Fifteen minutes later he was steaming up Route 151N, drinking his coffee, wearing his sunglasses, and feeling marginally more human. The job site was on the western shore of the Hudson River, and when he got to the turnoff for it, he recapped the Styrofoam mug and ten-and-two’d the wheel. The lane that went down the peninsula was pothole central, thanks to all the heavy-duty machinery that had barreled across its bare back, and the truck’s shock absorbers bitched and moaned the whole way.

At some point there was going to be manicured lawn everywhere, but for the moment the rolling earth resembled the skin of a fifteen-year-old boy. There were countless tree stumps across the shaggy winter-brown grass—pimples on the face of the land that had been created by a team of guys with chain saws. And that wasn’t the worst of it. Four whole cabins had been torn down, their footings and the bald plots beneath their first floors all that was left of structures that had been there for over a hundred years.

But everything had to go. That was the command from the general contractor.

Who was his own client.

And about as much fun as a hangover on a cheery, chilly morning.

Jim pulled into the line of pickups that was forming as more of the workers came in. He left the sandwich and the Coke behind on the floor of the cab to stay cool and crossed the tire-chewed dirt tracks toward the gestating house. With its skeleton of two-by-fours erected, its skin was now going up, the particleboard sheets being nailed onto the bone structure of the frame.

Fucking thing was a monster, so big it was capable of making those McMansions in town seem the size of dollhouses.

“Jim.”

“Chuck.”

Chuck, the foreman, was a six-foot guy with square shoulders, a round gut, and a perpetual cigar stub shoved in his mouth—and that was about it for conversation with him. Thing was, Jim was clear which part of the house he was working on and what he was going to do, and both men knew it. With a crew of about twenty carpenters on the project, there were varying degrees of skill and commitment and sobriety, and Chuck knew the drill with everybody. If you had half a brain and could throw a hammer well, he left you alone, because fuck knew he had enough on his plate with the jackholes.

Jim braced himself and headed for the supplies. The nail boxes were kept stacked in a lockable cabinet on the six-car garage’s concrete slab, and next to them, lined up in a row, were the gas-powered electrical generators that were already going at a roar. Wincing at the noise, he stepped over the snakes of extension cords that ran out to the table saws and the nail guns and filled up the pouch on the left side of his tool belt.