Todd made a mental note to ask her about it.

He dragged on a cigarette and strained to think. What companies went out of their way to pay strangers to take jobs that didn't need taking? In this economy?

Both machines cut off just then and startled him with sudden, deafening solitude.

"What is it?" he called out to Roundface.

"Break," the man grunted.

The men gathered by the open bay door, several tearing off their shirts and raising their faces to the mid-morning sun. Todd hesitated, then figured they'd think even worse of him if he didn't at least try to fit in. He took a few steps in their direction.

"I wouldn't."

The black guy from the Sundown perched on a pile of pallets. He was about thirty-five, with forearm muscle that bunched up as he scratched his jaw. He reached into his pocket, popped a breath mint and said, "They're not too friendly to the likes of you and me."

As if the men sunning themselves on the loading dock had heard, they turned and glared at the outsiders with expressions that seemed to support the statement. Todd could hear the black guy's teeth clinking against his breath mint.

"What do you do here?" he asked. Something to say.

The man grinned. "Well let me tell ya, massah, I done push a broom. I steps and fetches tools, I empties trash barrels. But mostly I just stands around looking helpless."

Todd jerked a thumb at the machine behind them. "You were helping out there a few minute ago."

"On the printer-slotter? Yeah. That's because ol' Jack heard me bitching and moaning 'bout having nothing to do. He nearly passed out in a dead faint 'cuz he's thinking I'm thinking of quitting. First thing he does, he ups me to twelve-fifty an hour."

He waved a finger at Todd. "I see you got your own bullshit job." He grinned. "It's like one of them light bulb jokes: how many Sundowners it take to screw in a light bulb? Answer...as many as you can hire. You stick around, man, you gonna see how funny it really is."

The crowd at the loading dock had forgotten them in a haze of cigarette smoke and throaty chuckles.

"What's your name?" Todd asked.

"Jermaine." He sucked noisily on the breath mint slowly disappearing on his tongue. "Jermaine Whittock."

"You with that other guy? Little older than you, a bit of a gut?"

"You mean the other black guy, right?"

"No, not, well yeah, but-"

"Don't worry about it. No, that's Carl Haggerty. He's from Philly or Pittsburgh or something. I'm here with my old lady."

Jermaine swung his head for another look at the work crew on the loading dock. "Carl hit town with another guy. The buddy, he slipped out after his first paycheck, I guess." Jermaine clicked the mint between his teeth for a few thoughtful seconds. "That other guy? He's the smart one."

"How come?"

"For disappearing like he did. Ain't the world's friendliest town."

Todd thought it over. It was hard to find disagreement, but the pieces didn't fit. "If they don't like strangers, how come they draw us here? Cheap lodging. Good pay. Busy work just to keep us on the payrolls."

Jermaine stood, and Todd followed his gaze to the crowd coming toward them.

"Break's over," Beerbelly grunted before starting up his printer-slotter.

Jermaine Whittock moved in so as not to be overheard. "Now you asking the right question," he said, no longer grinning.

Chapter Ten.

Todd's stacking job ran out about a half hour before lunch and job assignments seemed to shift, leaving him out entirely. The hell with it, he thought as he reached for his smokes. He plunked his ass down on an idled forklift near an open bay and puffed away. Let them tell him to get back to work.

He was still there by lunchtime.

Conversation stopped when he entered the break room, so he stuffed a fistful of change into the vending machine and retrieved soda pop, chips and a single-serve can of peaches, then joined Jermaine. He'd arranged piles of cardboard into a makeshift table and chair where he sat with napkin, plastic utensils and a paper plate piled high with deviled egg, potato salad and rice-stuffed pepper.

Todd's stomach rumbled as he stared at the other man's set-up and twisted the lid off his cold peaches. "Makes you hungry doing nothing," he said.

Jermaine smacked his lips, but didn't reply.

Todd formed his own stacked-cardboard chair and sat. "So what brought you here?"

Jermaine dabbed almost daintily with his napkin. "Place called the Time-Out Market and Deli. One of them twenty-four-seven convenience stores near the famous 8 Mile Road in Detroit. And in case you don't know Detroit, it ain't Mister Rogers' Fucking Neighborhood."

"Never been there," said Todd. "Been thinking about it a little. My brother-in-law's heard Ford's going to be hiring again soon."

Jermaine's laugh sounded high and genuine. "I bet your brother-in-law don't know who tole him this or remember any of the details. He don't have a phone number or a hiring manager's name. You get an economy this bad for this long and rumors send you traipsing the country to that next place on the map jus' dying for help. 'No experience? No training? Ain't had a full-time job in three years? No problem. We're hiring!'"

