And yet, something lurked. Casually almost. There was something he wasn’t thinking of. Something he maybe didn’t have to think of but something that had slipped his attention either way. Like the numbers didn’t add up the way they were supposed to.

He downed the rest of his drink and exited the bathroom. Back at the bar, the two women excused themselves and Janine put a flat hand on his chest as she told him she’d be back.

“These girls are great,” Patrick said.

Dirk nodded. The girls were indeed great.

And yet something lurked.

When the women came back, Janine said, “Let’s do something crazy, Dirk.”

Dirk raised an eyebrow.

“What do you have in mind?”

“I don’t know.” She was leaning back in her stool. She was feeling as good as he was. “Let’s walk through the rain. Outside, on the streets. Now. It’s the most powerful rainfall we’ve ever had. I don’t know that I wanna miss it.” She touched his chest again. “Sometimes it’s good to make contact with a powerful thing.”

“That sounds gre—”

“Oh!” she said, cutting him off. “We could walk through Perish Park? Visit the cemetery? Goblin graves, anyone?”

It took Dirk all of a second to decide where they should go.

“I can give you a tour,” he said.

Janine looked at him funny, then her eyes widened and her lips formed a perfect circle.

“Are you shitting me?” she said. “The zoo?”

“Yes.”

“Dirk Rogers, that’s the best idea I’ve ever heard. Will we get in trouble? Will you?”

It felt to Dirk like giving her a tour was the only thing he knew how to do.

“Not if we don’t break anything.”

Then they both laughed, images of broken animals like china plates in both their minds.

Dirk helped her put her coat on.

“Whoa!” Patrick said. “Where you guys going?”

“We’ll be back,” Dirk told him. Janine told Laura the same.

“You see, my friend?” Patrick said. “It’s already begun.”

As they were leaving, as they made their way through the solid block of Gobliners between them and the door, Dirk heard his name shouted and turned to see Robin Jacobs beside him.

“Good one, Dirk,” he said.

Dirk was confused.

“What?”

“I said good one. You made me laugh.”

Then Janine was tugging Dirk’s arm and Robin Jacobs vanished into the curtain of bodies behind him.

Outside, Dirk removed his suit jacket and held it over Janine’s head.

“Have you done this before?” she asked.

“No,” he said.

“Are you worried?”

Dirk gripped her around the waist.

“No.”

Then they were running out from the cover of the City Slope awning, running through the most impressive Goblin downpour either of them had ever made contact with.

24

“We have slickers,” Dirk whispered as he unlocked the gate.

There were many trees just inside the entrance and the rain was lessened by their cover. It was incredible to Dirk how different the zoo looked, seen this way. Without the burden of his duties, the place shrank to the size of a kennel.