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As soon as I got inside the car, I turned my cell phone on, hoping to find a message from Ruby. There wasn’t one. The boss had called wanting a progress report. My cousin Erica had left a bubbly message asking me to call. Erica still lived in the old neighborhood on Long Island and periodically felt it her duty to call and bring me up to speed on the incredibly tedious neighborhood gossip, hoping this would make me divulge fascinating facts about cases I was working on. The girl couldn’t get it through her head that what I did for a living was basically incredibly fucking tedious.

I got back to the unattractive complex where I rented a small apartment. Because this is Florida, even a low-rent complex like mine has a swimming pool, and this particular pool is not known to attract any great beauties. Willow Clark, the sun-ravaged matron who spends 90 percent of her life lingering by the pool in a string bikini that does nothing to hold back her tides of flesh, was in her spot and, as I came by, lifted extravagant sunglasses and eyed me.

“Hi, Sammy,” she said, giving a little wave.

“Mrs. Clark,” I said, shoving the key in my lock and retreating into my apartment.

Cat came and rubbed her tiger-striped body against my legs. I picked her up, scratched under her chin, and pulled my cell phone out of my pocket to see if a message from Ruby had miraculously appeared. It had not.

I opened a can of food for Cat and poured myself a finger of whiskey. I drank it down quickly, trying to kill the headache. I made a few notes on my pad about Roderick even though I really hadn’t learned anything interesting. Eventually, I put a PJ Harvey CD on my portable machine. I can’t say it made me feel much better but at least it didn’t hurt.

BEN NESTER

13.

Darwin’s Hiccup

I’d left Oklahoma three days after I’d taken care of business with the dirtbags that had abused Sandman’s chestnut mare. It had been a big to-do in the town. The lady hadn’t been lying when she’d told Sandman that her brother was the sheriff. And the sheriff didn’t take lightly to someone blowing his sister’s head off. They immediately launched a big investigation. Apparently though, the dirtbags hadn’t told the sheriff about me and Sandman coming to take the mare back from them. The cops only paid Sandman a quick visit asking if he knew what had happened to the horse he’d sold those people. Sandman told them the lady lost interest and just gave the horse back. I guess that kind of thing happened often enough and Sandman was a trusted member of the community and so that was that.

As soon as the cops left, Sandman told me to split town and never show my face again. He never came out and said he knew I did those people in, but of course he did know. It was his shotgun that had done it and Sandman must have noticed it missing. I’d carefully wiped it down and taken it apart and put most of it in Dirt Stick Pond and the rest in Miller’s Pond.

I packed my few items of clothing. I put Crow, the dog I’d rescued from the dirtbags, into the Chevy and we drove off.

I drove east.

I was not too far from Baltimore when I ran out of money. I got a job in a box factory. At night, I slept in the car with Crow. They wouldn’t let me bring Crow in to work though so I didn’t last that long there. I made my way to Laurel Park Racetrack and, after making a nuisance of myself awhile, finally found a lady trainer named Nancy Cooley who gave me a job walking horses off after their morning exercise. I moved into one of the dorms with eight other grooms and hotwalkers. Crow had to sleep outside but I built him a little shed and put my old sweater in it for bedding. Crow was happy. He’d put on some weight and his white coat was shiny and healthy. He’d been timid for a few weeks after I’d first gotten him but already he was coming out of his shell and people liked him. Things were okay for both of us.

Several months passed. Then a year.

I got promoted to groom and Nancy even had me rubbing a nice little stakes filly named Glassy Jane. She was