mothers. Perhaps the word’s around he’ll be on a plate at Taldamon, ambience-hooked, relaxed, unvigilant.’

‘A striking-looking child, even then,’ Iles replied, ‘despite Wayne and his complexion. A wonderful long, slender back, as I recall. Do you recall that, Harpur — the long slender back? Do you think of backs ever? Or was it the era when you were so damn busy giving it to my wife you didn’t have time to notice much else at all?’ Iles began to screech in the frenzied seagull tone that would take him over sometimes when speaking of Harpur and Sarah.

Harpur said, ‘If we’re there we ought at least to—’

‘I mean her back in addition to the way she was, well—?’

‘Developing.’

This long back Fay-Alice unquestionably still had, and the development elsewhere seemed to have continued as it generally would for a girl between thirteen and eighteen. A little tea party had been arranged on the pleasant lawns at Taldamon before the prize-giving, out of consideration for parents who travelled a long way and needed refreshment. It was June, a good, hot, blue-skied day. ‘Here’s a dear, dear acquaintance of mine, Fay-Alice,’ Wayne said. ‘Assistant Chief Constable Desmond Iles. And Chief Superintendent Harpur.’

Iles gave her a true conquistador smile, yet a smile which also sought to hint at his sensitivity, honour, beguiling polish and famed restraint. Fay-Alice returned this smile with one that was hostile, nauseated and extremely brief but which still managed to signal over her teacup, Police? So how come you’re friends of my father, and who let you in here, anyway? Was it just normal schoolgirl prejudice against cops or did she have some idea that daddy’s career might be lifelong dubious — even some idea that her schooling and Wayne’s career could be unwholesomely related? This must be a bright kid, able to win prizes and an Oxford place. She’d have antennae as well as the long back.

‘Fay-Alice’s prizes are in French literature, history of art and classics,’ Wayne said.

‘Won’t mean a thing to Col,’ Iles replied.

‘I wondered if there’d been strangers around the school lately,’ Harpur said, ‘possibly asking questions about the programme today, looking at the layout.’

‘Which strangers?’ Fay-Alice replied.

‘Strangers,’ Harpur said. ‘A man, or men, probably.’

‘Why would they?’ the girl asked.

‘You know, French lit. is something I can’t get enough of,’ the A.C.C. said.

‘Mr Iles, personally, did a lot with education, right up to the very heaviest levels, Fay-Alice,’ Wayne said. ‘Don’t be fooled just because he’s police.’

‘Yes, why are you concerned about strangers, Mr Harpur?’ Nora Ridout asked.

‘Are you two trying to put the frighteners on us, the way pigs always do?’ Fay-Alice said.

‘I recall Alphonse de Lamartine and his poem “The Lake”,’ Iles replied.

‘Alphonse is a French name for sure,’ Wayne said. ‘There you are, Fay-Alice — didn’t I tell you, Mr Iles can go straight to it, no messing? Books are meat and drink to him.’

Iles leaned towards her and recited: ‘ “Oh, Time, will you not stop a while so we may savour the swiftly passing pleasures of our loveliest days?” ’

‘Meat and drink,’ Wayne said.

‘Don’t you find Lamartine’s plea an inspiration, Fay-Alice?’ Iles asked. ‘Savour. A word I thrill to. The sensuousness of it, together with the tragic hint of enjoying something wonderful, yet elusive.’ He began to tremble slightly and reached out a hand, as if to touch Fay-Alice’s long back or some conjoint region. But moving quickly towards the plate of sandwiches on a garden table, Harpur put himself between the A.C.C. and her. He took Iles’s pleaful, savour-seeking fingers on the lapel of his jacket. In any case, Fay-Alice had stepped back immediately she saw the A.C.C.’s hand approach and for a moment looked as if she was about to grab his arm and possibly break it in some kind of anti-rape drill.

‘Or the history of art,’ Wayne said. ‘That’s another terrific realm. This could overlap with French literature because while the poets were writing their verses in France there would be neighbours, in the same street most probably, painting and making sculptures in their attics. The French are known for it — easels, smocks, everything. It’s the light in those parts — great for art but also useful when people wanted to write a poem outside. In a way it all ties up. That’s the thing about culture, especially French. A lot of strands.’

‘And you’ll be coming home to live with Mother and Father until Oxford now, and in the nice long vacations, will you, Fay-Alice?’ Iles asked.

‘Why?’ she replied.

Iles said, ‘It’s just that—’

‘I don’t understand how you know my father,’ she replied.

‘Oh, Mr Iles and I — this is a real far-back association,’ Wayne said.

‘But how exactly?’ she asked. ‘He’s never been to our house, has he? I’ve never heard you speak of him, Dad.’

‘This is like an arrangement, Fay-Alice,’ Nora Ridout replied.

‘What kind of arrangement?’ Fay-Alice asked.

‘Yes, like an arrangement,’ Nora Ridout replied.

‘A business arrangement?’ Fay-Alice asked.

‘You can see how such a go-ahead school makes them put all the damn sharp queries, Mr Iles,’ Wayne said. ‘I love it. This is what I believe they call intellectual curiosity, used by many of the country’s topmost on their way to discoveries such as medical and DVDs. What they will not do, girls at this school — and especially girls who do really well, such as Fay-Alice — what they will not do is take something as right just because they’re told it. Oh, no. Rigour’s another word for this attitude, I believe. Not like rigor mortis but rigour in their thoughts and decisions. It’s a school that teaches them how to sort out the men from the boys re brain power.’

‘So, does the school come into it somehow?’ Fay-Alice asked. ‘Does it? Does it? How are these two linked with the school, Dad, Mum?’ She hammered at the question, yet Harpur thought she feared an answer.

‘Linked?’ Iles said. ‘Linked? Oh, just a pleasant excursion for Mr Harpur and myself, thanks to the thoughtfulness of your father, Fay-Alice.’

‘A business or social arrangement?’ Fay-Alice asked.

‘No, no, not a business arrangement. How could it be a business arrangement?’ Wayne replied, laughing.

‘Social?’ Fay-Alice asked.

‘It’s sort of social,’ Wayne said.

‘So, if it’s friendship why do you call him Mr Iles, not Desmond, his first name?’ Fay-Alice asked.

‘See what I mean about the queries, Mr Iles? I heard the motto of this school is “Seek ever the truth”, but in a classical tongue which provides many a motto around the country on account of tradition. You can’t beat the classics if you want to hit the right note.’

The A.C.C. said, ‘And I understand swimming has become a pursuit of yours, Fay-Alice. Excellent for the body. You must get along to the municipal pool at home. I should go there more often myself. Certainly I shall. This will be an experience — to see you active in the water, your arms and legs really working, wake a-glisten.’ Beautifully symmetric circles of sweat appeared on each of his temples, each the size of a two-penny piece, although the group were still outside on the lawn and under the shade of a eucalyptus. ‘The butterfly stroke — strenuous upper torso exercise, but useful for toning everything, don’t you agree, Fay-Alice? Toning everything. Oh, I look forward to that. Wayne, it will be a treat to have Fay-Alice around in the breaks from Oxford.’

‘Aren’t you a bit old for the butterfly?’ she said. ‘I hate watching a heart attack in the fast lane, all those desperate bubbles and the sudden incontinence.’

Iles chuckled, obviously in tribute to her aggression and jauntiness. ‘Oh, look, Fay-Alice—’

‘We don’t really need flics here, thank you,’ she replied. ‘So why don’t you just piss off back to your interrogation suite alone and play with yourself, Iles?’ Harpur decided that, even without pre-knowledge from its brochure, anyone could have recognised this as an outstandingly select school where articulateness was prized and deftly inculcated.

In the fine wide assembly hall, he appreciatively watched Fay-Alice on the platform stride out with her long back et cetera to receive prizes from the Lord Lieutenant. He seemed to do quite an amount of congratulatory talking to and hand shaking with Fay-Alice before conferring her trophies. All at once, then, Harpur realised that Iles had gone from the seat alongside him. For a moment, Harpur wondered whether the A.C.C. intended attacking the Lord Lieutenant for infringing on Fay-Alice and half stood in case he had to move forward and try to throw Iles to the ground and suppress him.

They had been placed at the end of a row, Iles to Harpur’s right next to the gangway, Wayne and Nora on his left. To help keep the hall cool, all doors were open. Glancing away from the platform now, Harpur saw Iles run out through the nearest door, as if chasing someone, fine black lace-ups flashing richly in the sunshine. He disappeared. On stage, the presentations continued. Harpur sat down properly again. The A.C.C.’s objective was not the Lord Lieutenant.

After about a minute, Harpur heard noises from the back of the hall and, turning, saw a man wearing a yellow and magenta crash helmet and face-guard enter via another open door and dash between some empty rows of seats. At an elegant sprint Iles appeared through the same door shortly afterwards. The man in the helmet stopped, spun and, pulling an automatic pistol from his waistband, pointed it at Iles, perhaps a Browning 140 DA. The A.C.C. swung himself hard to one side and crouched as the gun fired. Then he leaned far forward and used a fierce sweep of his left fist to knock the automatic from the man’s hand. With his clenched right, Iles struck him two short, rapid blows in the neck, just below the helmet. At once, he fell. Iles had been in the row behind, but now clambered over the chair backs to reach him. Harpur could not make out the man on the floor but saw Iles provide a brilliant kicking, though without thuggish shouts, so as not to disturb the prize-giving. Often Iles was damn fussy about decorum. He had mentioned his own quality schooling and this intermittent respect for protocol might date from then.

But because of the gunfire and activity at the rear of the hall, the ceremony had already faltered. Iles bent down and came up with the automatic. ‘Please, do continue,’ he called out to the Lord Lieutenant and other folk on the stage, waving the weapon in a slow, soothing arc, to demonstrate its harmlessness now. ‘Things are all right here, oh, yes.’ Iles was not big yet looked unusually tall among the chairs and might be standing on the gunman’s face. A beam of sunlight reached in through a window and gave his neat features a good yet unmanic gleam.

Afterwards, when the local police and ambulance people had taken the intruder away, Harpur and Iles waited at the end of the hall while the guests, school staff and platform dignitaries dispersed. Wayne, Nora and Fay-Alice approached, Wayne carrying Fay-Alice’s award volumes. ‘Had that man come for me?’ he asked. ‘For me? Why?’ He looked terrified.

‘My God,’ Nora said.

‘Someone hired for a hit?’ Wayne asked.

‘I’d think so,’ Iles said.

‘All sorts would want to commission him, Wayne,’ Harpur said. ‘You’re a target.’

‘My God,’ Nora said.

‘Someone had you marked, Wayne,’ Harpur said.

‘He’d have gone for you in the mêlée as the crowd departed at the end of the do, I should think,’ Iles said.

‘But how did you spot him, Mr Iles?’ Nora asked.

‘I’m trained always to wonder about people at girls’ school prize-givings with their face obscured by a crash helmet and obviously tooled up,’ Iles said. ‘There was a whole lecture course on it at Staff College.’

‘Why on earth did he come back into the hall?’ Nora asked.

‘He would still have had a shot at Wayne, as long as he could knock me out of the way,’ Iles said. ‘He had orders. He’s taken a fee, I expect. He’d be scared to fail.’

‘Oh, you saved Daddy, Mr Iles,’ Fay-Alice replied, riotously clapping her slim hands. ‘An Assistant Chief Constable accepting such nitty-gritty, perilous work on our behalf, and when so brilliantly dressed, too! It was wonderful — so brave, so skilful, so selfless. I watched mesmerised, but mesmerised, absolutely. A privilege, I mean it. Thank you, Mr Iles. You so deserve our trust.’ She inclined herself towards him, the long back stretching longer, and would have touched the A.C.C.’s arm. He skipped out of reach. ‘We shall have so much to talk about at the swimming pool back home,’ she said. ‘I do look forward to it.’

‘Let’s get away now, Harpur,’ Iles snarled.

‘Yes, I must show you my butterfly, Mr Iles,’ Fay-Alice said. ‘Desmond.’

‘Let’s get away now, Harpur,’ Iles replied.

Your father picks you up from prison in a stolen Dodge Neon with an eight-ball in the glove compartment and a hooker named Mandy in the back seat. Two minutes into the ride, the prison still hanging tilted in the rear-view, Mandy tells you that she only hooks part-time. The rest of the time she does light secretarial for an independent video chain and tends bar two Sundays a month at the local VFW. But she feels her calling — her true calling in life — is to write.

You go, ‘Books?’

‘Books.’ She snorts, half out of amusement, half to shoot a line off your fist and up her left nostril. ‘Screenplays!’ She shouts it at the dome light for some reason. ‘You know — movies.’

