I hadn’t thought about the incriminating aspect of driving Stefanie’s car all around town. I did not, it occurred to me, have the makings of a master criminal.

“But if I don’t go to the police,” I said, “how’m I going to protect myself from this Rick guy? He’s a total nutjob. He killed that Spender guy down in the creek, probably killed Stefanie, and he’s wandering around town with a python in his trunk.”

Trixie blinked. “Does Sarah know anything about any of this?”

I shook my head. “She’s noticed me acting kind of weird, but no. And she won’t be coming home from work until morning, she’s doing the night shift, and I farmed the kids out to friends’ houses.”

“You need some kind of backup,” she said. “You have a gun or anything?”

“Are you kidding? Do I look like someone who owns a gun? I don’t even know anyone who owns a-” I stopped.

“What?” Trixie said.

“I do know one person. Who owns a gun. Someone who owes me a favor. Someone who might let me borrow it.”

“DO YOU KNOW WHAT TIME it is?” Earl said when he opened his front door to me and Trixie. She’d changed out of her work clothes and into some jeans and a T-shirt, and had gone out of her house first, making sure there was no sign of Rick or anyone else at my house two doors down, then waved for me to join her. I ran across the street in a flash, ducked into some bushes as Trixie rang Earl’s bell.

“Let us in,” Trixie said. “Zack needs your help.”

“Where’s Zack?”

“He’s the one here, in the bushes. Turn off your front light.”

Earl was dressed in checkered boxers and a sweatshirt. He padded barefoot into the kitchen, where he found a pack of cigarettes and lit up.

“What the fuck’s going on?” he said, running his hand over his shaved head. He looked nervous. “You told, didn’t you?” he said, looking at me. “You told the cops about my business. How long before they get here?”

“I didn’t do anything like that,” I said.

“Did you tell that wife of yours? Did she call them?”

“That would be Sarah,” I said. “And no. I didn’t tell her. I’m here to ask a favor.”

Earl squinted. “A favor?”

“I need a gun,” I said. “I want to borrow your gun.”

“Forget it.”

“Earl, I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important. There are people looking for me tonight, and until I sort a few things out, I need some protection.”

Earl glowered at me. “You ever owned a gun?”

“No.”

“You ever fired a gun?”

“Not exactly, no.”

“Zack, you ever even held a gun?”

I tried to think. Did toy guns count? And what about the G.I. Joe figures and accessories I’d had as a kid? Did that count for something?

“I guess, technically, no. All my shooting has been with a camera.”

“And what the hell do you need a gun for anyway? How many enemies does a guy make writing space stories?”

“Come on, Earl. Don’t you owe me one? Did I make a call to Detective Flint after I left here the other day?”

Earl shook his head. “Look, I appreciate that. But what you’re asking, I don’t know.”

“Maybe you’re going to have to explain,” Trixie said.

And so I started in all over again, for the second time in the last hour and a half, although I gave him the Reader’s Digest version. For example, I didn’t tell him about trying to instruct Sarah in the fine points of purse safety. I said I’d found a purse.

“So I wanted to return it, and check the driver’s license, and it was a woman named Stefanie Knight, who works over at Valley Forest Estates.”

Earl turned away, shaking his head, and reached for a beer from the fridge.

“So I was trying to track her down, and left my name and e-mail address at her mother’s place, and then this psycho named Rick comes looking for me, wanting what’s in this purse, which at first I thought was all this money, but that turned out to be counterfeit, and then I figured it was this film-”

“Film?”

“A roll of film. Of Stefanie Knight and this councilman in the sack.”

“What councilman?”

I told him. “But it turns out Rick and his boss, Greenway, wanted something more than just the film, they were after this ledger.” I indicated it, on the table, as if I was pointing to Exhibit #1.

“So they’re after you for this ledger?”

“Yeah, that, and I sort of pissed off Rick, hitting him in the head.”

Earl sat down, alternating puffs of cigarette and swigs of beer. “You hit him in the head.”

“When he came to my house, and Angie came home. It was a kind of self-defense thing, although I think, under other circumstances, he might have liked me. He read my book and really liked it.”

“That must have made you feel good. You never know when you’re going to run into a fan. I’ve been meaning to read it someday myself.”

“You kind of left out the most important part,” Trixie said.

“Huh?”

“This Stefanie Knight chick, she’s dead,” said Trixie.

“I was getting to that,” I said. “I’m having a hard time keeping it all straight. Maybe hanging off the roof of that house has made me forgetful.” Earl took a long drag on his cigarette, blew the smoke over our heads, and I continued. “That’s kind of why I’ve been on the run all night. She was murdered, and I’ve got her purse, well, I had her purse, and I’ve still got her car, and I think it’s going to take a long time to explain all this to the authorities. But I’m thinking maybe it’s time to go see them anyway.”

Earl said nothing for a moment. He was thinking. Trixie looked at me and shrugged. Finally, Earl said, “You need more than a gun, my friend. You need muscle.”

I smiled. “You have someone in mind?”

He returned the smile. “I might. Seems to me you need to pay another visit to this Greenway guy and Carpington and find out just what happened. We might have ways of getting the information out of them that the police aren’t really supposed to use. And if this Rick character shows up, we’ll have to deal with him as well.”

I felt a renewed sense of confidence.

“You know what might come in handy?” I said. “Some handcuffs.”

Trixie brightened. “How many pairs you need?”

I held up three fingers.

“I’ll get you two regular sets,” Trixie said, “and one fur-lined. Don Greenway always liked the soft kind.”

Earl and I looked at each other and then at Trixie.

“So he was a client.” She shrugged. “But he was a lousy tipper. Fuck him.”

EARL SAID HE HAD TO GET DRESSED and do a couple of things before we headed out. First, I heard him go into the garage, do something with his truck, slam a tailgate, then he wandered past the kitchen door on his way upstairs to put on some clothes. In his absence, I gazed, tiredly, across the table at Trixie and thought how fortunate I was, in my time of trouble, to have a dominatrix and a pot grower to bail me out.

“Thanks for not judging,” Trixie said.

“What?”

“Back at my place. I was waiting for the lecture, the inquisition, why are you doing this, what kind of girl, et cetera.”

I shrugged. “I’m a bit past being able to point a finger. People in glass houses, you know.”

“Yeah, well, if having character flaws disqualifies people from throwing stones, how come there’s so much of it going on?”

“I guess people aren’t very good at recognizing their own faults. And I’m sure there’s much to recommend in your line of work. You get to work from home, you can choose your own hours, and you get to meet a lot of interesting people.”

“That’s certainly true. And you get to learn a lot about what makes people tick.”

“True.” I paused. “Like cream cheese.”

Trixie smiled. “You don’t want to know.”

“You’re right.”

“Things good between you and Sarah? Aside from her thinking you’ve got a problem with the hydraulics?”