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  Corbett Denton was another denizen of DuPray’s night side. He was the town barber, and known locally as Drummer, for some teenage exploit no one seemed exactly clear on, only that it had resulted in a month’s suspension from the regional high school. He might have been wild in his salad days, but those were far behind him. Drummer was now in his late fifties or early sixties, overweight, balding, and afflicted with insomnia. When he couldn’t sleep, he sat on the stoop of his shop and watched DuPray’s empty main drag. Empty, that was, except for Tim. They exchanged the desultory conversational gambits of mere acquaintances—the weather, baseball, the town’s annual Summer Sidewalk Sale—but one night Denton said something that put Tim on yellow alert.

  “You know, Jamieson, this life we think we’re living isn’t real. It’s just a shadow play, and I for one will be glad when the lights go out on it. In the dark, all the shadows disappear.”

  Tim sat down on the stoop under the barber pole, its endless spiral now stilled for the night. He took off his glasses, polished them on his shirt, put them back on. “Permission to speak freely?”

  Drummer Denton flicked his cigarette into the gutter, where it splashed brief sparks. “Go right ahead. Between midnight and four, everyone should have permission to speak freely. That’s my opinion, at least.”

  “You sound like a man suffering from depression.”

  Drummer laughed. “Call you Sherlock Holmes.”

  “You ought to go see Doc Roper. There are pills that will brighten your attitude. My ex takes them. Although getting rid of me probably brightened her attitude more.” He smiled to show this was a joke, but Drummer Denton didn’t smile back, just got to his feet.

  “I know about those pills, Jamieson. They’re like booze and pot. Probably like the ecstasy the kids take nowadays when they go to their raves, or whatever they call them. Those things make you believe for awhile that all of this is real. That it matters. But it’s not and it doesn’t.”

  “Come on,” Tim said softly. “That’s no way to be.”

  “In my opinion, it’s the only way to be,” the barber said, and walked toward the stairs leading to his apartment above the barber shop. His gait was slow and lumbering.

  Tim looked after him, disquieted. He thought Drummer Denton was one of those fellows who might decide some rainy night to kill himself. Maybe take his dog with him, if he had one. Like some old Egyptian pharaoh. He considered talking to Sheriff John about it, then thought of Wendy Gullickson, who still hadn’t unbent much. The last thing he wanted was for her or any of the other deputies to think he was getting above himself. He was no longer law enforcement, just the town’s night knocker. Best to let it go.

  But Drummer Denton never quite left his mind.

  12

  On his rounds one night near the end of June, he spotted two boys walking west down Main Street with knapsacks on their backs and lunchboxes in their hands. They might have been headed off to school, had it not been two in the morning. These nocturnal promenaders turned out to be the Bilson twins. They were pissed at their parents, who had refused to take them to the Dunning Agricultural Fair because their report cards had been unacceptable.

  “We got mostly Cs and din’t fail nothing,” Robert Bilson said, “and we got promoted. What’s so bad about that?”

  “It ain’t right,” Roland Bilson chimed in. “We’re going to be at the fair first thing in the morning and get jobs. We heard they always need roundabouts.”

  Tim thought about telling the boy the correct word was roustabouts, then decided that was beside the point. “Kids, I hate to pop your balloon, but you’re what? Eleven?”

  “Twelve!” they chorused.

  “Okay, twelve. Keep your voices down, people are sleeping. No one is going to hire you on at that fair. What they’re going to do is slam you in the Dollar Jail on whatever excuse they’ve got for a midway and keep you there until your parents show up. Until they do, folks are going to come by and gawk at you. Some may throw peanuts or pork rinds.”

  The Bilson twins stared at him with dismay (and perhaps some relief ).

  “Here’s what you do,” Tim said. “You go on back home right now, and I’ll walk behind you, just to make sure you don’t change your collective mind.”

  “What’s a collective mind?” Robert asked.

  “A thing twins are reputed to have, at least according to folklore. Did you use the door or go out a window?”

  “Window,” Roland said.

  “Okay, that’s how you go back in. If you’re lucky, your folks will never know you were out.”