‘Tell him the one about the psycho saint guy,’ your father says. ‘That would put my ass in the seat.’ Your father winks at you in the rear-view, like he’s driving the two of you to the prom. ‘Go ahead. Tell him.’

‘Okay, okay.’ She turns on the seat to face you and your knees touch, and you think of Gwen, a look she gave you once, nothing special, just looking back at you as she stood at the front door, asking if you’d seen her keys. A forgettable moment if ever there was one but you spent four years in prison remembering it.

‘...so at his canonisation,’ Mandy is saying, ‘something, like, happens? And his spirit comes back and goes into the body of this priest. But, like, the priest? He has a brain tumor. He doesn’t know it or nothing but he does, and it’s fucking up his, um—’

‘Brain?’ you try.

‘Thoughts,’ Mandy says. ‘So he gets this saint in him and that does it, because like even though the guy was a saint, his spirit has become evil because his soul is gone. So this priest? He spends the rest of the movie trying to kill the Pope.’

‘Why?’

‘Just listen,’ your father says. ‘It gets good.’

You look out the window. A car sits empty along the shoulder. It’s beige and someone has painted gold wings on the sides, fanning out from the front bumper and across the doors, and a sign is affixed to the roof with some words on it, but you’ve passed it by the time you think to wonder what it says.

‘See, there’s this secret group that works for the Vatican? They’re like a, like a...’

‘A hit squad,’ your father says.

‘Exactly,’ Mandy says and presses her finger to your nose. ‘And the lead guy, the, like, head agent? He’s the hero. He lost his wife and daughter in a terrorist attack on the Vatican a few years back, so he’s a little fucked up, but—’

You say, ‘Terrorists attacked the Vatican?’

‘Huh?’

You look at her, waiting. She has a small face, eyes too close to her nose.

‘In the movie,’ Mandy says. ‘Not in real life.’

‘Oh. I just, you know, four years inside, you assume you miss a couple of headlines, but...’

‘Right.’ Her face dark and squally now. ‘Can I finish?’

‘I’m just saying,’ you say and snort another line off your fist, ‘even the guys on Death Row would have heard about that one.’

‘Just go with it,’ your father says. ‘It’s not like real life.’

You look out the window, see a guy in a chicken suit carrying a can of gas in the breakdown lane, think how real life isn’t like real life. Probably more like this poor dumb bastard running out of gas in a car with wings painted on it. Wondering how the hell he ever got here. Wondering who he’d pissed off in that previous real life.

When Brew finally caught up with him, Manny Klein was inhaling spaghetti in a back booth at Chubby’s, adding to his already ample girth with pasta and plying a green-eyed blonde called Mary Ann Best with tales of his exploits as New York’s premier talent scout. As usual, Manny was exaggerating but probably not about Rocky King.

‘The point is,’ Manny said, mopping up sauce with a hunk of French bread, ‘this time you’ve gone too far.’ He popped the bread in his mouth, wiped his three chins with a white napkin tucked in his collar and gazed at Brew Daniels with the incredulous stare of a small child suddenly confronted with a modern sculpture. ‘You’re dead, sport. Rocky’s put the word out on you. He thinks you’re crazy and you know what? So do I.’

Mary Ann watched as Brew grinned sheepishly and shrugged. Nobody had ever called him crazy. A flake definitely, but with jazz musicians, that comes with the territory, where eccentric behavior is a byword, the foundation of legends.

Everyone knew about Thelonious Monk keeping his piano in the kitchen and Dizzy Gillespie running for president. And who hadn’t heard about Sonny Rollins, startling passers-by with the mournful wail of his saxophone when he found the Williamsburg Bridge an inspiring place to practise after he dropped out of the jazz wars for a couple of years.

Strange perhaps, but these, Brew reasoned, were essentially harmless examples that if anything enhanced reputations and merely added another layer to the jazz mystique. With Brew, however, it was another story.

Begun modestly, Brew’s escapades gradually gathered momentum and eventually exceeded even the hazy boundaries of acceptable behavior in the jazz world until they threatened to eclipse his considerable skill with a tenor saxophone. Brew had the talent. Nobody denied that. ‘One of jazz’s most promising newcomers,’ wrote one reviewer after witnessing Brew come out on top in a duel with one of the grizzled veterans of the music.

It was Brew’s off-stage antics — usually at the expense of his current employer — that got him into trouble, earned him less than the customary two weeks’ notice and branded him a bona fide flake. But however outlandish the prank, Brew always felt fully justified even if his victims just as violently disagreed. Brew was selective but no one, not even Brew himself, knew when or where he would be inspired to strike next. Vocalist Dana McKay, for example, never saw Brew coming until it was too late.

Dana McKay is one of those paradoxes all too common in the music business: a very big star with very little talent, although her legions of fans don’t seem to notice. Thanks to the marvels of modern recording technology, top-flight studio orchestras and syrupy vocal backgrounds, Miss McKay sounds passable on recordings. Live is another story. She knows it and the bands who back her know it, so when the musicians who hang out at Chubby’s heard Brew had consented to sub for an ailing friend at the Americana, the smart money said Brew wouldn’t last a week and Dana McKay might be his latest victim. They were right on both counts.

To Brew, the music was bad enough but what really got to him was the phoney sentimentality of her act: shaking hands with the ringsiders, telling the audience how much they meant to her — exactly the same way, every show, every night. Dana McKay could produce tears on cue. Naturally, Brew was inspired.

The third night, he arrived early, armed with a stack of McDonald’s hats and unveiled his brainstorm to the band. They didn’t need much persuading. Miss McKay had, as usual, done nothing to endear herself to the musicians. She called unnecessary rehearsals, complained to the conductor and treated everyone as her personal slave. Except for the lady harpist, even the string section went along.

Timing was essential, so on Brew’s cue, at precisely the moment Miss McKay was tugging heartstrings with a teary-eyed rendition of one of her hits, the entire band donned the McDonald’s hats, stood up with arms spread majestically and sang out, ‘You deserve a break today!’

When the thunderous chorus struck, Miss McKay never knew what hit her. One of the straps of her gown snapped and almost exposed more of her than planned. She nearly fell off the stage. The dinner-show audience howled with delight, thinking it was part of the show. It got a mention in one of the columns but Miss McKay was not amused.

It took several minutes for the laughter to die down and by that time she’d regained her composure. She smiled mechanically and turned to the band. ‘How about these guys, folks? Aren’t they something?’ Her eyes locked on Brew grinning innocently in the middle of the sax section. She fixed him with an icy glare and Brew was fired before the midnight show. He was never sure how she knew he was responsible but he guess the lady harpist had a hand in it.

Brew kept a low profile for a while after that, basking in the glory of his most ambitious project to date, and made ends meet with a string of club dates in the Village. It wasn’t until he went on the road with Rocky King that he struck again. Everyone agreed Brew was justified this time but for once, he picked on the wrong man.

Rocky King is arguably the most hated bandleader in America, despite his nationwide popularity. Musicians refer to him as a ‘legend in his own mind’. He pays only minimum scale, delights in belittling his musicians on the stand and has been known on occasion physically to assault anyone who doesn’t measure up to his often unrealistic expectations. A man to be reckoned with, so when the news got out, Rocky swore a vendetta against Brew that even Manny Klein couldn’t diffuse — and he’d got Brew the job.

‘C’mon, Manny,’ Brew said. ‘Rocky had it coming.’

Manny shook his head. ‘You hear that, Mary Ann? I get him the best job he’s ever had, lay my own reputation on the line and all he can say is Rocky had it coming. Less than a week with the band, he starts a mutiny and puts Rocky King off his own bus forty miles from Indianapolis. You know what your problem is, Brew? Priorities. Your priorities are all wrong.’

Brew stifled a yawn and smiled again at Mary Ann. ‘Priorities?’

‘Exactly. Now take Mary Ann here. Her priorities are in exactly the right place.’

Brew grinned. ‘They certainly are.’ Mary Ann blushed slightly but Brew caught a flicker of interest in her green eyes. So did Manny.

‘I’m warning you, Mary Ann,’ Manny said. ‘This is a dangerous man, bent on self destruction. Don’t be misled by that angelic face.’ Manny took out an evil-looking cigar, lit it and puffed on it furiously until the booth was enveloped in a cloud of smoke.

‘Did you really do that? Put Rocky off the bus?’ Mary Ann asked.

Brew shrugged and flicked a glance at Manny. ‘Not exactly the way Manny tells it. As usual, he’s left out a few minor details.’ Brew leaned in closer to her. ‘One of the trumpet players had quit, see. His wife was having a baby and he wanted to get home in time. But kind, generous Rocky King wouldn’t let him ride on the bus even though we had to pass right through his home town. So, when we stopped for gas, I managed to lock Rocky in the men’s room and told the driver he’d be joining us later. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time.’

‘And what has it got you?’ Manny said, emerging from the smoke, annoyed to see Mary Ann was laughing. ‘Nothing but your first and last check, minus, of course, Rocky’s taxi fare to Indianapolis. You’re an untouchable now. You’ll be lucky to get a wedding at Roseland.’

Brew shuddered. Roseland was the massive ballroom under the Musicians’ Union and the site of a Wednesday-afternoon ritual known as cattle call. Hundreds of musicians jam the ballroom as casual contractors call for one instrument at a time. ‘I need a piano player for Saturday night.’ Fifty pianists or drummers or whatever is called rush the stage. First one there gets the gig.

‘Did the trumpet player get home in time?’ Mary Ann asked.

‘What? Oh yeah. It was a boy.’

‘Well, I think it was a nice thing to do.’ She looked challengingly at Manny.

‘Okay, okay,’ Manny said, accepting defeat. ‘So, you’re the good Samaritan but you’re still out of work and I...’ He paused for a moment, his face creasing into a baleful smile. ‘There is one thing... naw, you wouldn’t be interested.’

‘C’mon, Manny, I’m interested. Anything’s better than Roseland.’

Manny shrugged. ‘Well, I don’t know if it’s still going, but I heard they were looking for a tenor player at the Final Bar.’

Brew groaned and slumped back against the seat. ‘The Final Bar is a toilet. A lot of people don’t even know it’s still there.’

‘Exactly,’ said Manny. ‘The ideal place for you at the moment.’ He blew out another cloud of smoke and studied the end of his cigar. ‘Bobo Jones is there, with a trio.’

‘Bobo Jones? The Bobo Jones?’

‘The same, but don’t get excited. We both know Bobo hasn’t played a note worth listening to in years. A guy named Rollo runs the place. I’ll give him a call if you think you can cut it. Sorry, sport, that’s the best I can do.’

‘Yeah, do that,’ Brew said dazedly, but something in Manny’s smile told Brew he’d be sorry. He was vaguely aware of Mary Ann asking for directions as he made his way out of Chubby’s. So it had come to this. The Final Bar.

He couldn’t imagine Bobo James there.

‘I hate Arabs,’ said Paddy.

A guy sat facing a good-looking blonde in a booth against the far wall. The guy was minding his own business. He and the girl were splitting a pitcher of draught and smiling at each other across the table. He would say something, or she would, and the other one would laugh. It looked like they were having a nice time. Paddy was staring at the guy like he wanted to kick his ass.

‘How you know he’s an Arab?’ I said.

‘Look at him,’ said Paddy. ‘Looks like Achmed Z-med, that guy on T.J. Hooker.’

‘Adrian Zmed,’ said Scott, the smart guy of our bunch.

‘Another Arab,’ said Paddy. This was five or six years after the Ayatollah, Nuke Iran and all that crap. Paddy was the only guy I knew who hadn’t given that up.

Me and Paddy and Scott were in Kildare’s, a pub up in Wheaton we used to drink at pretty regular. Wheaton was our neighborhood, not too far over the DC line, but a thousand miles away from the city, if you know what I mean. It was a night like most nights back then: a little drinking, some blow, then more drinking to take the thirst off the blow. Only this night ended up different than the rest.

I’d put the year at 1985, ’cause I can remember the bands and singers that were coming from the juke: Mr Mister, Paul Young, Foreigner, Wham... Hell, you could flush the whole Top Forty from that decade down the toilet and no one would miss it. Also, Len Bias was lighting it up for Maryland on the TV screen over the bar, so I know it couldn’t have been later than ’Eighty-five. Maybe it was early ’eighty-six. It was around then, anyway.

Paddy was up that night, and not only from the coke. He always seemed angry at something back in those days, but we had chalked up his behavior to his hyped-up personality. Just ‘Tool being Tool.’

