He watched an old man in a blue jacket shuffle along the sidewalk, reading from a scrap of paper and then looking up and around. Lost and confused, the same way Virgil spent most of his days. Not anymore, though. He realised, with a smile, that purpose had crept into his life when he wasn’t looking. What an odd sensation that was.

He set about making himself a sandwich. He had to keep his strength up, even if he wasn’t hungry. He laid out his ingredients, but hadn’t even buttered the bread when there was a knock on the door. His good mood soured. That would be Mrs Galloway. Every year she knocked on his door, gave him that condescending smile, and enquired as to his well-being before asking about his plans for Hell Night with all the grace and subtlety of a … a …

Goddammit, he couldn’t even think of a suitable insult.

Walking to the front door, he did his best to stifle his anger. It wasn’t easy. She wouldn’t even call it Hell Night. She called it “the festival” around him, as if he’d never heard the actual name in all of his years here. Condescending busybody that she was. He reached the door, calmed down, put a neutral expression on his face, and then opened it.

The old man in the blue jacket stood there. For a moment, Virgil didn’t know who it was. He was probably around Virgil’s own age. Hispanic. Shrunken. Then it came to him.

“Goat-molester?”

Javier Santorum snarled. When he did so, his false teeth clacked in his mouth. He drew back his spindly arm, his liver-spotted hand clenching into a liver-spotted fist. As a younger man, he’d telegraphed every punch in every fight scene they’d ever had (those in which he hadn’t been replaced with a stuntman) and it seemed his real-life technique wasn’t much better. He swung his fist in a wide, unsteady arc that Virgil could easily have dodged, back in the old days. But now, even though he saw it coming, he was still too slow to avoid it.

Javier’s fist bounced painfully off his cheek.

“Ow,” said Virgil.

“Yeah,” said Javier triumphantly. “How’d you like them—”

Javier had been a stage magician before he’d become an actor – Javier Santorum, Circus Magician and Escape Artist! – but Virgil had been a boxer, and those instincts never leave you. His left jab had slowed considerably over the years, but it still had that snap to it, and he still landed it with unerring precision, right on the point of Javier’s chin. Javier’s eyes crossed and his legs gave out, and he sat down faster than he’d probably managed for quite some time, and then flattened out on Virgil’s front porch.

“Oh goddammit,” said Virgil.