"Can't you read the sign?"

I slap a twenty on the table. "Can you read that?"

"Yeah," she says, warily slipping it into her pocket. "Okay, what can I get you?"

"Coffee, and keep it coming. A short stack. No, two short stacks."

"Don't you just want-"

"I said two short stacks, and three eggs sunny side up. An order of sausage and a double order of bacon, and tell 'em to hurry up. There'll be another twenty in it for you."

She shrugs and walks off with the order slip. I lean back in the seat until the coffee comes. I down a cup of scalding-hot black coffee and wave the cup at her to fill it again from the carafe before she even gets to leave.

The heat cuts into my throat and the caffeine gives me a surge. I sit up and devour the pancakes when they come out, then the eggs and the meat. I take a hundred bucks from my pocket and slap it on the table with the check, and leave.

Fuck it, I'll probably never see this place again. If I'm going to be an asshole about it I should at least brighten these people's day a little, right? Maybe if I overtip a few hundred waitresses I won't wind up in the sixth level of hell after Santiago gets done with me. That's got to be worth at least a few million years in purgatory, right?

I'm a little swervy on the drive back. I roll right past the front of the neighborhood. I can't stand looking at Rose's house right now. I just keep driving, and maybe that's what I should do, just keep driving until I go right over the edge of the earth.

I resolve to leave, right now. Get a full tank of gas and head west. I don't have a destination in mind but the more distance I put between myself and Rose, the less chance Santiago will get his hands on her. God, what's wrong with me?

I drive for maybe an hour then pull over. I can't see the road anymore. All I can see is Rose's beautiful face, her soft cheeks wet with tears as I rip the heart out of her chest. Quentin, you fucking piece of shit, look at what you did to her.

Wearily I turn the Impala around and drive back. It's almost dark by the time I pass the front gate, the sky bruised by sunset as I head down my street. My street, ha. I have no right to be here.

Then I spot somebody skulking around Rose's house. Of course I have to be driving a huge, absurdly flashy car. I couldn't be out in a nondescript Toyota, no.

Whoever he is, he's lurking around the back of the house, moving near the basement windows. The lights are on in the living room and upstairs. Everybody's home. I drum my fingers on the wheel and think for a minute.

I can't leave this alone, of course. How do I handle it? My instincts are not something I should be listening to right now. Need to keep my head clear and focused. Who the hell is this guy?

He tries to hide when I pull in my driveway. I use the time it takes my garage door to go up to watch him. He's on the far side of the porch, crouched where it bolts to the house. He'll make a run for it when the garage door closes.

I don't close it. I throw open my door and run full tilt from the garage across the driveway and into Rose's yard, angling to sweep around the deck. The prowler yelps and makes a run for it.

Not very fast.

I take him down with a tackle around the legs, roll, and get my hand over his mouth. He bites me. Bad idea.

I could make this hurt or I could snap his neck. Instead I slip my arm around him and lock him into a sleeper hold. I can feel his pulse tighten in his skinny throat against my biceps and forearm. I look up, half expecting to see Rose or one of the kids looking over the railing at me.

Nope. The prowler goes limp.

No time to be artsy about it, I throw him over my shoulder and carry him back across the yard, glancing this way and that. People are so blind around here. I think I could run a marching band through the neighbor's yard and they wouldn't even look out the windows.

I punch the button on the wall and the garage door rumbles down. Binding his hands with nylon rope, I toss the other end of the line over one of the roof joists and haul him up, stretching his arms over his head. Farther, farther, until his toes barely touch the floor.

For the first time I get a really good look at him. Midthirties, a little out of shape with a bit of a potbelly and skinny arms. He has a camera with him. I cut the strap from around his neck and set the camera on my desk, walk over, and slap him in the face.

He sputters and his eyes flutter open.

"Fuck, my head, what the..." he trails off.

"Oh. Shit."

"Oh shit indeed. The fuck are you doing sneaking around that house?"

"You better let me go, man."

"Oh really? I better. What happens if I don't?"

He struggles as I go through his pockets. Cell phone. Wallet. He's carrying his freaking wallet. I check for ID, find it in a little flap, and slip it out. I toss the wallet so it thumps off his chest and slaps on the floor.

"Jared."

I hold up the driver's license.

"Is this you, Jared?"

"Y-yeah."

"You want to go home tonight, Jared?"

He swallows, hard.

"Man, I've seen your face..."

I snort a laugh.