O’Toole, I should say. Up until he was twenty-three, Paddy’s name was John Tool. Most everyone who knew him, even his old man before he kicked, called him Tool. It was a nickname you gave to a fraternity brother or something, like Animal Man or Headcase, which was all right around the fellas, but didn’t go over too good with the girls. Paddy liked it all right when he was growing up, but when he got to be a man he suddenly felt it didn’t suit him. Still, he wanted a handle, something that could make him stand out in a crowd. He wasn’t a guy you noticed, either for his character or his appearance. I think that’s why he changed his name. That and his woman problem. He’d never had much success with the ladies and he was looking to change his luck.

What he told us was, he’d paid to have one of those family tree things done and found that he was all Irish on his mother’s side. Turned out that his great-grandfather’s name was O’Toole. A lightning-strike coincidence, he said, that Tool and O’Toole were so similar. So he made the legal switch, adding Paddy as his first name. He said he liked the way Paddy O’Toole ‘scanned’.

It was around this time that he went Irish all the way. Started listening to The Chieftains and their kind. Became a Notre Dame fan, got the silver four-leaf clover charm on a silver-plated necklace, and had that T-Bird he drove, the garbage wagon with the Landau roof, painted Kelly green at the body shop where he worked. Then he fixed a ‘Kiss Me, I’m Irish’ sticker on the rear bumper, which totally fucked up what was already a halfway fucked-looking car.

Paddy began to drink more, too. I guess he thought that being a lush would admit him to the club. When he got really torched, he talked about his mother’s cooking like it was special or something, and referred to his late father as ‘Da’. His eyes would well with tears then, even though the old man had beat him pretty good when he was a kid. We thought it was all bullshit, and a little off, but we didn’t say nothin’ to him. He wasn’t hurting anyone, after all.

We didn’t say anything to his face, that is. Scott, the only one of us who had graduated from college, analysed the situation, as usual. Scott said that Americans who had that Irish identity thing going on were Irish the way Tony Danza was Italian. That most Americans’ idea of Ireland was John Ford’s Ireland, Technicolor green and Maureen O’Hara red and Barry Fitzgerald, Popeye-with-a-brogue blarney. And by the way, said Scott, John Ford was born in Maine. I didn’t know John Ford from Gerald Ford, but it sounded smart. Also, it sounded like a lecture, the way Scott always sounded since he’d come back home with that degree. Scott could be a little, what do you call that, pompous sometimes, but he was all right.

So back to Kildare’s. For years we had gone to this other joint around the corner, Garner’s, made your clothes smell like Marlboro Lights and steak-and-cheese. But Paddy, who before he went Irish had never moved up off of Miller Lite, said the Guinness there was ‘too cold’, so we changed locals. ‘Kildare is a county in Ireland,’ said Paddy, the first time we went in there, like he was telling us something we didn’t know, and Scott said, ‘So is Sligo,’ meaning the junior high school where all of us had gone. Paddy’s mouth kind of slacked open then, like it did when he thought Scott was putting him on. I said, ‘Dr Kildare,’ just to hear my own voice.

Kildare’s wasn’t anything special. It was your standard fake pub, loaded with promotional posters and mobiles, courtesy of the local liquor distributors. The sign outside said ‘A Publick House’, like you could fool people into thinking Wheaton was London. I don’t know, maybe the home-town rednecks bought into it, ’cause the joint was usually full. More likely they didn’t care what you called it or what you dressed it up as. It was a place to get drunk. That was all anyone in these parts needed to know.

So the three of us were sitting at a four-top in the center of the room. I was hammering a Bud and Scott had a Michelob, another way he had of wearing his ‘I went to college’ badge. Paddy was on his third stout, and there was a shot of Jameson’s set neat next to the mug. I didn’t know how he afforded to drink the top-shelf stuff. He made jack shit at the body shop and went through a gram of coke every few days. But he still lived with his mother over on Tenbrook and it didn’t look like he spent any money on clothes. I guess his paycheck went to getting his head up.

‘I Want to Know What Love Is’ was coming from the jukebox. Lou Gramm was crooning and I was thinking about my girl. I had met this fine young lady, Lynne, worked an aluminum siding booth up in Wheaton Plaza, who I thought might be the one. She had dark hair and a rack on her like that PR or Cuban chick, played on Miami Vice. I wanted to be with her but I was here. It was partly out of habit, and mostly because I knew Paddy would be holding. Also, Paddy had practically begged me to come. He didn’t like to drink alone.

‘You guys ready to do a bump?’ said Paddy.

‘Shit, yeah,’ I said. I mean, what did he think? Hell, it was why I was sitting there.

‘I gotta work tomorrow,’ said Scott.

‘What’s your point?’ said Paddy.

‘It’s a real job,’ said Scott. At the time, Scott was putting in hours at a downtown law firm and studying for what he called the ‘L-sats’.

Paddy looked over at the booth where the Arab dude sat, smiled kind of mean, then moved his eyes back to Scott. ‘Like my job isn’t real?’

‘All I’m saying is, it’s not the kind of job where you can just fall out of bed, stumble into a garage with a headache, and start banging out dings.’

‘Oh, I get you. Big smart lawyer. What you makin’ down at that law firm, Scott?’

‘Nothing. It’s an internship.’

‘Better get in there refreshed in the morning, then. You wouldn’t want to lose a gig like that.’ Paddy turned his attention to me. ‘Meet me in the head in a few minutes, Counselor. Okay?’

I had just dropped out of community college for the last time and had gotten this job at a local branch of a big television-and-stereo chain. The company called us ‘Sales Counselors’, like we were shrinks or something. Paddy thought it was a laugh.

‘Okay,’ I said.

‘Watch this,’ said Paddy, and he got out of his seat.

Paddy navigated the space between the floor tables and headed for the booth where the guy was drinking with the blonde. He walked right up to their table and bumped his thigh against it, hard enough to rattle their mugs and spill some of their beer. The guy looked up, not angry, just surprised. Paddy pointed his finger at the guy’s face and said, ‘Pussy.’ Then Paddy made a beeline to the men’s room, which was down a serpentine hall. The doorman, one of three cousins who owned the place, was standing nearby. He saw the whole thing.

‘That was smooth,’ said Scott.

The guy at the booth was staring at us, like, what’s up with your buddy? Funny, with his face square on us, he did look like that Achmed Z-med dude. The blonde was busy mopping up the spilt beer with some napkins. I thought of going over to apologise, or shrugging to let them know that we were innocent in whatever had just happened, but I didn’t, ’cause it would have been a betrayal of my friend. I just looked away.

‘The lucky leprechaun’s in rare form tonight,’ said Scott. ‘You guys drop me at my parents’ place after this, okay?’

‘Yeah, sure.’

‘You want to get busted for something, that’s up to you, but I got too much to lose.’

‘I said we would.’

Scott’s eyeglasses reflected neon from a Bud Light sign up on the wall. His hair was curly and short, and he was soft-featured and overweight. He had rose petal lips, like a girl’s. Scott was one of those guys, you could tell what he was gonna look like when he got to be an old man, even when we were kids.

I pushed my chair away from the table, got up and walked towards the head. The doorman was giving me the fisheye, his arms folded across his chest. I didn’t look at the Arab guy or the blonde.

I made it through the hall, black paneled walls lit by a red bulb, and knocked on the locked men’s room door. Paddy opened up and I slid in. The room held a toilet, a stand-up urinal and a sink, all on the same wall. The toilet didn’t have a door on it or nothin’ like that, so if you had to take a shit you did it in front of strangers. There was a casement window by the toilet, always cranked open some to let out the smell. Everything was filthy in here. Paper towels overflowed the plastic trashcan by the sink and were crumpled like dirty white carnations on the tiled floor.

‘Here you go, Counselor,’ said Paddy. He held a small amber vial in one hand and a black screw-on top in the other. Inside the top a small spoon dangled by a chain. He dipped the spoon into the vial and produced a tiny mound of coke that he held to my nose.

I could see that there wasn’t hardly any coke left in the vial. I knew if I did one jolt I’d be hungry for it the rest of the night. Even if we could find someplace to cop, I didn’t have the dough to buy any more, and I didn’t know if Paddy did, either.

I was thinking of this as I pressed a forefinger to one nostril and snorted the mound into the other. A good cool ache came behind my eyes.

Paddy produced another mound and I did it up the other nostril the same way. He scraped out what was left in the vial and did that himself. He found some more in there somehow and rubbed that on his gums while I ran water from the faucet, wet my fingers, tipped my head back and let some droplets go down my nose. Then I took a leak in the stand-up head.

‘Hurry up,’ said Paddy. ‘Everyone’s gonna think you’re in here suckin’ my dick.’

‘No they won’t. ‘Cause everyone knows you don’t have one.’

‘Axe your mama if I have one.’

‘Look, you gonna be a good boy out there?’

‘I was just fuckin’ with that guy.’

‘For what?’

‘I don’t know.’

I tucked myself back in and zipped up my fly. I was already speeding and there was a drip, tasted like medicine, back in my throat. I wished my girl was out there; I could break away with her if she was. But it wouldn’t be cool to split now, seeing as Paddy had just got me lit up. And by the time I got to her place, I’d be crashing. I’d hang with Paddy for a while, cop some more someplace, then knock on Lynne’s door later on.

We walked out into the hall. ‘Every Time You Go Away’ was playing in the house. I felt tall and funny. Our waitress was going to the girl’s room and I reminded her to wash her hands. She edged by us in the narrow passageway without even giving us a smile.

Good as I felt, I had forgotten about the doorman. My stomach flipped some as I saw him standing by our table. Our bill was on the table and Scott was kinda slumped in his seat. We went there and Paddy spread his hands, like, what’s going on?

‘Pay your tab and get out,’ said the doorman, pointing at the bill.

‘We’re not finished drinking,’ said Paddy.

‘You’re finished,’ said the doorman. ‘Pay your tab and get out.’

‘What, ’cause of that guy?’ said Paddy, jerking his head toward the Arab and the blonde. ‘He was bothering me. Sayin’ shit, and stuff. I wasn’t just gonna let it pass.’

‘I saw the whole thing,’ said the doorman. His face was ugly and it was stone. ‘Pay up and get out. You’re not welcome in here any more.’

The doorman was short and wore one of those Woody Allen hats to cover his hair plugs. Basically, he was an insecure guy who liked to act tough. We all knew he couldn’t walk it, and he knew we knew, and it just made him more mean. He was not a physical problem, but the Harris Brothers, a couple of guys worked nights in the kitchen, were. They had been wrestlers at our old high school, and there was no love lost between them and Paddy.

We dropped some money on the four-top. Scott stood and put some green in, too. A few of the drinkers at the tables and booths were checking us out with anticipation, waiting to see what we would do.

I already knew we weren’t going to do a thing. Paddy’s face had gone pink and he was just standing there, sway-backed, staring at his shoes. He was a pale-skinned strawberry blond who could have been handsome if his features had been hooked up better. I couldn’t say what made him unattractive exactly, but there was something off about his looks. Scott called him an inbred Redford.

The three of us walked out, slow enough to salvage some dignity. But we kept moving and we didn’t give any more lip to the little doorman with the hair plugs. I locked eyes for a moment with the guy in the booth. He didn’t smile or anything, but he wasn’t gloating about us getting tossed, either. He handled it all right. It was us that came off looking like assholes.

Out in the lot, walking towards Paddy’s T-Bird, Scott said, ‘Say goodbye to Kildare’s, boys. We’ll never drink in there again.’

‘No loss,’ said Paddy. ‘We’ll just drink at Garner’s.’

‘Aye, Garner’s,’ said Scott. ‘I don’t think so, lads. The Guinness is too cold.’

‘Big college smart-ass, now.’

‘How green was my valley,’ said Scott, with a lilt.

‘Fuck you,’ said Paddy.

‘Suck what?’ said Scott.

They went on like that until we dropped Scott at his father’s house on Gabel. I didn’t get in on the conversation. I was too busy thinking of my next bump.

Paddy left rubber on the street, hard to do with that heavy car, as we drove away from Scott’s. He said that he was tired of Scott, how he wasn’t the same since coming back from that fancy school, how he only tolerated him ’cause Scott and me went back to elementary, all that.

‘I ain’t goin’ drinking with him again,’ said Paddy.

I didn’t comment, thinking that they would kiss and make up and we’d be up at Garner’s or someplace like it the next week. But it turned out Paddy was right.

