Keegan shook his head. “No,” he said. But that wasn’t necessarily true. “Well, sort of. Indirectly. But not really.”

Lusk eyed Keegan skeptically. “That,” he said, “is not the kind of decisive response that convinces me you know what you’re doing.”

Keegan stared at the damp-eyed dog on Lusk’s lap who was staring back at him. He remembered the beer on the coaster and took a sip.

When Keegan looked at Lusk again, the man gestured at the kitchen doorway with his beer bottle. “Couple of years ago, I had this leak under the sink back there,” he said. “A valve or a washer—who the hell knows what? It kept dripping. Rotted away all the woodwork down there.” He took another swig from his bottle, keeping his eyes on Keegan. “I coulda called a plumber,” he went on, “but I figure, why pay some schmo? I drive over to Sears. I buy myself—I don’t know—a pipe wrench, some washers. Whatever.”

The dog finally lost interest in Keegan and curled up on Lusk’s thighs to lick his own privates.

“Long story short,” Lusk went on. “A week later I’m out four hundred bucks, and I got a couple of fat Irish plumbers jackhammering the concrete slab.” He finished his beer and set the empty bottle on the table next to him. That seemed to be the end of his story.

“Hell of a yarn there, Kip,” Keegan told him. “Drama. Intrigue. Comedy. A little something for everyone. Had me on the edge of my seat.”

Lusk gave him an easy, arch smile. “I’m just saying that a smart man knows when it’s time to call in a professional,” he said. “Because some jobs—the kind that require sudden firearm purchases—require a certain street-smarts. A certain finesse, which you—no offense—just don’t got.”

AS HE DROVE back to the cottage, Keegan couldn’t stop thinking about the orange cloud of doomed feeder fish biding their time, oblivious, in Lusk’s tank.

THE LIEUTENANT SWUNG the gun’s cylinder open and sniffed. He pointed it at the floor and looked down the two-inch barrel. “Man,” he said. “When was the last time you cleaned this thing?”

“It’s been a couple years,” Keegan said. “How often does a guy like me need a gun?”

Keegan sat on the sofa, and the lieutenant stood on the far side of the coffee table next to the big armchair. Keegan scooted the Shakespeare book to one side with his heel and put his feet up on the table, waiting to see how this would play out.