He laughed again, but this time it didn't sound so genuine. "I was telling you about the Time-Out Market and Deli." He popped his deviled egg in his mouth and spoke around it. "Place was run by about four Arab guys. Cousins, brothers, I don't know. 'Bout half of them named Mohammed. They was hiring, that's the thing. They only paid five or six bucks an hour, but all off the books. And for the graveyard shift, ten to six, they went up to a whole seven bucks. Well, I hadn't had any work but an occasional day-labor gig for months, and my old lady-Tonya-she'd lost her job at this lamp assembly plant 'cuz-get this-the feds fined them like a hundred-thousand bucks or something for not having enough brothers on the payroll. So they shut the goddamn thing down and moved to, I don't know, India or some goddamn place where the wages are lower."

"Anyway," said Todd, trying to move it along before lunch break ended.

"Point is, I took the graveyard shift on Murder Avenue cuz we got three kids and really needed the money. Okay?"

He crumpled up his paper waste and dumped it into a nearby trashcan. "First night, I'm scared shitless but everything's cool. Next night, same thing. Night after that, not so good. There's a kid, eighteen or nineteen, at the end of the aisle when this other brother comes striding in in a long coat. He goes, 'Hey, Roosevelt,' and the first kid looks up. This first kid gets a real serious expression on his face, then he breaks into a grin."

"A grin," said Todd, wanting to know if he heard right.

"Yeah. A grin. Like 'shit, what else can I do.' Then this dude that called out his name whips out a sawed-off from in his coat. He pumps it and starts spraying shots at the kid. I mean, it's this roar of sound like an explosion that won't stop. The kid, like, steps back a little so he's kinda behind an aisle, but that's all he does."

Jermaine stopped to wipe at the sweat sheen that covered his face. Maybe from the heat, maybe not. "I'm standing there behind the counter like a statue, man. Like if I stay real quiet and still, the shooter won't see me. But he don't give a shit I'm there or not. All he's interested in is putting bullets in my beer cans, my soup and chips and feminine napkins, everything but this kid standing there with a stupid grin on his face."

Jermaine was also grinning at the telling.

Todd said, "The shooter ever get the kid?"

"That's just it," Jermaine all but shouted, then glanced around nervously as if fearing he'd been overheard. "He fires four, five times, whatever the motherfucker had in that hogleg of his. By the time he's finished, my ears was ringing so loud I barely hear my beer cans still exploding. The shooter just stares at this kid standing there, grinning. He goes 'Shit' one time, the shooter dude does, then he splits. Runs like hell. The kid, the grinning kid, starts stroking his body and I figure after awhile he's looking for bullet holes. When he don't find any, he walks out the door still smiling his stupid-ass grin. He's stepping over shattered glass, but it's like it's no big deal. Just a tough day at work, you know?"

Jermaine's eyes shone. "No big deal 'cept last thing I notice is the kid's got this dark stain on the crotch of his baggies."

Todd finished his inadequate lunch and lit another cigarette. "Jesus, I understand you splitting after that."

Jermaine shook his head. "You don't understand jack shit, partner. Wife and three kids, remember? I go back there the next night, only this time I got my .38 stuffed in my pocket. Just in case. Just like the Arabs had tole me to do all along."

"You registered to carry?"

"Man, you ain't never lived in the city. The Arabs gave me the job, they called it the Shotgun Shift. They was all proud of having had a cousin get wiped out on the Shotgun Shift 'cuz he'd taken a shooter with him." Jermaine paused. "Maybe that's why they hired a nigger. They'd lost too many Arabs by then."

"Weren't they pissed off about the shooting the night before?" Todd glanced at his watch.

"Don't worry about it. The time, I mean. Lunch is officially a half hour, but usually goes over. Not much to do on the floor anyway. But to answer your question, the Arabs musta had their insurance all paid up 'cuz they treated it like a joke. They sweep up the glass and they're teasing me about the bullets flying. I filed a police report, of course, but they treated it like someone stole a bike, you know? I'm sure the Arabs doubled the actual damage on their insurance claim, so everyone's happy, right? Everyone but me."

"But now you got your gun," said Todd, prodding.

"Yeah. Now I got my gun. And the very next night, two kids come in." Jermaine took a deep breath. Let it out. "They're, I dunno-fifteen? Plenty old enough for the streets. I'm watching them real close 'cuz I don't like the way they're huddled together at the back of the store, whispering. They take turns popping their heads up to look at me and my one or two customers. And they got these long coats, right? And their hands stuffed into the pockets, and I'm trying my damnedest to hold onto my only two customers, but then they're both gone and it's just me and the punks."

Jermaine's face was glistening again, making Todd picture how it must have gone down.

"One of 'em drifts by the door-the lookout guy, right?-while the other one comes slowly up the aisle toward me. He got that nigger swagger going, this cold, dead look on his face. 'Bout to become a player, you know? So I'm slowly bringing my gun out of my hip pocket and kinda aiming it at him, but under the counter. I know I can't shoot through the wood like in the movies, so I gotta lift it high enough to get him before he gets me. That's gonna take time, but then I get this crazy idea."

They both looked up guiltily as Beerbelly ambled past them without a sideways glance. When he started up his machine, Todd pulled closer to hear the rest.

