“Get the fuck up from there, you scummy-mouthed bastard!” I hit my head on his elbow. He yanked the hand brake. I looked out the window, while he fixed his pants.

We’d stopped in front of a big house with a hedge down both sides of the graveled drive. Hogg opened the door. “Get down.”

I jumped out to follow him. With his sort of lopsided gait, his one shoe ground gravel, while his bare foot hissed in the little stones. As he rang the bell and I caught up, he put one hand on my shoulder and his gritty toes over my sneaker.

The chimes played the first four notes of Three Blind Mice.

It was the sort of door a maid should answer.

A man with a gray suit, a yellow tie, and a bald head pulled back the door edge and peered. “Oh. Hogg … it’s you.” He stepped out, nervously, in shined patent leather shoes.

“Got ’er stuck for you, Mr. Jonas.”

Mr. Jonas smiled and looked uncomfortable. “Well. Yes. As a matter of fact, I just got a call from her friend—the rather masculine lady you met here—who’d been notified. The police just found the one you’d …” He coughed across a pale knuckle. “It sounded like you’d done a very competent job … very efficient. And of course she was scared to say anything to them. She deserved it, you know. That young lady that you had to work on really deserved—”

“Sure, Mr. Jonas.” Hogg wiped his mouth with the heel of his hand. “You want to pay me now, huh?”

“Let me see.” Mr. Jonas reached under a clay-colored lapel, fingered his inner pocket, and came out with a black plastic checkbook. “What is your right name again, Hogg? I make the check out to … Hargus? That was Francis Hargus?”

“Franklin Hargus … Mr. Jonas? Remember, we said …?”

Mr. Jonas looked up.

“We said you’d just pay cash from now on. I had to make a couple of quick moves, and I don’t keep no bank account just now.” Mr. Jonas obviously thought he was a lot smarter than Hogg. But Hogg explained his piece like a man who’d been working ten hours straight who still had enough patience to explain it again to his retarded kid brother. “You just give me cash now. Like we agreed.”

“Of course.” Mr. Jonas smiled nervously. “I forgot. Really. I just forgot, that’s all.”

“Yeah, Mr. Jonas.”

The checkbook went back into the inner pocket.

The thick red wallet came out of the hip one. “If I could give you a check this time, it would be more convenient …?” The crescents of Mr. Jonas’ nails were white as toilet paper. His skin looked like new, pink bathroom tile.

Hogg rubbed his belly, his fingers outside his shirt at first, then going in. “I want cash.” On my sneaker Hogg’s toes got heavier.

“Of course.” Mr. Jonas looked in his wallet. “Since that’s what we agreed on. Was that a hundred? No, a hundred-and-fifty. Yes, a hundred-and-fifty was it. I’m sure.” With quick, small flicks, he snapped the corners of half a dozen twenties up out of his wallet like they were cards and he was a sharp. “Did the boy help you?” He hadn’t looked at me.