  Robert: “You won’t tell them?”

  “Not unless I see you try it again,” Tim said. “Then I’ll not only tell them what you did, I’ll tell them about how you sassed me when I caught you.”

  Roland, shocked: “We didn’t do no such thing!”

  “I’ll lie,” Tim said. “I’m good at it.”

  He followed them, and watched as Robert Bilson made a step with his hands to help Roland into the open window. Tim then did Robert the same favor. He waited to see if a light would go on somewhere, signaling imminent discovery of the would-be runaways, and when none did, he resumed his rounds.

  13

  There were more people out and about on Friday and Saturday nights, at least until midnight or one in the morning. Courting couples, mostly. After that there might be an invasion of what Sheriff John called the road rockets, young men in souped-up cars or trucks who went blasting down DuPray’s empty main street at sixty or seventy miles an hour, racing side by side and waking people up with the ornery blat of their glasspack mufflers. Sometimes a deputy or an SP trooper would run one of them down and write him up (or jail him if he blew .09), but even with four DuPray officers on duty during weekend nights, arrests were relatively rare. Mostly they got away with it.

  Tim went to see Orphan Annie. He found her sitting outside her tent, knitting slippers. Arthritis or not, her fingers moved like lightning. He asked if she’d like to make twenty dollars. Annie said a little money always came in handy, but it would depend on what the job was. He told her, and she cackled.

  “Happy to do it, Mr. J. If you throw in a couple of bottles of Wickles, that is.”

  Annie, whose motto seemed to be “go big or go home,” made him a banner thirty feet long and seven feet wide. Tim attached it to a steel roller he made himself, welding together pieces of pipe in the shop of Fromie’s Small Engine Sales and Service. After explaining to Sheriff John what he wanted to do and receiving permission to give it a try, Tim and Tag Faraday hung the roller on a cable above Main Street’s three-way intersection, anchoring the cable to the false fronts of Oberg’s Drug on one side and the defunct movie theater on the other.

  On Friday and Saturday nights, around the time the bars closed, Tim yanked a cord that unfurled the banner like a window shade. On either side, Annie had drawn an old-fashioned flash camera. The message beneath read SLOW DOWN, IDIOT! WE ARE PHOTOGRAPHING YOUR LICENSE PLATE!

  They were doing no such thing, of course (although Tim did note down tag numbers when he had time to make them out), but Annie’s banner actually seemed to work. It wasn’t perfect, but what in life was?

  In early July, Sheriff John called Tim into his office. Tim asked if he was in trouble.

  “Just the opposite,” Sheriff John said. “You’re doing a good job. That banner thing sounded crazy to me, but I have to admit that I was wrong and you were right. It was never the midnight drag races that bothered me, anyway, nor the folks complaining that we were too lazy to put a stop to it. The same people, mind you, who vote down a law enforcement payroll increase year after year. What bothers me are the messes we have to clean up when one of those stampeders hits a tree or a telephone pole. Dead is bad, but the ones who are never the same after one night of stupid hooraw . . . I sometimes think they’re worse. But June was okay this year. Better than okay. Maybe it was just an exception to the general rule, but I don’t think so. I think it’s the banner. Y
ou tell Annie she might have saved some lives with that one, and she can sleep in one of the back cells any night she wants once it’s cold weather.”

  “I’ll do that,” Tim said. “As long as you keep a stock of Wickles, she’ll be there plenty.”

  Sheriff John leaned back. His chair groaned more despairingly than ever. “When I said you were overqualified for the night knocker job, I didn’t know the half of it. We’re going to miss you when you move on to New York.”

  “I’m in no hurry,” Tim said.

  14

  The only business in town that stayed open twenty-four hours a day was the Zoney’s Go-Mart out by the warehouse complex. In addition to beer, soda, and chips, Zoney’s sold an off-brand gasoline called Zoney Juice. Two handsome Somali brothers, Absimil and Gutaale Dobira, alternated on the night shift from midnight to eight. On a dog-hot night in mid-July, as Tim was chalking and knocking his way up the west end of Main, he heard a bang from the vicinity of Zoney’s. It wasn’t especially loud, but Tim knew a gunshot when he heard one. It was followed by a yell of either pain or anger, and the sound of breaking glass.