We picked up a six of domestic in Four Corners and cracked a couple of cans straight away. Both of us had a terrific thirst. Paddy drove down University Boulevard, then cut a left on to Piney Branch Road and took it to New Hampshire Avenue. We listened to a tape Paddy’d made, a balladeer named Christy Moore. He had a nice voice, with those whistles and pipes and shit like that in the background, but it sounded like something my father listened to, Vic Damone with an accent. I really thought Paddy had taken this Mick thing too far.

I saw where he was going as he cut up New Hampshire. They had garden apartments up along there where I’d heard you could cop. It was just above Langley Park, not as dangerous as Langley with the El Salvies and those crazy-assed Jamaicans, but still kinda grim. All varieties of Spanish here and a lot of blacks. Not that I was scared of ’em or nothin’ like that.

Paddy turned into the parking lot, found a spot, and cut the engine and the lights. We sat there killing the rest of our beers.

‘Who we gonna see?’ I said.

‘Some girl,’ said Paddy. ‘This guy I know at work hooked it up.’

‘You don’t know her?’

‘It’s just a girl. Don’t worry, nothing could happen. I called her before I met you guys and she said it was cool. She sounded all right.’ Paddy grinned. ‘I bet she’s fine, too.’

The way he said fine, like ‘foyne’, I knew she was a black girl. Paddy had a thing for black chicks, though I don’t think he’d ever had any. Except for that one time, when that girl down at Benny’s Rebel Room jacked him off for forty-five bucks.

‘What’re we getting’?’ I said.

‘An eight-ball.’

‘Shit, Paddy, c’mon.’ I had, like, sixteen bucks in my wallet, and next to nothing in the bank.

‘I got you, man.’

So he was dealing. Small time, but there it was. That’s how Paddy always had coke. It was the first time he’d let me know, even if it was in a back-door way. Because I was still high and feeling bold, it excited me some that he had let me in on his action. Also, I was a little bit scared.

‘This your regular connection?’

‘Nah, uh-uh, he’s out of town. This is a one-time deal.’

I looked up at the apartments and the grounds. Some of the balconies were sagging and fast-food trash was strewn about the lot. ‘Maybe we oughta wait until your man gets back.’

‘You wanna get high, don’t you?’

‘Well, yeah.’ I was at that stage, I was hungry for more.

Paddy threw his head back to drain his can of beer. He lofted the can over his shoulder. It hit some dead soldiers on the floorboard and made a dull metallic sound. I killed mine and dropped the can between my feet.

We got out of the car and walked across the lot. There were a couple of guys wearing mustaches, sitting in a black, late-model Ford parked nearby. Their heads were moving to music; the bass was up so loud I could hear it behind the closed windows of their car. I didn’t make eye contact with them or anything. I figured they were doing some blow. Hell, everyone was rocking it back then. They were a little old for it, but it wasn’t any business of mine.

We went up a stairwell, one of those open-air jobs with cinderblock walls. Paddy stopped on the second-floor landing. It was dark when it should have been lit. Then I saw the busted-out light bulb hung in a cage. I wondered if the girl dealing the blow had deliberately broken the light, made it so you couldn’t see her apartment too good from the parking lot. Paddy knocked on the door, waited, then knocked again.

In a little while, a girl’s voice came forward, muffled over some music that was playing inside the apartment. Paddy put his face close to the door and said his name, and also the name of his co-worker at the body shop. The door opened and Paddy stepped inside. I followed him. The girl stepped back against the wall to let us pass.

The girl was black, on the short side, with all the woman parts in place, including her black girl’s onion. She wore Jordache jeans and a jean shirt unbuttoned kinda low. I could see one of her tits hanging in a loose white bra. She caught me checking her out as I squeezed by. She didn’t seem to care. It was hard to read anything in her hard, unfriendly face and dark, almond-shaped eyes. I didn’t say ‘hey’ to her or smile or anything like it. She took a deep cokehead’s drag off the cigarette she was holding and closed the door.

Paddy put out his hand. ‘C’mon,’ said the girl, ignoring his gesture. We followed her down a short hall.

The music got louder as we walked. It was rap music, some black guy shouting over hard chords of electric guitar. We entered a living-room/dining-room arrangement, two small rooms, really, separated by nothing, where all the curtains were drawn tight. The place stunk of cigarettes. Cigarette smoke hung in the room.

A light-skinned black dude sat on the couch, dragging on a smoke, Jonesing for the nicotine like the girl. On the table before the couch was a mirror holding a largish mound of coke heaped beside a single-edged blade. An ashtray sat beside the mirror and was filled with butts. The dude raised his head as we came into the room and sized us up the way guys do. The way he looked at us, you could tell he wasn’t too impressed.

Another black guy, darker-skinned with ripped arms, sat at the dining-room table. He wore a sleeveless black T-shirt to show off his guns. He was rapping along to the guy shouting from the stereo. There was a large amount of cocaine on the table, along with a scale, a big mirror, some blades, plastic Baggies of various sizes, and snowseals. The snowseals were real, the pharmaceutical kind, not just paper ripped from magazines and folded to size.

The coke was a mountain. I mean, it was Tony Montana big. I’d never seen so much shit before in my life.

A stainless-steel pistol, a short-nosed revolver, sat on the table. The guy touched the grip, turning it just an inch so that the barrel pointed our way. He looked at us, and his eyes were laughing and bright. As the voice came from the stereo, he kept his gaze on us and shouted along: ‘It’s like that, and that’s the way it is.’

It’s real clear, even today, what I was thinking: You just got your life started and this is how you die. All you want to do is get your head up, nothing more than that. You walk into the wrong apartment, there’s guns, and you fucking die.

‘You got it?’ said Paddy to the girl. I had to hand it to him. He was acting pretty cool. Knowing Paddy, he was trying to keep himself together to impress her. For a guy who got no play, Paddy was an optimist. He always thought he had a chance.

The girl went and turned down the stereo to almost nothing. The guy at the table kept rapping to the song.

‘An eight, right?’ said the girl to Paddy.

‘That’s right, baby.’

I was thinking, Nah, don’t go there, Paddy. Don’t put on that bullshit black-talk of yours, not here. But she didn’t even blink. She went down another hall and into a kitchen that was visible through a cut-out in the dining-room wall. I watched her ratfuck through the freezer section of the refrigerator.

The guy at the table stopped rapping and said, ‘Y’all want a taste?’

Paddy smiled friendly and put up his hands. ‘That’s all right,’ he said. I’d never seen him turn down a blast of coke.

‘Ain’t like I’m asking you to drink out the same bottle as me.’

Paddy chuckled unconvincingly. ‘It’s not that. I just don’t want any right now.’

‘Well, I’m a little surprised, ’cause you look like a pro. Don’t you always check out what you’re buyin’?’ The guy glanced at the dude sitting on the couch, then back at us. ‘C’mon over here and give it a road test.’

Paddy shrugged and moved over to the table. I stayed where I was.

The guy at the table dipped a blade into an open Baggie that held some coke. I wondered why he didn’t take it off the Everest that was in front of him. He dumped some powder off the blade and tracked out four thick lines on the mirror without giving it any chop. He handed a short tube of plastic, the cut-down barrel of a Bic pen, to Paddy.

When Paddy leaned over the table to do his lines, his four-leaf clover pendant fell out of his shirt and hung suspended between the zippers of his Member’s Only jacket.

‘Irish, huh?’ said the guy.

Paddy said, ‘All the way.’ He did a line and made a show of rearing his head back to take it all in.

‘They call me Carlos. What do they call you?’

‘Paddy.’

‘No last name?’

‘O’Toole.’

‘Wow. That damn sure is Irish.’ Carlos’s voice was almost musical. ‘Been to the motherland?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Tell the truth, man: that can’t be your real name, right?’

‘I changed it,’ said Paddy, real low. The room was quiet, but you could barely hear him. He bent forward and quickly snorted the other line.

‘You’re like, fake Irish, then. That’s what you tellin’ me?’

Paddy cleared his nostrils with a pinch of his fingers. His eyes narrowed some as he straightened his posture. ‘I’m Irish.’

Paddy said it real strong, like he was looking to make something of it.

‘All the way,’ said the guy on the couch.

Carlos looked Paddy over real slow. Then Carlos smiled. ‘Plastic Paddy,’ said Carlos. The guy on the couch laughed.

Paddy’s face grew pink, like it had gotten at Kildare’s. The girl came back through the hall with a Baggie in her hand and stood near the table. The cigarette still burned between her fingers; it was down to the filter now. Paddy turned to me, his face flushed, and held out the tube. I waved the offer away with my hand.

‘Take it,’ said Paddy. He sounded kinda mad.

I was frozen. I didn’t want any coke. I was thinking of my parents and my kid sister. I just wanted to get outside.

‘What’s the matter with your boy?’ said Carlos. ‘Can’t he find his tongue?’

‘Give it to me,’ I said to Paddy. The sound of my own voice was a relief. I walked a few steps and took the Bic from Paddy’s outstretched hand. I did the lines fast, one right behind the other, and dropped the plastic tube on the table.

‘Here you go, ace,’ said the girl, speaking to Paddy. She handed him a Baggie that I guessed she had gotten from the freezer. I could see grains of rice in there with the coke.

‘This from the same batch I just did?’ said Paddy.

‘Yeah,’ said Carlos. ‘It’s good, right?’

Good. It wasn’t even close. I knew right away that this shit was wrong. A curtain had dropped throughout my body and everything had gotten pushed down into my bowels. I was speeding without the happiness and I had to take a dump. This was bullshit coke. They had stepped all over it with baby laxative and who knew what else.

Paddy had to be feeling the same way I was. He knew he was getting ripped off. It was like the guy was asking, ‘You don’t mind if I fuck you, do you?’

But Paddy didn’t complain. He reached into his jeans and pulled out a roll of bills. He handed the bills to the girl, who counted out the money with dead eyes.

‘Ain’t you gonna weigh it out?’ said Carlos, chinning in the direction of the Baggie. ‘I got a scale right here.’

Paddy didn’t answer. He rolled the Baggie tight and slipped it in the inside pocket of his Member’s Only.

‘You just gonna eyeball it, huh?’ said Carlos.

‘Let’s go,’ said Paddy. He turned and began to walk. I followed him back down the hall toward the front door. We heard the guy on the couch say ‘Plastic Paddy’ in the voice of a game show host, and then all of them laughed. I didn’t care because it looked like we were going to get out of there alive. But I know Paddy must have been hurting inside, ’cause they’d ripped something out of him. Also, it was the second time he’d been shamed that night.

We took the stairwell down toward the lot. As we crossed the sidewalk, Paddy said, ‘Fuckin’ niggers,’ and right about then the guys I’d noticed in the Ford came out of nowhere, holding guns on us, shouting at us to lock our hands behind our heads and drop to the asphalt and kiss it. I went down shaking, seeing other men running around in the dark, hearing their adrenalised voices and the screech of tires and the closing of heavy car doors.

As I hit the ground I lost control of everything and crapped my pants.

We were meant to be getting some sleep, but how you’re supposed to sleep in a cold, muddy, rat-infested trench, when the uppermost thought in your mind is that you’re going to be shot first thing in the morning is quite beyond me.

Albert Parkinson handed around the Black Cats to the four of us who clustered together for warmth, mugs of weak Camp coffee clutched to our chests, almost invisible to one another in the darkness. ‘Here you go, Frank,’ he said, cupping the match in his hands for safety, even though we were well below ground level. I thanked him and inhaled the harsh tobacco, little realising that soon I would be inhaling something far more deadly. Still, we needed the tobacco to mask the smell. The trench stank to high heaven of unwashed men, excrement, cordite and rotting flesh.

Now and then, distant shots broke the silence, someone shouted a warning or an order, and an exploding shell lit the sky. But we were waiting for dawn. We talked in hushed voices and eventually the talk got around to what makes heroes of men. We all put in our two-penn’orth, of course, mostly a lot of cant about courage, patriotism and honour, with the occasional begrudging nod in the direction of folly and luck, but instead of settling for a simple definition, Joe Fairweather started to tell us a story.

Joe was a strange one. Nobody quite knew what to make of him. A bit older than the rest of us, he already had a reputation as one of the most fearless lads in our regiment. It never seemed to worry him that he was running across no man’s land in a hail of bullets; he seemed either blessed or indifferent to his fate. Joe had survived Ypres one and two, and now here he was, ready to go again. Some of us thought he was more than a little bit mad.

‘When I was a kid,’ Joe began, ‘about eleven or twelve, we used to play by the canal. It was down at the bottom of the park, through the woods, and not many people went there because it was a hell of a steep slope to climb back up. But we were young, full of energy. We could climb anything. There were metal railings all along the canal side, but we had found a loose one that you could lift out easily, like a spear. We always put it back when we went home so nobody would know we had found a way in.

