“How about we trade places and you stay calm, mother-fucker?” said Briggs, perfectly still now.

“Sean, go find a long tree branch,” the accountant said gently. “Hurry.”

Sean crashed into the underbrush.

“I’m…I’m still sinking,” said Briggs, a cloud of mosquitoes floating around his head.

The accountant watched him stuck there, the late-afternoon light seeping through the trees.

Sean rushed back, dragging a long, dry branch. “Is this okay?”

“Perfect,” said the accountant. “Hold it out in front of you…but be careful where you step.”

“I’m scared,” said Sean.

“Fucking do it, Sean!” cried Briggs.

Sean edged carefully into the clearing, one foot in front of the other, testing the ground under the water to make sure it was solid. He waved the dry branch at Briggs.

“You’ll have to get closer,” said the accountant.

Sean took another few steps, started to sink, the watery muck level with his high-tops. He reached out with the branch.

Briggs lunged for the branch, missed it by at least three feet. His movements drove him deeper into the slurry, chest-high now. “Closer!”

“It’s okay, Sean,” said the accountant. “Just a little farther. Lean forward with the branch.”

Sean hesitated, took another step toward Briggs, bent over, the branch extended as far as he could.

The accountant put his foot against Sean’s ass, and pushed. Sent him sprawling.

Sean screamed, facedown, spitting out muck as he fought to get out, but only got sucked in deeper and deeper. He grasped at the tree branch. It snapped.

The accountant watched them struggle. Sean weeping, frantic, mud in his mouth, sinking fast. Briggs moved slowly, trying to work his way toward the edge of the clearing.

“There really is a natural spring under there,” said the accountant, hands still taped behind his back. “Been that way since I was a boy. Deep, too. No matter what you throw in, it just gets swallowed up. I tossed a neighbor’s new bicycle down there one time. Shiny red Schwinn with streamers on the handlebars and a chrome fenders. Never did like that kid.”

Briggs reached for a tuft of grass, but it came apart in his hands. He tilted back, the slurry past his chest now.

Sean made a final choking sound, and slipped under the surface.

“If you can hold your breath long enough, Briggs, maybe you can find that bike on the bottom,” said the accountant. “See if you can ring the bell.”

Briggs reached down, fumbled for something, the movement pushing him deeper. His head was under the surface when his hand broke free, just his hand, holding the.357. He blindly got off three shots with the revolver before his hand disappeared along with the rest of him.

One of the shots had been close enough that the accountant heard it zing past his ear, but he hadn’t flinched. Just smiled. You take your chances…

He stepped back from the quicksand, deftly slipped his bound hands under his feet and in front of him. He worked at the duct tape with his teeth. Took him ten minutes. The clearing was still by then.

The accountant rubbed his wrists, bringing back the circulation. He adjusted his necktie, then pulled out his cell and called Junior.

“It’s done,” said the accountant.

“It go down like you wanted?” said Junior.

A breeze stirred the grass around the edges of the quicksand. “Pretty much.”

“Nothing’s going to come back at us?”

“No.” The accountant watched a muddy bubble pop. “Not a thing.”

“I can’t abide thieves,” said Junior. “I need to be able to trust the people work for me.”

The accountant studied a couple of iridescent green dragon-flies hovering over the surface of the water.

“Never understood why you don’t just do things the easy way,” said Junior.

The accountant pulled the leaf Sean had used out of his fly, zipped up his pants.

“Where’s the fun in that?” He snapped the phone shut and started back toward his house.

When he’s not practicing law, Joe Hartlaub is a highly respected book reviewer, so he’s no stranger to what makes a good thriller come to life. “Crossed Double” shows how sharp dialogue can make you feel like you’re not just reading a story but also eavesdropping on the two people at the table next to you in a restaurant.

The characters in “Crossed Double” might be made of questionable moral fiber but they are not without their own code of honor, as a father tries to explain to his wayward son. You could say that this story is a parent lecturing a child about right and wrong, but this is a thriller, so make that wrong and wrong.

C.T. is unhappy.

He shouldn’t be. He has time on his hands, money in the bank and pussy on the side. He has breakfast-coffee, cream, fried egg sandwich, cheese and sausage on a toasted bagel, crunchy but not dark, if you would be so kind-sitting in front of him at Lisa’s, his favorite diner in Columbus. His son, Andy, is sitting across from him, and it’s still like looking in a mirror, even though a quarter-century separates them. All should be well, except for the story that Andy is telling him. C.T. has to keep his hands on the table to keep from smacking the stupid out of the kid, which, C.T. thinks, would take about three weeks once he started. Eight years out of high school and still fucking up like a three-year-old.

Andy is telling C.T. that he borrowed money from Kozee, who is a whack-job. Everyone knows it. He’s a DLR-Doesn’t Look Right-and only a wet brain or someone fresh off of a Greyhound bus would ever do business with him. Even the girls who troll the Ohio State North Campus bars, with their tramp-stamps and thongs showing and who shave once a week whether they need to or not, find Kozee a little too outside of the box for what they have in mind.

Kozee fills a doorway wide and high, all muscle, bald head, cold blue eyes, veins running up and down his arms like one of those transparency pictures in a medical school textbook. He looks like he’s waiting to catch a ride from one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Any one will do. He gives off a primal odor of trouble, of danger, of death, a long and slow one devised especially for you. The Greenbrier Project boys, who cruise the Washington Beach grid with impunity and occasionally venture into the Glen Echo maze, step off when they see him shamble ’round the way. There are a hundred stories about Kozee, told in alleys that run behind no-name bars on East Fifth, on street corners in Hawaiian Point, in doorways of shabby apartments in those sections of the Short North where the gentrification begun twenty years ago hasn’t quite reached.

And Andy borrowed money from this guy, even after hearing how Kozee had gotten into the unsecured loan business. A Mex named Jeffe had been running the corner action on Fourth and Eleventh. Kozee had started hanging around and Jeffe, having missed the memo about Kozee, got into his face about it being bad for business, having a crazy-looking, fucked-up white boy hanging around, scaring business away. Kozee hadn’t said a word, just head-butted the silly beaner, breaking his nose, and then biting it off like it was a Tootsie Roll or something, spitting it back on him more or less in place. One of Jeffe’s crew tried to help him up, but Kozee said to stay away from him, just let him roll around screaming in the parking lot, let Jeffe figure out if that was good or bad for business. Kozee was back on the corner the next day, not saying it but everybody knew: it was his corner now. Wasn’t anyone there that was gonna argue with him, least of all Jeffe.

So nobody is fucking with Kozee. He is, as they say, shitting behind the tall cotton. Kozee is like a mutual fund; he’s involved in enough different enterprises so that if one dries up another usually picks up. Kozee took up a loan-sharking operation a few weeks ago when the mayor of Columbus, a high yellow with movie-star looks and the requisite ability to look competent without having a clue, declared a hapless war on drugs. So Kozee drops drugs and starts lending money at an interest rate that makes Chase Visa look like a benevolent enterprise. You don’t want to be late with Kozee. He doesn’t hire some bitch to call you every day and inquire about your payment. He breaks your door down and beats your ass. And this is the guy Andy goes to for a loan.