Eldon thought it was great that Candace was going to take a course to better herself. “You got a car? If you don’t, I could drive you up to the college in my Toyota, you could check it out, this financial stuff. On days that you have a class, I could take you there, bring you back, we could get something to eat after.”

So he drove her up. She didn’t have the marks, or the money, to enroll full-time, but she was able to take a couple of courses. She was a natural. She’d dress real plain, bulky sweaters, try to look like someone else, in case some of the male students recognized her from stripping at the Kickstart. Eldon would come by when her course was over and drive her home. “Stop here,” she’d say along the way. “I gotta go in and buy the new issue of Money.”

She said to Gary-they called him Pick behind his back sometimes but not to his face-he could save some money by changing around some of the bartending shifts, he had too many people during the slow parts of the day, she could draw up a better schedule?

“The fuck you talking about?” he said. She explained it to him. He said, “Shit, you’re right.”

She had other suggestions for him, how he could negotiate better deals with his restaurant suppliers, how the girls upstairs could charge more for certain things some guys really liked. What the hell, as long as she didn’t have to do it. She told him how he could be putting his money from prostitution, and the cash from dispensing dope, in legit investments, make it look like it came through the Kickstart legally.

“How you know all this shit?” Gary wanted to know.

She shrugged. “I like this stuff.”

“Math,” Gary said, shaking his head. “I don’t get it.”

And he didn’t. Miranda figured that if he had to rely on profits from a legitimate business, he’d go tits up in no time. It was only because the markup on drugs was so high, the profits on prostitution so huge, that he managed to keep his head above water.

“You’re amazing,” Eldon said. “I’m gonna talk to Gary, see if he’ll put you in the office full-time, you won’t have to take your clothes off anymore.”

She took them off for him, though. He wasn’t the first man she’d ever slept with. But he was the first she slept with more than once. Was this what it was like for her sister and Don? How many men were there out there who weren’t total assholes? Had she and Claire found the only two?

Claire phoned her. Their dad had come out of a bar, looked the wrong way crossing the street, got flattened by a tractor-trailer hauling pigs to a plant where they’d be turned into bacon.

No shit. She had to laugh.

WHEN WE GOT HOME, I went straight for the phone book, hunting down the number for the city health department. I was rattled and having a hard time finding which section of the book it would be in.

“I just want it on the record,” Paul said, “that I did actually get a job, and that I lost it through no fault of my own. Okay?”

I found it under the listings for municipal government departments, then dialed the number. And got a recording. The offices were closed for the day. So who did you call when a health emergency occurred after business hours?

“So, like, do you expect me to get another job now? Are you and Mom going to gang up on me again?”

The fire department? The police?

“And what do you want me to do with this?” Paul asked. He was holding the Styrofoam container that contained my cheeseburger and fries. When I didn’t immediately answer him, he opened the cabinet door under the kitchen sink, where we keep the garbage bin.

“No!” I shouted. “We may need it for, I don’t know, evidence, to give the health department. Put it in the fridge.”

Paul screwed up his face. “What if somebody eats it?”

I opened the kitchen drawer where we keep all the odds and ends we didn’t know what to do with, like keys to unknown locks, bread bag clips, and batteries we aren’t sure are dead or still have a bit of juice in them, and picked out a thick-point Sharpie marker. I tossed it to Paul and said, “Put a note on it.”

I watched him write on the top of the white box, in big capital letters, “EAT THIS AND DIE-PAUL.” Then he put it on a middle shelf of the fridge, near the back.

I found a nonemergency number for the police, not wanting to tie up a 911 line with a call about a potential food hazard that might keep a call about a house fire from getting through. I was bounced from desk to desk, getting the same message at every stop. Not our job. Call the health inspection office in the morning.

“Shit,” I said.

Paul said, “What’s for dinner?”

I didn’t tell Sarah about the episode at Burger Crisp. I was responsible for enough chaos that she already knew about, I couldn’t see the sense in piling it on. I asked Paul if he’d mind keeping his mother out of the loop, at least for now, about what had transpired, or how, exactly, he lost his job. “If your mother asks why you’re not going to work,” I said, “just tell her they hired somebody else instead.” Paul knew Sarah was mad at me, and he didn’t want to make things any more tense around the house, so he said okay. His conscience wasn’t the slightest bit disturbed by participating in a lie. This was troubling, but given the circumstances, I was also grateful.

“But that place,” he said, “it was really weird to work there. There were these people dropping by, at the back door, and they weren’t dropping off buns or meat or frozen fries or any shit like that. They’d drop off packages, and then later, someone else would come by and pick up the packages. And Mrs. Gorkin, the lady who ran the place? She didn’t think this was weird or anything.”

It sounded as though I’d gotten him out of there just in time.

The following morning, after another frosty evening with Sarah, I put in a call to the city’s health inspection department from my desk in the Home! section. I got, much to my surprise and in clear violation of my preconceptions about civil servants, a woman who said if I gave her enough details, she could probably find the health inspector responsible for the part of the city where Burger Crisp was located. I waited, hearing her tap away on a keyboard in the background, and then, “That would be Brian Sandler. Let me put you through to his extension.”

A few seconds, a ring, and then, “Sandler.”

I identified myself, told him I was calling from the Metropolitan but left it a bit murky as to whether this was a personal call or he was being interviewed for a story, and quickly told him what had transpired the evening before. Said at least one person, according to my son, who worked there, had come back to the restaurant complaining of food poisoning. That the owner, and her daughters, were not particularly open to discussing any possible problems with the menu. There was the matter of the baseball bat, for example.

“That all seems kind of amazing,” said Brian Sandler. “I know the place you’re speaking of, that’s Mrs. Gorkin’s place, she runs it with her girls. Any time I’ve been in there, it’s always seemed pretty shipshape to me.”

I thought about the overflowing trash cans, the general appearance of the joint. Even before finding out there might be an actual health problem, the place looked a bit dodgy. If Paul hadn’t been working there, I doubt I’d have gone in. And now there was this other stuff, this business of dropping off packages, other people picking them up.

“Seriously?” I said.

“I’m looking at their file here, and they have a passing grade, Mr. Walker. I’ve been in there personally. Nice people.”

“Mrs. Gorkin?”

“You mentioned your son works there?”

“Well, not anymore. Not since yesterday.”

“Maybe you need to look into that. Getting fired, he might have had an ax to grind, you know?”