‘There wasn’t much beyond the canal in those days, only fields full of cows and sheep, stretching away to distant hills. Very few barges used the route. It was a lonely, isolated spot, and perhaps that was why we liked it. We used to forge sick notes from our mothers and play truant from school, and nobody was ever likely to spot us down by the canal.

‘Not that we got up to any real mischief, mind you. We just talked the way kids do, skimmed stones off the water. Sometimes we’d sneak out our fishing nets and catch sticklebacks and minnows. Sometimes we played games. Just make-believe. We’d act out stories from Boy’s Own, cut wooden sticks from the bushes and pretend we were soldiers on patrol.’ Joe paused and looked around at the vague outlines of our faces in the trench and laughed. ‘Can you believe it?’ he said. ‘We actually played at being soldiers. Little did we know...

‘One day, I think it was June or July, just before the summer holidays, at any rate, a beautiful, sunny, still day, the kind that makes you believe that only good things are going to happen, my friend Adrian and me were sitting on the stone bank dipping our nets in the murky water when we saw someone on the other side. I say saw, but at first it was more like sensing a presence, a shadow on the water, perhaps, and we looked up and noticed a strange man standing on the opposite bank, watching us with a funny sort of expression on his face. I remember feeling annoyed at first because this was our secret place and nobody else was supposed to be there. Now this grown-up had to come and spoil everything.

‘“Shouldn’t you boys be at school?” he asked us.

‘There wasn’t much we could say to that, and I dare say we just fidgeted and looked shifty.

‘“Well,” he said. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone. What are you doing?”

‘“Just fishing,” I said.

‘“Just fishing? What are you fishing for? There can’t be much alive down there in that filthy water.”

‘“Minnows and sticklebacks,” I said.

‘“How old are you?”

‘We told him.

‘“Do your parents know where you are?”

‘“No,” I said, though I remember feeling an odd sensation of having spoken foolishly as soon as the word was out of my mouth, but it was too late to take it back.

‘“Why do you want to know?” Adrian asked him.

‘“It doesn’t matter. Want to play a game with me?”

‘“No, thanks.” We started to move away. Who did he think he was? We didn’t play with grown-ups; they were no fun.

‘“Oh, I think you do,” he said and there was something about his voice that made the hackles on the back of my neck stand up. I glanced at Adrian and we turned to look across the canal to where the man stood. When we saw the gun in his hand, both of us froze.

‘He smiled, but it wasn’t a nice smile. “Told you so,” he said.

‘Now, I looked at him closely for the first time. I was just a kid, so I couldn’t say how old he was, but he was definitely a grown-up. A man. And he was wearing a sort of uniform, like a soldier, but it looked shabby and rumpled, as if it had been slept in. I couldn’t see the revolver very clearly, not that I’d have had any idea what make it was, as if that even mattered. All that mattered was that it was a gun and that he was pointing it at us.

‘Then, out of sheer nerves I suppose, we laughed, hoping maybe it was all a joke and it was just a cap gun he was holding. “All right,” Adrian said. “If you really want to play...”

‘“Oh, I do,” the man said. Then he pulled the trigger.

‘It wasn’t as loud as I had expected, more of a dull popping sound, but something whizzed through the bushes beside me and dinged on the metal railing as it passed by. I felt deeply ashamed as the warm piss dribbled down my bare legs. Thankfully, nobody seemed to notice it but me.

‘“That’s just to show you that it’s a real gun,” the man said, “and that I mean what I say. Do you believe me now?”

‘We both nodded. “What do you want?” Adrian asked.

‘“I told you. I want to play.”

‘“Look,” I said, “you’re frightening us. Why don’t you put the gun away? Then we’ll play with you, won’t we, Adrian?”

‘Adrian nodded. “Yes.”

‘“This?” The man looked at his revolver as if seeing it for the first time. ‘But why should I want to put it away?”

‘He fired again, closer this time, and a clod of earth flew up and stung my cheek. I was damned if I was going to cry, but I was getting close. I felt as if we were the only people for hundreds of miles, maybe the only people in the whole world. There was nobody to save us and this lunatic was going to kill us after he’d had his fun. I didn’t know why, what made him act like that, or anything, but I just knew he was going to do it.

‘“Don’t you like this game?” he asked me.

‘“No,’ I said, trying to keep my voice from shaking. ‘I want to go home.”

‘“Go on, then,” he said.

‘“What?”

‘“I said go on.”

‘“You don’t mean it.”

‘“Yes, I do. Go.”

‘Slowly, without taking my eyes off him, I backed up the bank towards the hole in the railings. Only when I got there, and I had to turn to squeeze through, did I take my eyes off him. As soon as I did, I heard another shot and felt the air move as something zipped by my ear. “I’ve changed my mind,” he said. “Come back.”

‘Knowing, deep down, that it had been too good to be true, I slunk back to the bank. The man was muttering to himself, now, and neither Adrian nor I could make out what he was saying. In a way, that was even more frightening than hearing his words. He was pacing up and down, too, staring at the ground, his gun hanging at his side, but we knew that if either of us made the slightest movement, he would start shooting at us again.

‘This went on for some time. I could feel myself sweating and the wetness down my legs was uncomfortable. Apart from the incomprehensible muttering across the water, everything was still and silent. No birds sang, almost as if they knew this was death’s domain and had got out when they could. Even the cows and sheep were silent, and looked more like a landscape painting than real, living creatures. Maybe a barge would come, I prayed. Then he would have to hide his gun and we would have time to run up to the woods. But no barge came.

‘Finally, he came to a pause in his conversation with himself, at least for the time being. “You,” he said to Adrian, gesturing with his gun. “You can go now.”

‘“I don’t believe you mean it,” Adrian said.

‘The man pointed the gun right at him. “Go. Before I change my mind and shoot you.”

‘Adrian scrambled up the grassy bank. I could hear him crying. I had never felt so alone in my life. Inside, I was praying for the man to tell Adrian to come back, the way he had with me. I didn’t want to die alone by the dirty canal. I wanted to go home and see my mum and dad again.

‘This time my prayers were answered.

‘“Come back,” he said. “I’ve changed my mind.”

‘“Are you going to shoot us?” I asked, when Adrian once again stood at my side, wiping his eyes on his sleeve.

‘“I don’t know,” he said. ‘It depends on what they tell me to do. Just shut up and let me think. Don’t talk unless I ask you to.”

‘They? What on earth was he talking about? Adrian and I looked at one another, puzzled. There was nobody else around. Who was going to tell him what to do? You have to remember we were only kids, and we didn’t know anything about insane people hearing voices and all that.

‘“But why?” I asked. “Why are you doing this? We haven’t done you any harm.”

‘He didn’t say anything, just fired a shot — pop — into the bushes right beside me. It was enough. Then he started talking again, and I think both Adrian and me now had an inkling that he was hearing the voices in his head, and that maybe he was having a conversation with the mysterious “they” he had mentioned.

‘“All right,” he said, the next time he calmed down. He pointed the gun at me. “What’s your name?” he asked.

‘“Joe,” I said.

‘“Joe. All right, Joe. You can go. What’s your friend’s name?”

‘“Adrian.”

‘“Adrian stays.”

‘I stood my ground. “You’re not going to let me go,” I told him. “You’ll only do the same as you did before.”

‘That made him angry and he started waving the gun around again. “Go!” he yelled at me. “Now! Before I shoot you right here.”

‘I went.

‘Sure enough, when I got to the hole in the fence, I heard him laugh, a mad, eerie sound that sent a chill through me despite the heat of the day. “You didn’t think I meant it, did you? Come back here, Joe.”

‘Somehow, the use of my name, the sound of it from his lips, on his breath, was worse than anything else. For a moment, I hesitated then I slipped through the hole in the railings and started running for my life.

‘I knew that there was a hollow about thirty feet up the grassy slope, and if I reached it I would be safe. It was only a quick dash from there to the woods.

‘I heard him shout again. “Joe, come back here right now!”

‘I ran and ran. I heard the dull pop of his revolver and sensed something whiz by my right side and thud into the earth. My heart was pumping for all it was worth and the muscles on my legs felt fit to burst.

‘But I made it. I made it to the hollow and dived into the dip in the ground that would protect me from any more bullets. I heard just one more popping sound before I made my dash for the woods and that was it.’

Here, Joe paused, as if recounting the narrative had left him as out of breath as outrunning the lunatic’s bullets. From our trench, we could hear more shots in the distance now and a shell exploded about two hundred yards to the west, lighting up the sky. Further away, somewhere behind our lines, a piper played. I handed around my cigarettes and noticed Jack Armstrong in the subdued glow of the match. Face ashen, eyes glazed, lips trembling, the kid was terrified and it was my guess that he’d freeze when the command came. I’d seen it happen before. Not that I blamed him. I sometimes wondered why we didn’t all react that way. There but for the grace of God... I remembered Harry Mercer, who had tried for a Blighty in the foot and ended up losing the entire lower half of his left leg. Then there was Ben Castle, poor, sad Ben, who swore he’d do it himself before the Germans did it to him, and calmly put his gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. So who were the heroes? And why?

‘What happened next?’ asked Arthur. ‘Did you run and fetch the police?’

‘The police? No,’ said Joe. ‘I don’t really remember what I did. I think I just wandered around in a daze. I couldn’t believe it had happened, you see, that I had been so close to death and escaped.’

‘But what about your friend? What about Adrian?’ Arthur persisted.

Joe looked right through him, as if he hadn’t even heard the question. ‘I waited until it was time to return home from school,’ he went on, ‘and that’s exactly what I did. Went home. The piss stains on my trousers and underwear had dried by then, and if my mother noticed the next time she did the washing then she didn’t say anything to me about it. We went on holiday the next day to stay for a week with my Aunt Betty on the coast near Scarborough. Every day I scoured my dad’s newspaper when he’d put it aside after breakfast, but I could find no reference to the lunatic with the gun. I even started to believe that it had all been a figment of my imagination, that it hadn’t happened at all.’

‘But what about Adrian?’ Arthur asked.

‘Adrian? I had no idea. That whole week we were with Aunt Betty I wondered about him. Of course I did. But surely if anything had happened it would have been in the papers? Still, I knew I had deserted Adrian. I had dashed off to freedom and hadn’t given him a second thought once I was in the woods.’

‘But you must have seen him again,’ I said.

‘That’s the funny thing,’ Joe said. ‘I did. It was about two days after we got back from our holiday. I saw him in the street. He started walking towards me. I was frightened because he was a year older than me, and bigger. I thought he was going to beat me up.’

‘What did he do?’ Arthur asked.

Joe laughed. ‘That’s the funny thing,’ he said. ‘Adrian walked up to me. I braced myself for an assault, and he said, “Thank you.”

‘I wasn’t certain I’d heard him correctly, so I asked him to repeat what he’d said.

‘“Thank you,” he said again. “That was a very brave thing you did, dodging the bullets like that, risking death.”

‘I was stunned. I didn’t know what to say. I must have stood there looking like a complete idiot, with my mouth hanging open.

‘“Had he gone?” he asked me next.

‘“Who?” I replied.

‘“You know. The lunatic with the gun. I’ll bet he’d gone when you came back with the police, hadn’t he?’

‘Now I understood what Adrian was thinking. “Yes,” I said. “Yes, he’d gone.”

‘Adrian nodded. “I thought so. Look, I’m sorry,” he went on, “sorry I didn’t hang around till you got back with them, to help you explain and all, but I was so scared.”

‘“What happened?” I asked.

‘“Well,” Adrian said, “as soon as you made it to the woods, he ran off down the canal bank. He must have known you’d soon be back with help, and he didn’t want to hang around and get caught. I probably stood there for a few moments to pull myself together, then I headed off in the same direction you did. I just went home as if I’d been to school and didn’t say a word to anyone. I’m sorry,” he said again. “I should have stuck around when you came back with the police.”

‘“It’s all right,” I said. “They didn’t believe me. They thought I was just a trouble-maker. One of them gave me a clip around the ear and they sent me home. Said if anything like that ever happened again they’d tell my mum and dad.”

‘Adrian managed to laugh at that. I was feeling so relieved I could have gone on all day making things up. How I went back to try and rescue Adrian by myself and found the man a little further down the bank. How I carried the loose railing like a spear and threw it at him across the canal, piercing him right through the heart. Then how I weighted his body with stones and dropped it in the water. But I didn’t. It was enough that I was exonerated in Adrian’s eyes. Good enough that I was a hero.’

