“You know, Jerry,” Tom said, smiling, “I kissed my first girl up in Goblin. Alice Pratt. She bit clean through my lower lip.”

Tom pulled his lip out for Jerry to see.

“Jeez. That’s something, Tommy. Maybe you could look her up.”

Tommy once knew Goblin. His mother had taken him there three summers in a row. His eleventh, his twelfth, and his thirteenth birthdays. Three summers spent swimming in Goblin’s deep lakes, not to mention the ice-cold Blackwater River, on whose banks Tom’s mouth was ambushed by Alice after she fooled him into thinking he was getting a kiss without a bite. He’d played games in the West Fields, walked through Perish Park. Still standing in Jerry’s office, he had detailed memories of passing The Hedges on the east side and driving between the two giant topiaries framing the highway coming in from the south. He recalled the savage tour of the slaughterhouse and the pleasant one of the Hardy Carroll Goblin Zoo. He recalled the owls, too; postcards and photos of the owls, keepsakes his mother had purchased downtown.

Tom smiled. A hundred sixty-eight dollars was a lot of money to revisit his youth. A place he remembered enjoying, if he remembered it right.

“It’s already ten fifteen,” Jerry said. “You better get moving if you’re gonna reach Goblin by midnight.”

Goblin.

“Thanks, Jerry. I’m on it. Thanks for the gig.”

“Thank you, Tommy. I was planning on making the run myself before you showed up.” He took a long pull on the cigar, then pointed at Tom with it. “The box is already on the lift. You’re gonna need that. It’s heavy as hell. And remember”—he held up his hands like it’s my job to say it more than once—“make sure you follow those directions.”

2

The box was easy to see from across the warehouse. It was tall, taller than Tom. When he climbed the lift and tried to move it, the resistance told him he didn’t have much of a chance without some help.

“Delivering lead?” He removed his cap again and wiped his hairline dry.

He wasn’t even sure how Jerry got the thing where it was.

Crossing the warehouse again, he started the smaller truck and backed it up. Then he got out and started the lift.

It made a nasty squawking sound Tom had never heard it make before.

“Sucker’s testing the lift.”

By the time the machine got it level with the truck, it looked to Tom like the gears were going to fold in on themselves. He climbed up into the truck, took the power dolly, and rolled its lip under the box.

Before trying to move it, Tom spotted the instructions, nailed to the wood.

DELIVER TO:

DEAN CRAWFORD

726 ROLLING HILLS DRIVE, ROLLING HILLS

GOBLIN, MI

48929

CONTENT: ONE BOX, 8 FT. X 3 FT. 110 LBS.

“You’re more than a hundred and ten pounds, buddy.”