“They’re the ones that stole the dog?”

“Yup. They’re staying somewhere called ‘the Farm.’”

Guy winces. “Course they are. That’s where they hold the fights. It’s a fucking compound, yo. You’re gonna need an in if you want to get within a mile of that place.”

“You’re my in.”

“I’m not your in.”

“But you said . . . it’s like a watering hole for shitheads or whatever. And you used to . . .” She doesn’t bother finishing the sentence.

“I’m nobody around here, and I like it that way. Got it? I sell my little pills and do my little thing, and ain’t nobody thinks I’m more than just a stone in the tread of a sneaker. You want to head to the Farm, you’ll need somebody to vouch for you, and I’m not that guy.” He sets the beer down, cracks it with a psssshhh. Catches foam with his lip and slurps it up. “Especially if you’re going up there to stir the shit. You don’t wanna go up there, ’Lanta. That’s nasty-ass business. You want just those two, fine, wait till those rats poke their heads outta their hole—they’ll go buy smokes or beers or go try to get some trim somewhere, and when they do, you get ’em. Don’t go up to the Farm.”

“I need to,” she says, and it’s true, though she doesn’t know why. It’s like walking into a dark cave knowing there’s something real mean sleeping down in the deep, but you keep walking anyway, because you have to see it with your own eyes. “I’m going to the Farm one way or another, so it might as well be with your help.”

“Please.” Way he says it, it sounds like he’s begging, really begging. “Don’t drag me into this.”

“Consider yourself drugged. Dragged. Whatever.”

“Shit.”

“Don’t you want to do something good?”

He just shakes his head. “Nothing good’s gonna come out of this, Atlanta Burns. Nothing.” He tells her he’ll put together some names, figure out a way in, he’ll call her. Then he slams back the rest of the beer and doesn’t bother offering her one.

She doesn’t have any Adderall so she goes into her mother’s medicine cabinet, but she doesn’t find much in there, either. Mama’s not exactly a fan of most prescription drugs these days, claiming she used to be addicted to . . . it was either Xanax or Valium, she can’t seem to remember which (and that leads Atlanta to believe it was probably both at one time or another). Most of what’s in the cabinet is allergy meds and Motrin.