Joe began to laugh and it sounded so eerie, so mad, that it sent shivers up our spines. Jack Armstrong started crying. He wasn’t going anywhere. And Joe was still laughing when the black night inched towards another grey dawn and the orders came down for us to go over the top and take a godforsaken blemish on the map called Passchendaele.

It is a beautiful fall day and he has driven nonstop, two days chewed down to the rind and the rind spit out, from New York. He should be tired, exhausted in fact, spent, but he isn’t. Every few hours he stops for a meal, briefly trading the warm vinyl Volvo seat for one not unlike it in a string of Shoneys, Dennys and Union 76 truckstops. On the seat and the floorboard beside him are packets of water crackers, plugs of cheese, bottles of selzer and depleted carry-out cups of coffee, wasabi peas. In the old world he drove away from, tips of leaves had gone crimson, bright yellow and orange, gold. Now he is coming into the desert outside Phoenix, the nearest thing he ever had to a home. Crisp morning air rushes into open windows. He passes an ostrich farm, impossibly canting stacks of huge stone like primitive altars out among the low scrub and cholla, a burning car at roadside with no one nearby. On the radio a song he vaguely remembers from what he thinks of as Back Then plays. He is happy. Strangely, this has nothing to do with the fact that soon he will be dead or that within the past month he has killed four people.

Afterward, when I was riding the train back to Anchorage, I noticed that the sky over the interior of Alaska was so vast it felt as if the top of my head was rising into the air. The few clouds around the top of Mount McKinley’s twenty-thousand-foot summit seemed like wisps of inconsequential smoke. This is the mountain the Athabaskan people call Denali or ‘The Great One’, and I would not have argued with them.

Earlier in the day I hadn’t noticed the mountain. I had been in a sour mood and it may have been because I was only serving a subpoena. The lawyer who had hired me to dump these papers had no understanding of Alaskan geography. He had called from Eugene, Oregon, and told me that cost was no object. His client wanted the papers served right away. He represented the wife in a divorce case and she knew her ex-husband was climbing McKinley. She wanted the papers dropped on him in the post-coital high he would be experiencing after he had summited North America’s tallest peak.

The lawyer had no idea where I lived in relation to Mount McKinley. Through a friend of his, he knew I was in Alaska. That I lived in the southeastern panhandle of the state meant nothing to him. To ask me to serve papers on someone near Denali would be like hiring an investigator from Baltimore to drop papers on someone in Montreal. Denali was a hell of a long way away: almost a day of flying, one leg west to Juneau, then an hour and a half by jet to Anchorage, and then a train ride of some two hundred miles to the town of Talkeetna, which served as headquarters for the area climbers.

I told him all this. I told him I lived on an island on the Gulf of Alaska and that there were easier ways to get his papers served but he didn’t listen. He had tried some Anchorage servers and apparently wasn’t happy with their attitude so he settled on me and whatever expenses I wanted to rack up. His client was paying for it and she was not particular. She was going to nail her ex for all the legal expenses anyway so, in a sense, I would just be spending his money.

The money, what there would be of it, didn’t matter much as I stood in front of Eagle’s Nest bar in Talkeetna. I had the papers sitting in my pocket and they felt less like a paycheck than an overdue library book I needed to dump. The husband’s name was Garth Holebrook; he was an anaesthesiologist from Portland. I had found him through talking to the kid who worked the desk at a flight service in Talkeetna. A plane had brought Dr Holebrook back from the base camp on the mountain and the kid knew that the climbers would be celebrating in the Eagle’s Nest.

Where I live, it rains hard. Even in these early days of July the clouds can move in from the sea and curl against the mountains for weeks at a time. Living in southeastern Alaska is sometimes like living with a head cold. So for me the summer air in the northern interior has a biting narcotic thrill. The air is so dry and pure it can feel like a hit of cocaine. I looked through the one window into the bar to get a vague layout of where people were sitting, then I took a long breath in through my nose and walked into the clattering bar.

Serving court papers is a straightforward job. The server has no real authority other than his physical presence. The subpoena gains its authority from the judge. Once in the physical possession of the named recipient all arguments are channeled through the court. The server only has to identify the recipient and hand the papers over. The recipient doesn’t have to be happy about it. They don’t even have to hold them in their hands; they just have to acknowledge their receipt. Ripping them up in your face is acknowledgement enough. I keep a copy and take it back to the court, then I collect my hundred bucks and expenses.

My father had been a Superior Court judge. He had encouraged me to follow my sister’s path into law school, but I never did. He could never understand that I liked this end of the law. I liked talking to people and I liked the physical authority which comes from wandering around in the real world. I liked living out from under the tangle of legal jargon. Serving subpoenas had always been enough for me. I was happy to leave the arguments to my sister and my good father.

Inside the bar six men and three women were sitting at one long table near the back. The climbers sat behind pitchers of beer looking drowsy and a little bit sad. All of these well-heeled adventurers had reverse racoon tans: weathered faces but pale around the eyes. The men had their fleece shirtsleeves rolled up to their elbows and their two-hundred-dollar sunglasses perched on their foreheads. I sat in a booth across the bar and looked over the top of the lunch menu toward the table where I was fairly certain my guy was sitting.

I had a description of him from the lawyer. Dr Holebrook was forty-eight years old, had brown hair and brown eyes, was six foot three and weighed one hundred ninety pounds. He was sitting at the head of the table next to a blonde woman wearing a red beret and a white sleeveless undershirt. They were leaning toward one another, their heads almost touching, speaking softly.

I never drop papers on someone when it causes embarrassment, not if I can help it. I once had to serve papers on a Tongan prizefighter in Ketchikan. He was working for a logging outfit back in the days when logging camps were good places to hide out. He had a reputation for having a bad temper. I watched him for several days, in the bar or in the café early in the morning waiting for the rest of his crew to show up. He seemed like a friendly guy and was always in a conversation with the waitresses or someone at the counter. Finally I got him as he was coming out of the bathroom and he simply thanked me in a soft, almost feminine voice as he stuffed the papers in his sleeping-bag-sized cargo pockets.

Once I served a cab driver in Valdez and he started screaming so loudly he woke the neighbors. I was standing in his arctic entryway surrounded by boots and mismatched snowshoes. He had been hassled by everyone, he screamed. The police, the insurance company. He was sick of it, sick of everything. I didn’t try to argue with him. He had a knife in his hand and I backed away slowly. Even with the knife, I wasn’t afraid. His pride was just injured because I had gotten him out of bed in his dirty long underwear. He was sleepy and embarrassed but he still had enough sense not to kill the guy with the subpoena, for deep down he recognised me for what I was: the delivery boy.

My climber laughed and pushed back a bit in his chair. ‘No. No. No. You don’t understand. The gnostics were considered to be heretics. You see, they thought that everything in creation was corrupt.’ The blonde woman’s eyes glittered like chunks of ice and my climber gestured wildly around the bar.

‘You see, it was a special knowledge that led a person toward God. This was before faith as we think of it. The gnostics believed divinity was a matter of knowledge.’

‘So...’ the woman said and she wobbled in her chair... ‘you mean there was no God out here?’ and she gestured toward the window, by which she meant the world, Mount McKinley, New York, Kosovo and Jerusalem.

Dr Holebrook was feeling the heady rush of late-afternoon drunken metaphysics. He would not be happy to have the subpoena from his ex-wife.

‘There was no hippy, pantheist crap. The world was corrupt and the path to God was through knowledge alone. Knowledge you had to earn.’

He leaned back in his chair and stretched his arms back over his head. He had a certain self-satisfied countenance that made me almost certain that now was not a good time to interrupt him. He was in the throes of happy abstract musings, trying hard to impress this beautiful woman. It was not a good time to let him know that his ex-wife was going to bring him back into court to take possession of the Range Rover and a thousand more dollars a month in child support.

But we all have the same amount of time in a day and there wasn’t enough in this particular one for me to wait much longer. I needed to catch a train. A couple of his drinking companions got up and left, saying something about grabbing a shower. I wanted to wait until he was a bit more alone before I dropped the paper on him. Ideally it would have been best to wait until the pretty blonde woman went for her shower. The combination of arrogance and flirting was a deadly one for the humiliation of a court order, but this woman was going to have to move along soon, or I was going to risk bruising the doctor’s vanity anyway.

Holebrook leaned in close and poured himself and the blonde woman another beer from a fresh pitcher. I settled in. I would get him when he got up from the table. If they were walking out the door I’d ask him to step aside, catch him so the woman could walk easily ahead of us. I’d call his name, act like an old friend or a patient that he didn’t quite recognise, wave her on as if it would just be a minute of inconsequential business and then I’d drop it on him.

I had another tonic water and lime. I hadn’t had a drink in three years and I wasn’t missing it. But even so, I felt foggy-headed and could feel the northern sunlight trying to pierce through the nail holes in the roof.

My father had been a climber of the old leather shoe and manila rope variety. He had done first ascents on six peaks in the southeastern panhandle. ‘Nothing spectacular,’ he often said dismissively. ‘Just a walk up a steep hill nobody else had had a reason to take.’ But he wasn’t really dismissing his achievement, he was dismissing everybody else who hadn’t done it.

He had taken me with him when I was twelve. It was only one time. I remember the approach up through the rainforest, hopping over the muddy little creeks and getting tangled in the brushy alder thickets along the rock slides. I remember my lungs burning before we even got to the alpine. I remembered the thrill of walking out into the alpine, and I would have been happy just sitting there all day. In the alpine the walking was clear and I could see the islands scattered out on the ocean below us. The steep pitch of the summit wasn’t calling me. I rested there on my back in the grass and ate both my candy bars while my father scowled at his watch.

Later, up on the face, my legs gave out, and when my thigh muscles spasmed as if I were trying to peddle an antique sewing machine, my father tried to talk me through it. ‘Focus,’ he said. ‘Feel your weight close in to the rock. Keep your three points anchored while you lift the fourth to the next higher point. Don’t look down.’

He was trying to be calm, and in his own way he was trying to be gentle, but I could feel the irritation in his voice ease down on me as if it were an extra surge of gravity trying to strip me off the rock. When I looked down I felt the wooziness of vertigo and dread that seemed to be some kind of pre-falling sensation. My muscles were both clinging to the rocks and wanting to let go.

He virtually pulled me up the side of the mountain that day. I was shaking when I reached the summit, but I did not cry. The world, the forested islands and rumpled hills, circled our perch as if my father had created them all just for me. ‘You did it, boy,’ he said. ‘You can think back on this day for the rest of your life and be proud.’ But of course it didn’t turn out that way.

My father’s life was built on certainty. He knew we could make it up the mountain and we did. This is what my mother loved about him and what she always doubted about me. She said I was never going to be a climber. She said I was too fond of finding ‘smoke’s way’ out of any difficult situation. She said this with what I later recognised was disdain, but for years I had honestly thought of it as a compliment.

The doctor stretched again. He and the blonde were the only two people at the table. He reached over and touched the side of her face, and then she got up from the table and walked over to the bathroom.

I tore the recipient’s yellow copy from the subpoena, pushed the original for the court into my pocket and walked over to the edge of the table with the yellow copy in my hand.

‘Dr Holebrook?’ I asked. He looked up at me with a dreamy expectation as if he were waiting for me to compliment him on his climb.

‘Yes,’ he said, smiling.

‘I’ve got some papers for you. They are from your wife’s lawyers. If you have any questions about them, there’s a number on the bottom you can call,’ and I gave him the subpoena.

He reached up and took it, then laid the paper flat on the table. He stood up slowly, letting out his breath as if he were trying to think of the words to thank me for my long trip out to find him. Then he punched me in the mouth.

I don’t know if Dr Holebrook had ever sucker-punched anyone before, but he definitely had a gift for it. The physics of a sucker punch are easy enough to understand. The more relaxed the recipient is, the more damage the blow inflicts. Getting in that first hard shot nine times out of ten ends whatever conflict there will be.

I thought of the beauty of this as I was lying on the floor. Blood was filling my mouth and as I leaned forward, first my lips and then my tongue pressed against the six teeth, three upper, three lower, which were folded back inside my mouth.

‘You motherfucking lawyers,’ he said, as he stood over me rubbing his right hand where the knuckles were bleeding.

‘Noth uh law-uh,’ I said as best I could through the blood and broken teeth. ‘Youff... been... thirved,’ I added with as much finality as I could muster, and I waved at the papers on the table.

The bartender was bending over me now. ‘You want me to call the cops?’ he asked and I waved him off. It would take too much time, I had a train to catch, and besides there was always the chance the cops would find some way to put me in jail for the whole thing.

