A car came up Lily behind them. In the headlights Richard could see that Charles’s eyes were swelled with pending tears.

“It wasn’t my toe,” Charles said. “It wasn’t my finger. But I’m not a liar. You know that. Right? I’m a good person. Right? Richard…please. Talk to me. You’re my very best friend.”

Richard couldn’t believe it when his own lips moved.

“No, Charles. I don’t think you’ve failed her. I think you tried your best.”

Charles nodded.

“Thank you, Richard. Thank you for saying so. That’s very good of you. I knew it was smart to call you. Who else would I call?”

Charles opened the passenger door.

“Where are you going?” Richard asked. He was sick with confusion. Couldn’t even look Charles in the eye. The right thing to do hovered somewhere deep inside himself but he couldn’t get ahold of it, couldn’t determine what it was.

“I’m going to take a walk. I’ll be okay. Honest I will. I’ll take a cab.”

But…it’s raining like mad out there…you could get sick.

“Charles…”

“Thank you, Richard.”

Charles stepped out of the car and Richard saw him swallowed up in it like he’d stepped through a submerged curtain shielding a sunken stage.

Richard sat that way, trembling, for the better part of an hour. And in that hour the right thing to do made itself known.

But Richard shook his head no. No, he couldn’t be the one responsible for putting Charles in the hands of Mayor Blackwater or the Goblin Police. No.

It’s not what a friend would do.

And yet…what option was there?

Go to him. Tell him to leave Goblin. Tell him that if he doesn’t leave Goblin, if he doesn’t leave you, you’ll turn him in. Tell him, Richard. Tell him that those officers you saw patrolling the streets of downtown, way back when you two were eleven, those same officers will come for him tonight. If he doesn’t leave Goblin.

If he doesn’t leave you.

Tell him.

Richard pulled out from the corner of Lily and Neptune and drove.

19

And now, standing in that great Goblin rain outside Charles’s apartment, face-to-face with that incredible Sherman topiary, Richard understood that all that tough talk was folly.

I’m not turning you in.

The thought played once, loudly, like the drum Charles once beat so many years back in the Goblin High band.

Drenched, depressed, defeated, Richard left the statue at last, and headed for his car.

I’m not turning you in.

Because it’s not what a friend would do.

And the unseen hands shook once again within him.

20

Richard pulled into his garage and turned the Dart off. He sat still for a while, allowing his mind to go blank.

Charles was Charles and Richard was Richard.