Two trailers down, some of Marnie and Gil’s neighbors were doing a fish fry out of the back of a van that was covered in bumper stickers and had seashells glued to the doors, large rhinestones affixed to the luggage rack. There was a DON’T TREAD ON ME flag hanging in one of the windows, and a beach towel with the state of Texas crossed through with dixie stripes spread out inside the front windshield. Darren could hear the pop and hiss as cornmeal hit a vat of hot grease bubbling in an old oil drum. A white woman in her fifties stood next to a gas-station cooler full of cod or catfish, rolling another fillet across a plastic plate covered in meal and flour. Cigarette dangling from the corner of her red painted lips, she said with little fanfare, “Nigger Town’s that way,” the second Darren stepped from his truck. He kept a hand near the Colt .45 in his holster as a bearded man emerged from the van, tilting the whole thing to one side as he stepped out onto the dirt. He took one look at Darren and let out a whistle, two fingers in the corners of his mouth, then yelled out, “Gil!”

The door to the blue and white trailer opened suddenly, ricocheting off the side of the structure as Gil stepped out. He was still barefoot but now had a .38 tucked into the waist of his blue jeans. “The fuck?” he said. “’Less you got a warrant, you need to get back in that truck and get gone.”

The dude from the van started walking over, and in seconds it was two against one, and Darren remembered that he hadn’t told a soul where he was. He could draw, but it went against every rule of de-escalation in his training. He kept one hand near the Colt and held the other out in front of him to show he needed cool heads all around. “I’m here about Marnie’s kid,” he said.

“You talked to Rosemary?”

“Searched her place and everything,” Darren said. “He’s not there.”

A strange look flashed across Gil’s face. Darren thought he caught a flicker of fear, followed by a prolonged and affected look of utter bafflement. He ran his fingers through his loose hair, shook his head as if Darren had just told him water wasn’t wet. “Well, the little fucker sure as shit ain’t here. Maybe he ran off somewhere. Marnie don’t want to believe it, but he ain’t no saint, that one.”

“Need your help with something, Gil,” Darren said. “In case this ain’t a runaway type deal, in case that boy is out there somewhere in a lot of trouble.”

“I don’t have to tell you nothing.”

“Who is it, Gil?” the bearded neighbor asked.

The woman with the painted lips said, “Bo, you want your pistol, hon?”