“Let me tell you a story,” he said. “A guy used to be a cigarette smuggler, took cartons by boat from the U.S., across Lake Ontario, when Ottawa was taxing the shit out of tobacco. He’d bring them to the Indian reserve, up near the Thousand Islands. I’d pick up a carton from him now and then, what he didn’t turn over to the Indians. Anyway, he made a lot of money this way, and it was illegal, no question about it, the customs people wanted him, the cops wanted him. So one night, he’s going across with a couple of other guys, and suddenly there’s this other boat, you know? With the searchlight, and someone on a megaphone telling them to stop? The other guys, they throttle up, figure if they can get back past the midpoint of the lake, they can’t touch them, right? And the customs boat comes up alongside, and this guy’s buddies, they ram the boat, and one of the feds, he goes right off the bow, into the drink, but he’s not splashing around, like maybe he hit his head or something? And my friend, he sees this guy, looking like maybe he’s going to go under, and he dives in. His buddies on the boat, they think he’s fucking lost his mind, this is their chance to get away, while the other customs guys try to find him, but my friend, he can’t do that. He figures there’s no time to waste, and he gets this guy, grabs hold of him, screams for the feds so they’ll get a light on him and pull them both in.”

I didn’t say anything.

“So, anyway, my friend got charged, of course. But he saved that asshole’s life. All I’m saying is, there’s good in everybody.”

I stood up to leave. “I hear you, Earl. Thanks for the beer.”

i went back across the street, passing Trixie’s driveway, where a low-slung blue BMW was parked next to her Acura. I unlocked my front door and went inside, flipping the deadbolt behind me. I went into the kitchen and reached into the fridge for another beer.

The phone rang. I nearly jumped out of my skin.

“What’s new?” Sarah asked. I could hear her typing in the background, sending memos or editing stories while she chatted.

“Oh,” I said, “not too much.”

Except that the police dropped by, confirmed that the man I found in the creek definitely was murdered, so there’s a killer roaming around the neighborhood, and Earl, our neighbor across the street, has a gun in case his Asian employers start shooting it up with the Russian mob in a turf war over the massive pot-growing operation he has in his basement. Other than that, things were pretty quiet.