The blonde woman was out of the bathroom and was wrapping a paper towel around the doctor’s hand. I leaned up on one elbow. The bartender gave me a towel and some ice, and I held it to my face. My ears were ringing and my vision was a little bad, but I could see that the doctor was deciding what he should do next. It was clear I wasn’t going to fight him and it didn’t appear that anyone in the bar was going to be a sympathetic ear for the story of his ugly divorce. So he kicked me once in the ribs and walked out the door.

‘Hey!’ the bartender yelled. ‘That’s bullshit,’ he said and went behind the bar reaching for the phone. ‘That’s just too fucking much.’

I pulled myself up and sat at the table. The doctor hadn’t taken the papers but it didn’t matter. He’d been served. I would mail the subpoena back to the court and they would take care of the rest. I had done my part here in Talkeetna in the shadow of the Great One.

I waited for the cops to come and start the whole new tangle of words that would eventually end in Dr Holebrook pleading to fourth-degree assault and enrolling in anger management classes. But here’s the strange part. As I waited for all that to start, I was suddenly in a perfectly good mood. I was not anxious and I wasn’t dreaming of somewhere else. I could see things in the room I hadn’t noticed when I walked in: the dust motes floating on the shafts of light, the fine smear of a bruise across the bottom of the blonde woman’s neck.

I’ve never been smacked like that before and I had always worried about what it would feel like. I realise now that I was having a light-headed shock reaction, but at the time I was surprised to be enjoying the emptiness in my head and the veil of blue lights drifting through my vision. I have been yelled at and threatened. I’ve been in loud little scuffles. I’ve even been shot with a high-powered rifle. But I had always avoided a sucker punch. Now my head was ringing like an empty wineglass and instead of being depressed about it I was exhilarated.

While the cops stood around in their creaking leather belts talking to me and taking pictures, I watched them with a mild disinterest. They brought the doctor back and talked to him outside by the cars, and now the doctor looked smaller, embarrassed, quite a bit deflated. It was beginning to dawn on him that the satisfaction he gained from punching me was going to be short-lived.

We were on opposite trajectories, of course. Later my bruises would be dark purple and I would long to eat a meal without wincing with pain. Later, too, my own anger would take hold, even to the point of filing a civil case of my own against Dr Holebrook to recover the cost of the dental reconstruction. But all of that was just another tangle of words which I wouldn’t be entering for a few more weeks. Just then, I was happy. I had served the papers and I was going to be able to ride the train back south through the delirious sunshine toward the coast. I thought about the train ride and the doctor, and about what the old gnostics would have felt climbing up Denali, where there was no God in those muddy little streams, and none in the alpine either. And earlier in the day when Dr Holebrook had been laughing and celebrating at the top of North America’s tallest peak, God would have only been that little thread of an idea the doctor had pinched between his thumb and forefinger but on which he could never quite gain purchase.

As I sat at the table in the bar I kept hearing a bell ringing and I felt as if some war was over. I couldn’t remember my childhood, and that was fine. Everything that had ever happened to me seemed from another time anyway, a time before the war, when trouble was brewing but I hadn’t been paying enough attention.

Now I seemed to be paying attention. When I walked across the little park to get on the train the cottonwood blooms drifted all around me, sparkling like planets and I held the frothy pink towel against my mouth. I thought about the doctor and I knew he was feeling bad. The thrill of his mountaineering accomplishment was gone now. He was feeling bad about being back in the world of lawyers and civil complaints. He was feeling bad about having to talk to the cops and he might even have been feeling bad about punching me in the mouth. But I didn’t care. As I grabbed on to the handrail and swung up into the train I knew that I loved the poor son of a bitch who had clambered up those cliffs. I loved him like gravity, like sunlight, like a mountain.

When his brother-in-law arrived, Harry Tolman was watching afternoon racing. From behind the curtains he studied Cliff locking the doors to his motor and then remembering his fags and having to open up again. Motor. Harry shrugged. Walk like that, talk like that: it was bred in the bone. Only the elderly said motor or fags these days. As if to prove his point an incautious movement of his arm produced that sudden jolt a junior doctor at the hospital had described to him as a deterioration of the brachial nerve. Or somesuch. He winced as he walked to let Cliffie in. The two men embraced without warmth.

‘Let me say, straight off and before everything else, how choked everbody still is about Jean,’ Cliff said. ‘Even now, even after all this time.’

‘Yeah, well.’

‘I tried to put into words how we all felt at the funeral, Harry, but you were out with the fairies that day and no mistake.’

‘If you say so,’ Harry said. He walked into the kitchen to make a pot of tea.

Jean, through her brother Cliff, had been his last connection to that wise-guy London thing and after she died he all too willingly let it drop. He had not been up the Smoke for a six-month and then only to drink at pubs where he knew he could not be recognised. Came home on the early evening train.

The seaside bungalow they stood in now was Jean’s choice of a nice place to live, just as the perennials in the flower borders were hers. Harry ate from plates she had chosen, slept under the duvet she had selected from the catalogue. Her clothes were still in the wardrobe. That was the story. She was his woman, he was her man.

That was the story and what the neighbours had not seen with their own eyes they invented. Harry Tolman was that nice man at 32 whose wife had died so suddenly. Kept himself to himself, had an unexpectedly flat belly and strong forearms, looked sixty, could be younger, could be older. A former soldier, perhaps. Politely spoken, but with that characteristic cockney croak. A one-time market trader, maybe.

Cliffie drummed his fingernails on the kitchen worktop. ‘Don’t you want to know why I’m here?’ he asked.

‘Let me guess. You’re in trouble.’

‘Big time. But I mean big time.’

Harry smiled to himself. ‘Now don’t get me all excited, Cliff.’

‘My hand to God,’ his brother-in-law muttered.

‘So? What do you want, money?’

‘Be realistic,’ Cliffie snapped, with enough sudden bitterness in his voice to make Harry glance up from the kettle and take notice. ‘Would I ask you for money? Am I stupid?’

‘Then it’s business.’

‘I am asking a favour of you.’

His nervousness was beginning to annoy Harry. When he saw that, Cliff ducked his head in acknowledgement. Licked his lips. ‘This, then. You put your motor through the Tunnel, buzz off to France, drive to a meet with some lads we have business with there, deliver a certain package, money changes hands. And that’s it.’

‘What’s in the package?’ Harry asked.

But his brother-in-law had exhausted his small stock of guile for the moment and took his tea out on to the lawn, the set of his back and shoulders indicating a sour response to sea-breezes and distant gulls.

Harry joined him. ‘So, what’s in the package?’ he repeated.

‘I told you, it’s a business thing,’ his brother-in-law said far, far too lightly.

They walked down to the sea together, hands plunged in pockets. It was one of those calm spring days when the grey of the water stretched all the way to the horizon and then seemed to curl upwards into sky. There was nothing to look at and no trick of the imagination could invent France, less than thirty miles away.

‘Come on, Harry, give me a break,’ Cliffie mumbled after another few minutes of uncomfortable silence. ‘I more or less told them you’re the man for the job. I mean you wasn’t named, I never named you, blah-blah-blah, but it’s all down to me to see it right, see it goes off.’

‘Is it drugs?’

Cliffie burst out laughing from pure nervous release. ‘Drugs?’ he cackled incredulously.

Harry threw his ice-cream cone into a wire bin and wiped his lips with the back of his hand. A total of eighteen years in prison, the last six in Parkhurst, had much altered his views on the life of crime. The sheer boredom of being banged up with other dreamers was worse than actual death: nowadays he lived on his pension and a little occasional delivery driving. In the old days he had a certain quiet class; as, for example, tooling Fat Tony up to Birmingham along the M1 in a stolen Aston Martin, establishing what turned out to be an unshakeable alibi and, as Tony said admiringly, a land speed record.

‘What do you drive now?’ Cliffie asked, punting him a double voddie in the Carpenter’s.

‘Nothing fancy.’

‘Good. That’s good. Look, I don’t want to put no pressure on you, Harry, but it’s my arse if I cock this up.’

‘How much is in it for me?’

‘A grand,’ Cliffie suggested, looking doubtful.

‘And what’s your end?’

‘Jesus, Harry, you don’t need to know all that. These guys I’m talking about — the geezers who want the job done — would have your balls off just for coughing in the wrong place. What I can tell you? Just that I’m bearing the heavy end of the load here, know what I’m saying?’

He glanced round the perfectly empty pub and then mouthed a single word: ‘Russians.’

If he had said his principals were the Band of the Irish Guards Harry could not have been more surprised. He stared at his brother-in-law, his thinning hair and faintly blue lips, the over-expensive suit hanging from sagging shoulders.

‘Who has the package now?’

‘Not relevant. I bring it to you. Then you drive it over. You know, just dead casual. It’ll be in the boot. A bit of cathedral bashing if you’re asked where you’re off to. Just a little spring break.’

‘How big is this thing?’

Cliffie hesitated. He brushed his lapel distractedly. ‘I need you to say yes before I go back to town. Then the final arrangements are made and then it goes down.’

‘When?’

‘When I tell you.’

Walking back up the road, Harry pointed out several plants he’d thought of growing in his own garden.

But Cliffie was jumpy. ‘Nice, I’m sure, but I’m seeing Bungalow City here, Harry. And that’s all I’m seeing.’

‘Where d’you drink these days?’ Harry asked him, far too casually.

‘Some things don’t change,’ his brother-in-law said.

Doug Day don’t have breakfast the morning of his father’s wake.

He’s too frickin’ busy and besides, he don’t have much money left. The factory’s laid him off and the unemployment’s run out and he was busy looking for a job when his father died but there ain’t a lot of work out there and most of his time’s been taken up trying to get his father buried.

Devon Day was a small-time thief and alcoholic who when he wasn’t in the hole killed a lot of Bushmills, and the Bushmills finally paid him back in kind. He kicked out in a room over Chuck’s Bar and Grill, and Pachetti’s Funeral Home only agreed to take care of the body and have calling hours because they hope to get Chuck’s business when he passes, so they do Chuck this favor and have calling hours for Devon.

‘Could we do monthly payments?’ Doug asked Tommy Pachetti Jr. They’ve known each other since junior high and play midnight hockey together at Ice World.

‘Okay,’ Tommy says, ‘but this has to be like “no frills”, okay, Doug?’

No frills is no shit, Doug thinks as he stands next to his father’s cheap coffin, which Doug is not sure but thinks is made from plasterboard. Doug stands there to receive the callers who come to pay their respects and this is not exactly hard work because hardly anyone comes.

For one thing hardly anyone in Torrington, Connecticut had any respect for Devon. Second, any of the guys who did, like Dev’s old cronies, are either dead or in the joint or just too down-and-out drunk in some shitty New England bar to know or care that Dev has checked out of his last SRO hotel. Third, there are a few guys — mostly hockey buddies of Doug’s — who would have come except they know this thing is going to be very frigging depressing, which winter in Torrington already is without dragging your ass down to Pachetti’s for a wake that is no frills.

It’s one of those stone-gray New England Saturdays where it ought to snow but won’t. It’s just icy instead, so your car slips sideways every time you hit the brakes, which is often. And when you get out of your car the wind whips you in the face like it’s saying Fuck you — you’re an asshole for living here.

So all you’re going to get by going out today is a head cold and a fender bender that won’t meet the deductible, so a lot of people stay home for Devon’s wake.

Edley Carpenter is there, though.

Edley also plays hockey at Ice World with Doug and figures he owes him the respect.

‘Sorry for your loss,’ Edley says after he walks past Devon’s coffin without hardly looking at the body. ‘Cold in here, isn’t it?’

Doug nods.

Shit yes, it’s cold in here, he thinks. He can practically see his own breath. Shit, he can practically see his dad’s breath.

‘Tell Tommy to turn the heat up,’ Edley says.

‘Well, this is sort of “no frills”,’ Doug says.

‘Oh,’ Edley says. He thinks about this for a second then says, ‘They got any coffee, Doug?’

‘I think that would be a frill.’

‘Sure,’ Edley says. From his mouth it comes out Shoo-ah. Edley’s family having been in New England as long as Doug’s, he’s genetically incapable of pronouncing a terminal ‘R’.

‘Tommy should turn the heat up,’ Edley says. He goes and sits in one of the metal folding chairs, because he doesn’t know what else to do and otherwise Doug is just left standing there all alone in a cold room with just him and his dead father.

‘You gonna play tonight?’ Edley asks Doug.

‘I dunno.’

And this is the truth because Doug hasn’t really worked it out whether it’s the right thing to do, to play hockey the same night your father has his calling hours.

‘See how you feel,’ Edley says.

‘Yeah, see how I feel.’

Edley gets up and leaves as soon as Frank King comes in.

