I located Marcie in the food court, sipping on a frappy-crappy-amaretto coffee something. I sat down, put the envelope on the table, and slid it across to her. “Take a look.”

She cracked open the envelope and peeked inside. Her breath caught, and she coughed up a nervous chuckle. “Oh, my.”

“Half is yours. Five grand.”

“Wow.” She blinked at the cash. “It worked.”

“Dinner?”

“Let’s just get a room. We can order up.”

We quickly found the Hilton. Wrapped in the mingled glow of champagne and leftover adrenaline, we slipped between the sheets and completed our discovery. After, I lay awake for long hours, content to feel her curled against me. I’d have to call Ma tomorrow, tell her I got tangled up again.

We drove back to Marcie’s the next morning. She said I should hang around awhile. I called O’Malley’s and got Benny on the line. Told him to cover for me.

Marcie was out running errands, said she’d be back to fix me lunch. I poked around the place. I went through the side door in her kitchen, which led to the garage. It was dark. I felt along the wall for the light switch. No luck. I felt on the other side. Nothing.

I stepped into the darkness, felt something on my face, and jumped back.

A string. The light. I gave it a yank, and two rows of fluorescents flashed to life.

An eight-foot-tall polar bear charged me, its claws outstretched, its mouth twisted into a savage snarl. I stepped back, one arm flung up to ward off the bear, the other hand flying into my jacket, drawing the revolver from my belly holster. I backpedaled toward the kitchen, legs tangling. I fell on my ass, but the pistol was out. I squeezed the trigger three times, dotting the polar bear’s chest with a neat triangle of.38 caliber holes. But the bear didn’t drop.

As a matter of fact, he didn’t budge at all.

Marcie was a taxidermist.

I stood, moved close to the polar bear. Marcie had done a good job. The bear was incredibly lifelike, and she’d fixed the animal with an expression that was likely far more terrifying than nature had ever intended. The bear was a perfect picture of rage. It felt like he was actually mad at me.

I explored the rest of the garage. A large worktable. Tools. Bottles of liquid. Various animal anatomy texts side-by-side with art books, cubism, sculpture. Alien to me. A large freezer took up one corner. It creaked open, and I found an assortment of packages wrapped in butcher’s paper. I picked up one about the size of a big ham, turned it over in my hands. In black Magic Marker was written Raccoon.

“Ew.” I shivered, dropped the package back into the freezer, and closed it.

God damn ghoulish way to earn a living. Okay, I killed people, but I didn’t keep any souvenirs. I looked at the bear again, shook my head, laughed.

I went back in the house, flipped on the television. I made a couple laps around the channels with the remote control but nothing was good. Bored.

I wrote Marcie a note.

Thanks for a nice evening. Sorry I couldn’t wait. Work. I’ll call you.

That’s the thing about Orlando: it wasn’t a tall city, but it had a bad dose of the sprawl, creeping out in every direction, soaking up communities like Altamonte and Longwood and places that used to be rural like Sanford and Oveido and even Bithlo. All of Central Florida from Disney to the Space Coast was a snarled clusterfuck of beltways and mini-malls and cookie-cutter housing developments and hotels, hotels, hotels.

In Longwood, I’d managed to find a nice apartment over a two-car garage. It was far enough away from 17-92 that traffic noise was almost obliterated if you turned your TV up loud enough. The lady who owned the garage and adjacent house was about seven hundred years old and hadn’t raised the rent once in the eleven years I’d lived there. The house was on a pond that everyone in the neighborhood pretended was a lake so the sign at the entrance to the place could say Lake Potter.

The taxi let me out, and I paid the guy. I took the stairs up the side of the garage and let myself in. The place was just like I’d left it. One chair. One single bed- made, sheets and blanket tucked under the corners. No dishes in the sink and a two-thirds-full bottle of Chivas on the small, round wooden table.

I showered, changed into fresh clothes. Charcoal slacks. Tweed jacket. Muted paisley tie.

I fixed myself a roast beef sandwich, horseradish, tomato, cut it in half- diagonally. A glass of water, no ice. I read the National Geographic while I ate, the one with the story on French Polynesia.

The phone rang.

I picked it up. “Yeah?”

“Stan’s looking for you.” It was Bob Tate. I could hear the crowd murmur and clink of glasses from O’Malley’s behind him.

“Why?”

“I don’t know. He seems irritated.”

“What did you say to him?”

“I didn’t say nothing. He’s the boss. He can be irritated if he wants.”

“I mean did you tell him where I am?”

“I didn’t know where you were.”

“You still don’t. Understand?”

Bob cleared his throat, made unhappy noises. If he had something to say, I really should have heard him out. Benny and the new guy Morgan- and even Blade when he was alive- usually knew better than to second-guess me, but Bob was next down on the totem pole. He’d seen about as much shit as I had, and believe me, there was plenty to see. Stan’s organization was into everything. Numbers, protection, fencing, bookmaking. If there was a dirty buck to be made, Stan was on top of it. And if anybody looked at Stan sideways, he gave us a ring in the back room at O’Malley’s. The monkey cage, Stan called it. I’m still not sure why.

Me and Bob and the others were Stan’s enforcers. The guys with the guns, the knives, the brass knuckles. The guys with the deep voices and the long shadows. The guys with the heavy footfalls on the stairs late at night. I’d read all that in a dime novel once.

In the years I’d known Bob, he’d been shot three times, stabbed, had his ribs busted with a baseball bat, and been sideswiped by a Toyota. In all honesty, he’d earned the right to speak his mind. He wouldn’t bother unless it was important.

But I guess I just wasn’t in the mood to listen.

“Tell him I had some personal business, Bob.” I cradled the phone against my shoulder, tore the cover off the Geographic and folded it, put it in my pocket.

He cleared his throat again, code for Stan ain’t going to like that, but he said, “Sure, Charlie, whatever you say.”

“Thanks.”

I hung up the phone and went downstairs to my Buick Skylark. I didn’t want to go back to O’Malley’s. I wasn’t ready to explain to Stan about Blade, and if I stayed around the apartment he might call.

It only took me a second to think of someplace to go.

I found Marcie on her front porch. She sat on the wooden bench sipping a gin and tonic.

I stopped in front of her, just off the porch. “I shot your bear.”

“You what my what?”

“The big stuffed polar bear in the garage,” I said. “I shot it. With my gun.”

“Why the hell’d you do that?” She stood, balled her little fist.

I shuffled my feet, shoved my hands deep in my pockets. “It sort of startled me.”

“My God. A grown man.” Marcie stomped into the house trailing obscenities.

I followed but paused in the kitchen. She’d left the door open, so I could hear her growling from the garage. I tossed some ice cubes into a glass and drowned them in gin. I went into the garage.

Marcie fingered the singed fur around the holes in the bear’s chest. She frowned at me with every muscle in her face. “Well, that’s just great.”

“He’s not getting any more dead. What’s the big deal?”

“This is my work.”

“Don’t you have some stuff to shove in the holes? Just use some white shoe polish on the burn marks. When the people come to pick it up they’ll never notice.”