  Tim broke into a run, time clock banging against his thigh, hand automatically feeling for the butt of a gun that was no longer there. He saw a car parked at the pumps, and as he approached the convenience store, two young men came charging out, one of them with a handful of something that was probably cash. Tim dropped to one knee, watching as they got into the car and roared away, tires sending up puffs of blue smoke from the oil- and grease-stained tarmac.

  He pulled his walkie from his belt. “Station, this is Tim. Who’s there, come on back to me.”

  It was Wendy Gullickson, sounding sleepy and put-out. “What do you want, Tim?”

  “There’s been a two-eleven at Zoney’s. A shot was fired.”

  That woke her up. “Jesus, a robbery? I’ll be right th—”

  “No, just listen to me. Two perpetrators, male, white, teens or twenties. Compact car. Might have been a Chevy Cruze, no way to tell the color under those gas station fluorescents, but late model, North Carolina plate, starts WTB-9, couldn’t make out the last three digits. Get it out there to whoever’s on patrol and the State Police before you do anything else!”

  “What—”

  He clicked off, re-holstered the walkie, and sprinted for the Zoney’s. The glass front of the counter was trashed and the register was open. One of the Dobira brothers lay on his side in a growing pool of blood. He was gasping for breath, each inhale ending in a whistle. Tim knelt beside him. “Gotta turn you on your back, Mr. Dobira.”

  “Please don’t . . . hurts . . .”

  Tim was sure it did, but he needed to look at the damage. The bullet had gone in high on the right side of Dobira’s blue Zoney’s smock, which was now a muddy purple with blood. More was spilling from his mouth, soaking his goatee. When he coughed, he sprayed Tim’s face and glasses with fine droplets.

  Tim grabbed his walkie again, and was relieved that Gullickson hadn’t left her post. “Need an ambulance, Wendy. Fast as they can make it from Dunning. One of the Dobira brothers is down, looks like the bullet clipped his lung.”

  She acknowledged, then started to ask a question. Tim cut her off again, dropped his walkie on the floor, and pulled off the tee-shirt he was wearing. He pressed it against the hole in Dobira’s chest. “Can you hold that for a few seconds, Mr. Dobira?”

  “Hard . . . to breathe.”

  “I’m sure it is. Hold it. It’ll help.”

  Dobira pressed the wadded-up shirt to his chest. Tim didn’t think he’d be able to hold it for long, and he couldn’t expect an ambulance for at least twenty minutes. Even that would be a miracle.

  Gas-n-go convenience stores were heavy on snacks but light on first aid supplies. There was Vaseline, however. Tim grabbed a jar, and from the next aisle a box of Huggies. He tore it open as he ran back to the man on the floor. He removed the tee-shirt, now sodden with blood, gently pulled up the equally sodden blue smock, and began to unbutton the shirt Dobira wore beneath.

  “No, no, no,” Dobira moaned. “Hurts, you don’t touch, please.”

  “Got to.” Tim heard an engine approaching. Blue jackpot lights started to spark and dance in the shards of broken glass. He didn’t look around. “Hang on, Mr. Dobira.”

  He hooked a glob of Vaseline out of the jar and packed it into the wound. Dobira cried out in pain, then looked at Tim with wide eyes. “Can breathe . . . a little better.”

  “This is just a temporary patch, but if your breathing’s better, your lung probably didn’t collapse.” At least not entirely, Tim thought.

  Sheriff John came in and took a knee next to Tim. He was wearing a pajama top the size of a mainsail over his uniform pants, and his hair was every whichway.

  “You got here quick,” Tim said.

  “I was up. Couldn’t sleep, so I was making myself a sandwich when Wendy called. Sir, are you Gutaale or Absimil?”

  “Absimil, sir.” He was still wheezing, but his voice was stronger. Tim took one of the disposable diapers, still folded up, and pressed it against the wound. “Oh, that is painful.”

  “Was it a through-and-through, or is it still in there?” Sheriff John asked.