Frank King takes the accident of his surname as destiny.

He takes it real serious.

Why shouldn’t he, Doug thinks, as King makes a royal entrance in his camel-hair overcoat, cashmere scarf and his usual two heelnippers behind him. He’s got more money than probably most kings these days.

King takes a look at Dev in the coffin then comes over to Doug. ‘Nice suit your father’s wearing.’

Should be, Doug thinks. It’s a three-hundred-fifty-dollar suit and Doug’s going to be out on the street at the end of the month because Dev is getting buried in the rent money. Doug don’t tell King that, though. All he says is, ‘Thanks.’

‘Your dad didn’t have the jack for a suit like that,’ King says.

‘Yeah, I bought it,’ says Doug.

‘You don’t have the jack for a suit like that.’

Even though at six-three Doug has five full inches on King, he feels like he’s looking up at the man. Looking at his big shiny face and smelling his aftershave and the spray on his black hair. Looking at him like what the fuck business is it of yours?

King tells him. ‘Your dad owes me money,’ he says.

Which makes Doug laugh even though he don’t mean to because it will piss King off. But anyway, Doug laughs, more like a chuckle, as he tilts his chin toward Dev’s body, like, so collect it.

Then he’s sorry he did that, because if anyone would take the clothes off a dead man, it would be Frank King. The man would do about anything to get his money, and Doug knows this because King has most of the money in north-west Connecticut.

King shakes his head, says, ‘You’re your father’s heir, right, Douggie?’

Doug also has black hair except it’s in a crew cut, and if anyone’s paying attention they’d see it practically bristle. ‘Don’t call me that,’ he says. ‘My name is Doug.’

King’s eyes go like frickin’ death. ‘But my point still pertains, doesn’t it.’

‘What point?’

‘You inherited your father’s entire estate,’ King says.

Now Doug really laughs. Dev’s entire estate consists of a hot plate that got maybe warm and one dollar and fifty-eight cents in wet change. And medical bills and a funeral bill. And Doug’s already sold his ’eighty-six Charger and he’s still way behind. So he says, ‘Yeah, I got the whole thing, Mister King.’

‘You can call me King.’

And the asshole means it.

‘You inherit his assets,’ King says, ‘you inherit his debts.’

‘I do?’

This is like, really bad and shocking news to Doug. This is something he did not know. But why not? In the world of shit storms, when it rains, it pours.

‘How much did my dad owe you?’

King looks to Clark, standing behind him. Clark is King’s accountant, which means basically he’s a whiz at calculating compound interest. Clark makes a little show of looking into a little black notebook, although Doug knows that Clark has the exact figure in his head.

‘Twelve thousand three hundred eighty-eight dollars,’ he says.

‘How much of that is interest?’ Doug asks.

‘Most of it,’ King says.

‘Growing every day,’ says Whitey.

Whitey has the build of a dumpster and a soul to match. He got his tag because of his prematurely white hair. Guy’s hair turned white when he was like twenty-eight or something. Which is like fifteen years ago, the same amount of time he’s been working for King.

Collecting King’s debts, Doug thinks, yeah, that would turn your hair white.

Doug does some quick math in his head and says, ‘I can’t make the next goddamn interest payment.’

Never mind the principal.

King nods like he’s already figured that out. Then he asks, ‘They got any coffee in this place, Douggie?’

‘This is kind of a no frills deal.’

‘Why don’t you go get us some coffees?’ King asks. He takes a five out of his pocket and hands it to Doug. ‘Cream, two sugars for me. Black for Clark and Whitey.’

There’s a 7-11 across the street, Doug thinks. He can be there and back in three minutes. He takes the five and says, ‘I’ll just bop across the street.’

‘Go to Dunkin’ Donuts,’ King says. ‘I like Dunkin’ Donuts coffee.’

Dunkin’ Donuts is seven cold, icy blocks away.

Doug stands there next to his father’s coffin with the five-dollar bill in his hand wondering what is the right thing to do here.

King says, ‘Okay, Douggie?’

Twelve thousand three hundred eighty-eight dollars, Doug thinks. It’ll be twelve-nine by tomorrow.

‘Okay, King,’ Doug says.

Knowing, shit, this is what the rest of my life is going to look like. It’s gonna suck. Major league suck. I’m nineteen years old and it’s already frickin’ over. He starts to put on his coat.

‘And Douggie,’ King asks, folding his body on to one of the metal chairs. ‘Long as you’re there, why don’t you get us some doughnuts?’

This is how Doug gets the tag Douggie Doughnuts.

When she comes over it is in a rattly old thing. Color yellow, it got white ring tires that rime the way round and the exhaust has slipped loose and is dragging sparks from it. There are stickers from the many funny places she been to on the bumper and two or three of her ideas are pasted on the fenders. A band-aid that look just like a band-aid only it is a monster has been momma’d on to the hood like the rattly old thing got some child sore in the motor.

Now this official had mailed us a note that tell Wilma who is the woman who is my wife and me that this lady wants to visit. It seems she teach Cecil something useful at the prison.

The door flings out and she squats up out of the car coming my way. I have posted myself in the yard and she come straight at me smiling. Over her shoulder is a strap that holds up a big purse made of the sort of pale weeds they have in native lands I never saw.

She call me Mister McCoy right off like who I am is that clear cut. Her name Frieda Buell she go on then flap out a hand for me to shake. I give her palm a little rub and tell her she is welcome.

When I see that sits with her good I tell her to come into the house.

That is something she would love to do she tells me.

This is a remark I don’t believe so I stand back and inventory her. She is young with shaggy blonde hair but she knows something about painting her face as she has done it smashing well. Her shirt is red and puffy and her shoes have heels that tell me walking is not a thing she practices over much. Her shiny pants is black and wetted on to her like my hot breath on a cold jewelry window.

The porch has sunk down so it hunkers a distance in front of the house. I ask her to be careful and she is. Inside I give her the good chair but I keep standing.

Right away I tell her I want to know what this about.

What it is about is a lulu. My son Cecil is a gifted man she says. He has a talent that puts a rareness to the world or something along those lines.

Cecil? Cecil a thief I tell her. And not that sly a one neither.

Once was she says. No more.

Always was I put in. My mind is made up on that. But what’s got me puzzled is what is this rareness he puts to the world or whatever?

Poetry is her answer. She reach her hand that has been overdone with various rings into the big purse and pulls out a booklet. She says Cecil has written it and the critics have claimed him as a natural in ability.

I take the booklet in my hands. It is of thick dry paper and the cover says ‘Dark Among the Grays’ by Cecil McCoy. That is him all right I say. Tell me do this somehow line him up early for parole?

It could she says. She trying to face me bold enough but her eyes is playing hooky on her face and going places besides my own. She been teaching him for two years she says and what he has is a gift like she never seen before.

Gift I say. A gift is not like Cecil.

May I have the book she asks. I hand it to her. She opens it to a middle page. Like this, listen to this. She begin to read to me from what apparently Cecil my son has written out. The name of it is ‘Soaring’ and it is a string of words that say a bird is floating above the junk yard and has spotted a hot glowing old wreck below only the breeze sucks him down and he can’t help but land in it. When she done reading the thing she look up at me like I should maybe be ridiculous with pleasure. I can’t tell but that is my sense.

Is that one chapter or what I want to know.

She lets out one of them whistly breaths that means I might overmatch her patience. These are poems of his life on the street she tells me. But they are brimful of accurate thoughts for all. Yet grounded in the tough streets of this area.

They have junkyards everywhere is my comeback to her.

But the bird Mister McCoy. The bird is soaring over death which is an old car wreck. The poet is wanting to be that white bird winging it free above death. What it really signifies is that Cecil want to be let off from having to die. That is the point of it she says.

Now to me this point is obvious but I feel sad for a second about Cecil. Two things he never going to be is a white bird.

Read on I suggest.

She slides out a smile for me that lets me know I’m catching on. Then she turn the book to another page. This was in some big-time poetry magazine she says. Then she read. The words of this one are about a situation I recognise. The poet has ripped off his momma’s paycheck to pay back some bad dudes he ain’t related to.

Hold it there I ask her. That is a poem that actually happen several times lady. Cecil a goddamn thief.

No no no. He wants to make amends for it. He wants to overcome the guilt of what he done.

I tell her it would be in the hundreds of dollars to do that. Is these poems going to get him that kind of money? My question is beneath her. She won’t answer it.

This poem has meanings for all the people she says. They look into it and see their selves.

That is nice and interesting I tell her but how come Wilma and me has to pay for this poem all alone? Everybody who looks in it and see their selves ought to pay some back to us.

This comment of mine puts pressure on her cool and she begins to pace about the room. The room is clean enough but the furniture is ragged. I have a hip weakness and janitor work pains it. Wilma has the job now.

The lady stops and looks out the window. Two cars is blocking traffic to say what’s going on to each other. Horns are honking. People get hurt over things like that.

Mister McCoy do you love Cecil?

There was a time I answer. It was a love that any daddy would have. But that was way back. If I love Cecil now it is like the way I love the Korean conflict. Something terrible I have lived through.

He has changed Mister McCoy. He has got in touch with his humanity. If he had a place to live he could be paroled to start fresh.

I believe I will sit down. As I say it I drop to the three-legged chair by the door. I am thinking of my son Cecil. He was one of a whole set of kids Wilma and me filled out because we had only each other. He ate from the same pot of chili as the rest but he turned out different. His eyes were shiny and his nose turned up instead of being flat. The better he knows you the more relaxed he is about stealing you blind. Same pot of chili but different.

I don’t believe we want to take him back I say.

But you are his family. There is no one else for him.

Family yes but main victims too lady. I reach up and pull the bridge from my mouth which leaves a bad fence of my teeth showing. See that I ask. Cecil did that. He wasn’t but fifteen when he did that.

He has changed she says again. She says it like that settles it.

I don’t believe it. He may well write out poems that say he sorry and guilty but I am leery of him. You listen to this lady. This porch right here. I was standing on this porch right here when it was less sunk and Cecil was out there in the street with a mess of boys. They were little but practicing to be dangerous some day. One of them picks up a stone and tosses it at the high up street light there. He misses it by a house or two. He ain’t close. I stood there on the porch out of curiosity and watched. They all flung stones at the light but none was close to shattering it. Then Cecil pick up a slice of brick and hardly aims but he smash that light to bits. As soon as it left his hand I seen that his aim for being bad was awful accurate.

Well she says. He seems sensitive to her.

Oh he can do that lady. He could do that years ago.

You are a hard nut she tells me. He is lost without you. His parole could be denied.

Tell me why do you care? I ask her this but my suspicion is she would like to give Cecil lessons in gaiety.

Because I admire his talent Mister McCoy. Cecil is a poet who is pissed off at the big things in this world and that give him a heat that happy poets got to stand back from.

You want us to take him home because he pissed off? That ain’t no change.

Artistically she goes, wheezing that putdown breath again.

Lady that ain’t enough I tell her. Let me show you the door.

When we are on the porch she wants to shake hands again but I don’t chew my cabbage twice. I have been there so I lead her across the yard. Her cheeks get red. I look up and down the neighborhood and all the homes are like mine and Wilma’s. The kind that if they were people they would cough a lot and spit up tangled stuff. Spit shit into the sink.

At her car she hands me the booklet. It is yours she says. Cecil insisted.

I take it in my hands. I say thank you.

She slips into the rattly old thing and starts the motor. A puff of oil smoke come out the back and there is a knocking sound.

I lean down to her window.

Look lady I say. Wish Cecil well but it is like this. He ain’t getting no more poems off of us.

Her head nods and she flips her hand at me. The monster band-aid on the hood has caught my eye again. What kind of craziness is that about I wonder. I want to ask her but she shifts the car and pulls away. So I am left standing there alone to guess just what it is she believe that band-aid fix.

A tabloid dubbed Edward a vampire because he had licked blood from the murder weapon. Attorney Michael Mooradian said his client had no clear memory of events and was undergoing psychological evaluation at Bridgewater State Hospital where, at his niece’s request, he was under a suicide watch. Edward lay on a cot with a charged air of anticipation, as if his brain were a chrysalis in which his very first thought was stirring.

Mark Billingham is the author of a series of novels featuring London-based DI Tom Thorne, the latest of which is Lazybones. The second in the series, Scaredy Cat was shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger for Best Crime Novel of 2002. He has also worked for many years as a stand-up comedian which some regard as big and brave, while others think it just shows a child-like need for attention. Mark tells jokes for money far less frequently these days, as those that read the books are not usually drunk, and can’t throw things.

Visit his manly, yet also boyish website at: www.markbillingham.com.