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By Root 1204 0

dogs on the block settle down. By the time I crawl out of the bushes to see if I’m in the right yard, the night’s chill has gone through the thin CSM jacket I’m wearing, straight into my bones, and the front of my jeans are soaked through from the damp earth. There’s plenty of light spilling into the backyard from the street lamp and the Christmas lights strung across the front of the house. I’m in the right place. The paint job is different and the yard has been relandscaped, but I recognize the house and the big redwood deck.

I can’t see any lights on in the house. I squint and scan the roofline, looking for one of those motion-detector security lights. No sign. I scuttle to the side of the house where I remember the side door to the garage being. I edge past a stacked cord of firewood. No helpful warning sticker left by an alarm company on the door. None of the alarm tape you would expect to see on the window in the door if it had been rigged. I put my hand on the knob, twist it slowly. Someone jams a gun into the back of my neck.

—Don’t you even breathe, fucker.

I don’t.

—Open the door.

I do.

—Now crawl inside. Stay on your hands and knees.

I do. The barrel of the gun stays pressed against my neck and I hear the door close behind us, then the lights come on.

—Turn around.

I shuffle around on my hands and knees, and look up at Wade and the huge revolver he’s pointing at me.

His brow furrows. Air hisses out between his teeth.

—Hank?

He lowers the gun.

—Your mom and dad are really worried about you.

And that’s how I know he’s not the one who sold me out to Dylan.

THE GARAGE is stocked with a particularly large supply of suburban toys: a couple of Jet Skis; a small powerboat on a trailer; two golf bags stuffed in a corner; a massive tool bench running down one side, with every imaginable power tool displayed on the peg wall behind it; snow skis laid out on the rafters; two Honda motocrossers, a massive 420 and a matching 125; and five mountain bikes dangling from overhead hooks.

—Beer?

—I don’t drink.

—Why not?

Because I got drunk and forgot something one time and a bunch of people died.

—It was bad for me.

—Soda?

—Sure.

Wade gets off the stool he’s sitting on and opens the garage fridge.

—Sprite or Coke?

—Sprite.

He tucks the Colt Anaconda into his armpit and grabs a can of Sprite and a bottle of Miller High Life. He hands me the can, twists the cap off his beer, tosses it into a waste can under the workbench, and takes a drink. Then he digs a key from the pocket of his Carhartt jacket, opens a drawer on the bench, takes the gun from his armpit, and drops it inside.

—Stacy would shit if she knew I had that thing, but I always keep it locked up.

I get a good look at the chambers in the cylinder before he closes and locks the drawer.

—It’s not loaded.

He looks at me like I’m an asshole.

—With three kids in the house? No, it’s not fucking loaded.

I open my Sprite, take a sip, and huddle a little closer to the space heater he fired up for me. I point at the side door.

—How did you?

—I was out here sneaking a cig before going up. Stace won’t let me smoke in the house. I heard all that barking, switched off the light to take a peek, and saw someone hop the fence. Went out and hid behind the woodpile. Stupid shit, should have called the cops, but I was pissed.

He fingers a gouge in the surface of the workbench, looks at me.

—You any warmer?

—Yeah.

—Good, let’s take a walk, I don’t want you in here if Stace wakes up.

WE STROLL around the block, our faces illuminated by streetlamps and the colored lights flashing on the rooflines of the houses. Wade left his smokes back in the garage and has to bum one of mine.

—Benson & Hedges?

—Uh-huh.

—Kind of an old lady cigarette. How’d you get started on those?

—Long story.

We pause while I light his cigarette, continue. Walking past houses I remember from my childhood. We stand in front of one with a particularly elaborate display: a mini Santa’s Village built on the lawn and spilling onto the driveway.

Wade looks down, sees something, bends,