"Ha. Right. You have. Good for you. Look, I don't want to drag this out. This is how it's going to work."

I wheel over a cart and roll open a padded leather case full of tools, and slip them out of their slots one at a time.

"Man, if I start screaming-"

"They'll think it's my TV. Welcome to suburbia, Jared. The land of nobody gives a fuck."

I slam the potato peeler down on the tray. It makes the other tools rattle.

"What are you going to do with that?"

I look up at him. "Okay, this is how it works. You will answer my questions to my satisfaction, and you will get to keep the skin on your balls. You don't, welp."

He swallows. "I can't..."

I lift the potato peeler. "I can."

"Jesus Christ," he whimpers, and I smell a distinctive bitter scent, and a wet stain spreads on his khakis. He's wearing fucking khakis.

"First question, who are you?"

"Jared-"

"Not your name, chucklefuck."

"I'm a private detective."

"Who hired you and why?"

"I can get sued-"

"You can get castrated."

He whimpers. "I'm supposed to be looking for anything that lady's ex-husband can use in court to get the kids taken away."

"How long have you been watching them?"

"A couple of weeks."

"Have you reported anything so far?"

"Y-yeah," he says. "She leaves them unattended after school and while she's in class."

"So fucking what? Lots of parents do that."

"The judge won't see it that way. The oldest is fourteen. They can't be alone all night by themselves."

I grit my teeth. "You provided this information to the ex-husband already."

"Y-yeah," he says.

"Fuck. I don't like the answer to my questions. Say goodbye to your scrotum."

I snatch the potato peeler from the tray and take a step toward him and he screams like a little girl.

I grab his collar and touch the tip of the potato peeler to his nose.

"You can change my mind."

"H-how?"

I smile a hungry smile.

"Tell me everything you know about this Russel."

"O-okay. It's not much, just-"

"It's a start."

I take a pad and paper and sit down on my folding metal chair.

"Talk."

The details he gives me are not especially significant-only the things an employee would know. Full name, address. He rattles off descriptions of his car, tells me how they met. Dutifully I write it all down then slap the tablet on the tray of torture tools and stand up.

No more potato peeler. I pick up a linoleum knife, a hooked implement used to make drawing cuts, and stalk toward him. He shakes and somehow manages to piss himself again.

There's piss on my floor. That makes me mad.

"You might have hurt that woman and her children really bad," I tell him. "If she gets her kids taken away, I'm going to be very put out."

"I swear I won't tell anything else, I swear to God I'll quit."

"No, you won't quit. You'll wait for me to give you instructions. You'll feed your client the information I want him to have. Is that clear?"

He swallows and clears his throat.

"Let me make sure you understand. If you don't do this, somebody, not me, somebody you've never seen before, will be paying you a visit, Jared. Somebody who knows everything about you. Somebody who taught me everything I know."

"I'll do whatever you say. I swear to God."

"Don't swear to God. Swear to me."

He nods.

I love that swear to me line, it always works.

I heft the knife, making a show of it. It's light in my fingers, alive. The knife harp as hell. I could open his belly or his throat with no more effort than swatting away a bug.

He screams as I swing, but I aim high, miss him, and hit the rope. He drops to the floor in a bubbling, sobbing heap and I cut the bonds around his wrists. He falls back and rubs at the raw marks on his arms.

I toss him a pack of wet wipes. "Clean the piss off my floor. Jared."

When I'm satisfied, I give him a kick in the ribs. Not hard enough to break anything, but it knocks him on his side.

"Get the fuck out of here, and don't let anybody see you."

I open the garage door and he shuffles out, whimpering. I still have his driver's license.

Once he's gone I pace the room while the connection tediously loads, then eagerly sit down and use the info Jared gave me about Russel to gather every piece of information about Rose's ex-husband that I can.

It takes me about four hours to pull everything together.

He's a scumbag. Easiest thing would be to just plug him, dump him, and proceed to get the fuck out of this place and get out of Rose's life before I make things worse for her.

Fuck, she needs the money he pays her. Alimony and child support and all that. She's broke, I checked. Call it overzealous but I had a look at her bank accounts. Paycheck to paycheck doesn't even begin to describe it. If I off her ex-husband she'll be up shit creek, and I'd be taking the paddles on my way out.

There's more than that. He's still those girls' dad and I can't just kill him. Christ almighty, is that how far gone I am? My first reaction to a problem is to murder somebody?