“Not in so many words. But a few admiring comments and he talked more than he realized. I’d say a streak of paranoia runs through the man, not enough to derail him, but the fact that he sees the world as his enemy means he’s always on the attack, which I guess has fueled his success. We had a lot of ‘hnnh, hnnhing’ over the necessity to do things like pile garbage in the parking lots of smaller shops to get customers to agree that they’d be smart to ‘By-Smart.’”

“So you’ve got yourself quite a nice story,” I said politely.

She grinned weakly. “Even though I don’t remember the climax, it didn’t come out too badly. Except for poor Bron. He was so greedy he couldn’t imagine there’d be a big fat stick of dynamite inside that carrot they were dangling in front of him.”

“Greedy isn’t the word I’d use,” I objected. “He was desperate for a way to help his daughter, so he was going to shut a blind eye to the risk he might be running.”

“Maybe, maybe.” Her color was fading; she lowered the hospital bed and shut her eyes. “Sorry, I’m weak as a cat, I keep dropping off.”

“You’ll recover fast when you’re out,” I said. “You’ll be back in Fallujah or Kigali, or whatever the next war zone is, in no time.”

“Hnnh,” she murmured. “Hnnh, hnnh.”

Back in my car, I could hardly summon the energy to drive. Prude, she’d called me. Was that really me? Next to Marcena, I felt like some large slow object, maybe a rhinoceros, trying to do a pirouette around a greyhound. I had an impulse to go home and spend the day in bed, watching football and feeling seriously sorry for myself and my beat-up body, but when I got home the old man was packed up and ready to go to Max’s. He had a large casserole filled with his wife’s recipe for sweet-potato pudding. He had brushed the dogs until their coats shone, and tied orange bows around their necks—Max had said the dogs could come as long as they behaved and as long as I repaired any damage Mitch did to his garden.

In the evening, when we’d eaten the way one always does on these holidays, and I was in the garden with the dogs, Morrell limped out to join me. He didn’t need his cane for short periods now, a hopeful sign.