  “I don’t know, and I don’t want to turn him over again to find out. He’s relatively stable, so we gotta just wait for the ambulance.”

  Tim’s walkie crackled. Sheriff John plucked it gingerly from the litter of broken glass. It was Wendy. “Tim? Bill Wicklow spotted those guys out on Deep Meadow Road and lit them up.”

  “It’s John, Wendy. Tell Bill to show caution. They’re armed.”

  “They’re down, is what they are.” She might have been sleepy before, but Wendy was wide awake now, and sounding satisfied. “They tried to run and ditched their car. One’s got a broken arm, the other one’s cuffed to the bull bars on Bill’s ride. State Police are en route. Tell Tim he was right about it being a Cruze. How’s Dobira?”

  “He’ll be fine,” Sheriff John said. Tim wasn’t entirely sure of that, but he understood that the sheriff had been talking to the wounded man as well as Deputy Gullickson.

  “I gave them the money from the register,” Dobira said. “It is what we are told to do.” He sounded ashamed, even so. Deeply ashamed.

  “That was the right thing,” Tim said.

  “The one with the gun shot me, anyway. Then the other one broke in the counter. To take . . .” More coughing.

  “Hush, now,” Sheriff John said.

  “To take the lottery tickets,” Absimil Dobira said. “The ones you scratch off. We must have them back. Until bought, they are the property of . . .” He coughed weakly. “Of the state of South Carolina.”

  Sheriff John said, “Be quiet, Mr. Dobira. Stop worrying about those damn scratchers and save your strength.”

  Mr. Dobira closed his eyes.

  15

  The next day, while Tim was eating his lunch on the porch of the rail depot, Sheriff John pulled up in his personal vehicle. He mounted the steps and looked at the sagging seat of the other available chair. “Think that’ll hold me?”

  “Only one way to find out,” Tim said.

  Sheriff John sat down gingerly. “Hospital says Dobira’s going to be okay. His brother’s with him—Gutaale—and he says he’s seen those two dirtbags before. Couple of times.”

  “Dey wuz casin da joint,” Tim said.

  “No doubt. I sent Tag Faraday over to take both brothers’ statements. Tag’s the best I’ve got, which I probably didn’t need to tell you.”

  “Gibson and Burkett aren’t bad.”

  Sheriff John sighed. “No, but neither of them would have moved as fast or as decisively as you did last night. And poor Wendy probably just would have stood there gawking, if she didn’t faint dead away.”

  “She’s good on dispatch,” Tim said. “Made for the job. Just my opinion, you know.”

  “Uh-huh, uh-huh, and a whiz at clerical—reorganized all our files last year
, plus got everything on flash drives—but on the road, she’s damn near useless. She loves being on the team, though. How would you like to be on the team, Tim?”

  “I didn’t think you could afford another cop’s salary. Did you all at once get a payroll increase?”

  “Don’t I wish. But Bill Wicklow’s turning in his badge at the end of the year. I was thinking maybe you and him could swap jobs. He walks and knocks, you put on a uniform and get to carry a gun again. I asked Bill. He says night knocking would suit him, at least for a while.”

  “Can I think about it?”

  “I don’t know why not.” Sheriff John stood up. “End of the year’s still five months away. But we’d be glad to have you.”

  “Does that include Deputy Gullickson?”

  Sheriff John grinned. “Wendy’s hard to win over, but you got a long way down that road last night.”

  “Really? And if I asked her out to dinner, what do you think she’d say?”

  “I think she’d say yes, as long as it wasn’t Bev’s you were thinking of taking her to. Good-looking girl like her is going to expect the Roundup in Dunning, at the very least. Maybe that Mexican joint down in Hardeeville.”

  “Thanks for the tip.”

  “Not a problem. You think about that job.”

  “I will.”

  He did. And was still thinking of it when all hell broke loose on a hot night later that summer.

  THE SMART KID

  1

  On a fine Minneapolis morning in April of that year—Tim Jamieson still months from his arrival in DuPray—Herbert and Eileen Ellis were being ushered into the office of Jim Greer, one of three guidance counselors at the Broderick School for Exceptional Children.