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“Dogshit in your mailbox, let the air out of your tires…”

“Pretty thin,” Danny says. “And I thought cops were protected from that sort of thing. Jalbert may retire, but he was a cop in good standing when he came after me.”

“Ah, but he planted drugs on you,” Ball says, “and if we can get the cop who rousted you in court, and under oath… can we go back to your trailer and talk about it? I mean, what else have you got to do?”

“Not much,” Danny admits. “Sure, I guess we could talk about it.”

He drives back to Oak Grove with Ball behind him on his Honda. Danny pulls up at his trailer and sees someone sitting on the concrete block steps, head down, hands dangling between his knees. Danny gets out of his truck, closes the door, and for a moment just stands there, struck by déjà vu. Almost overwhelmed by it. His visitor is wearing a high school letter jacket—where has he seen that before? Ball’s Honda Gold Wing pulls up behind his truck. The kid stands up and raises his head. Then Danny knows. It’s the kid from the newspaper photo, the one standing in front of the hearse and behind his grief-stricken parents.

“Bastard, you killed my sis,” the kid says. He reaches into the right pocket of his letter jacket and brings out a revolver.

Behind Danny, the Gold Wing shuts off and Ball dismounts, but that’s in another universe.

“Whoa, son. I didn’t—”

That’s as far as he gets before the kid fires. A fist hits Danny in the midsection. He takes a step back and then the pain comes, like the worst acid indigestion attack he ever had. The pain goes up to his throat and down to his thighs. He gropes behind him for the doorhandle of his Tundra and can barely feel it when he finds it. His legs are getting loopy. He tells them not to buckle. Warmth is running down his stomach. His shirt and jeans are turning red.

“Hey!” Ball shouts from that other universe. “Hey, gun!”

No shit, Danny thinks. With his weight to pull it, the driver’s door of the Tundra swings open. Danny doesn’t fall where he stands only because he opened his window on the way back from Dabney’s. The morning air was so cool and fresh. That seems like another lifetime. He hooks his elbow through the window and around the doorpost and pivots like a stripper on a pole. The kid fires again and there’s a plung sound as the bullet hits the door below the open window.

“Gun! GUN!” Edgar Ball is shouting.

The next bullet goes through the open window and buzzes past Danny’s right ear. He sees the kid’s cheeks are wet with tears. He sees Althea Dumfries standing on the top step of her trailer—fanciest one in the park, Danny thinks, crazy what goes through your head when you’re shot. She appears to be holding a piece of toast with a bite out of it.

Danny goes to his knees. The pain in his abdomen is excruciating. He hears another plung as another bullet strikes the Tundra’s open door. Then he’s all the way down. He can see the kid’s feet. He’s wearing Converse sneakers. Danny sees the gun when the kid drops it on the ground. Ball is still yelling. Ball is bawling, he thinks, and then the world slides into darkness.

54

He comes to on a stretcher. Edgar Ball is looking down at him, eyes wide. There’s dirt smeared on his cheeks and forehead. He’s saying something, it might be hang in there buddy, and then the stretcher bumps something and the pain explodes, the pain becomes the world. Danny tries to scream and can only moan. For a moment there’s sky, then a roof above him and he thinks it might be an ambulance, how’d it get here so fast, how long was I out.

Someone says “Little pinch and then you’ll feel better.”

There’s a pinch. Darkness follows.

55

When it goes away he sees lights sliding by above him. It’s like a shot in a movie. A loudspeaker calls for Dr. Broder. Doctor Broder, stat, it says. Danny tries to speak, tries to say is it the Good Doctor, the one on TV, just as a joke, he knows better, but all that comes out are a few muffled sounds because he’s got some kind of a mask over his mouth and nose. Doors bang open. There are brighter lights and green tile walls. He supposes it’s an operating room and he wants to say he doesn’t know if he can afford an operation because he lost his job. Hands hoist him and oh Jesus Savior it hurts.

There’s a pinch. Darkness follows.

56

Now he’s in a bed. Has to be a hospital bed. There’s light, but not the cruel we’re-going-to-cut-you-open lights shining down in that green room. No, this is daylight. Margie, his ex, is sitting by his bed. She’s all dolled up and Danny knows that if she dressed up for him he’s probably going to die. His midsection is stiff. Stiff as a plank. Bandages, maybe, and there’s an IV hanging on a hook and he thinks if they’re putting stuff into me maybe I’m not going to die. Margie asks, “How do you feel, Danno,” like in the old days when they still got along, like book ’em, Danno, and he tries to answer but can’t.

Darkness.

57

He opens his eyes and Edgar Ball is sitting by his bed. No dirt on his face, so he must have cleaned up. How much time has passed? Danny has no idea. “Close call but you’re going to pull through,” Ball tells him, and Danny thinks that’s what they all say. On the other hand maybe it’s the truth.

“Good thing you got behind the truck door. If he’d been shooting a larger caliber gun the bullets would have gone right through. But it was a .32.”

“Kid,” he manages.

“Albert Wicker,” Ball says. “Yvonne Wicker’s brother.”

I knew that, Danny tries to say.