"I'm thinking to myself, I'm thirty-four, too old for this shit. I ain't Wyatt Earp. I gotta wait for him to draw on me first and gamble on being able to get my Smith & Wesson up over the top of the counter before he plugs me? Bullshit. Why not just plug him first, then get the bastard at the back of the store? Element of surprise, right? Not the way the gunfighters do it, but what you do if you got no quick-draw practice and you wanna live. Then go through their coats and take out their guns and put 'em in their dead hands and everything's cool."

Todd's throat had started to tighten as the story went on. He could barely croak out the obvious question. "Did you kill them?" Lie to me, he was thinking.

To his surprise and relief, the other man shook his head. "The store security camera saved those boys' lives. I don't even know if the damn thing worked, but if it did I was screwed. So I had to wait and let the kid draw first and hope his friend wouldn't get me from the doorway before I finished off the first one. It's high noon in Detroit, right? I was ready for anything, 'cept my gun hand is going numb and heavy and I got these black spots in front of my eyes like I'm gonna pass out."

Jermaine stopped. Pausing for dramatic effect, most likely, but Todd couldn't stop himself from playing along. "So what happened? Huh?"

"So the kid, the one that's approaching. He says in this real nervous voice, 'You got condoms?' See, we kept 'em behind the counter."

Jermaine let out a high, keening wail of a laugh that could be heard even above the roar of the printer-slotter. "That's right. The punks want rubbers and they're embarrassed about asking. And I almost blew 'em away for it. Talk about effective birth control."

He erupted with one more peal of laughter, then his smile died. "Time to leave town, what I tell my ole lady. Can't do this no more. We left the kids with Tonya's ma and pa and tole 'em we'd be back when we gets some jobs somewhere and saved up some money."

Todd blinked aside a million questions before settling on one. "Your wife found a job here, too?"

"Took her all of two days. She's filing books away at the town library for nine-fifty an hour."

Todd mulled this over. "You send for the kids yet?"

Jermaine stared at a point far beyond Todd. Stared so long that Todd didn't think he'd give up an answer. Then he said, "Tonya wants 'em with us, but I'm not so sure. I keep putting it off."

There were lots of ways to respond to that, but Todd's next questions sounded odd even to him. "Still got that .38?"

"Oh yeah." Jermaine Whittock nodded very slowly. "I keep that motherfucker greased and in prime working order back at the motel."

For some reason, that didn't strike Todd as being the least bit strange.

Chapter Eleven.

The Babylon Police Department was housed in an impressive red brick structure on Middle View Road known as the Drake Municipal Complex. It sat behind a startling expanse of green lawn flanked by rows of bright yellow daffodils and accessed by a dazzling white circular drive. Park benches sat under century-old sycamores along an inviting sidewalk. Despite the aesthetics, Paul's affection for anything having to do with the town had been dulled by yet another conversation with Savannah Easton.

It was time for action.

He coasted up the drive and pulled the Lexus behind a long bus. He scanned the curb for a sign denying him the parking space so close to the brick walk leading to the front door, and was almost disappointed to find none.

Paul Highsmith was in a law-defying mood.

Darby's expression had been difficult to read earlier that day as she'd handed him the phone. Paul, trying to paint his study with Tuck wailing in the background, had at first welcomed the interruption.

"It's Savannah," Darby muttered, evidently eager to dash his good feelings. "She insists on talking with you." This last part sounding like a vague accusation.

He deliberately sighed into the receiver. "Yes, Savannah."

"Paul, you must sell," she said, skipping her customarily bubbly preliminaries.

His first thought was that the pressures of the legendarily slow market had caused the poor woman to lose it. After an empty pause in which he waited for her to explain herself, he finally had to ask the obvious.

"You were clever to hold out for so long," she said, now sounding unconvincingly girlish. "I told my buyer that you'd turned down their very generous offer. Well, I'd expected him to tell me to forget it, but he says, 'Savannah, let's quit playing games.' That's what he says. He tells me, 'Let's make it an even eight-hundred-thousand dollars.' Can you imagine that, Paul? The town's willing to buy your home for nearly double what you paid for it just a couple months ago."

He glanced at Darby and found her trying to entice Tuck's attention away from the open paint can with a rag storybook he showed no interest in whatsoever.

"Paul? Paul?" The real estate agent sounded panicky at the thought of losing him.

"I'm here, Savannah." He caught a glimpse of Darby listening in as unobtrusively as possible. "I'm sorry, but as we told you-"

"You have to," she said, all soft-sell pretense gone. "They won't leave me alone until you do."

The line went silent, as though she'd realized she'd misspoke. After several beats, she issued a throaty chuckle. "My, I get dramatic, don't I? Sorry, Paul. It's just that they're so insistent. I never should have let you buy in Babylon in the first place. Sometimes I see dollar signs and ignore my better judgment. But now I'm thinking about you, Paul, and your lovely family."

He didn't like the sound of that at all. "Savannah, who's behind all of this?" he asked her crisply.

"I told you. It's the town. The whole town wants you to leave."