I worked quickly without rushing; I worked through lunch and hoped that there wouldn’t be an accident or spill at the end of the day. I had to leave. I waited until the last minute and then drove straight to the assisted living parking lot. I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it. I tried not to speed from the warehouse into town, but I had to step on it. I remembered Frank and Timothy McVeigh and his expired registration. Son of Sam and a parking ticket. You have to concentrate on the little things.

It was dark in the parking lot, with pools of electric light on dark pavement, trying to fill empty parking spaces, and a few cars, old Cadillacs and Continentals mostly, parked for good maybe. I pulled next to one near the end of the lot, close to the exit. I got the bag out of the trunk and got into the back seat. I changed my clothes and shoes and put on the coveralls. I put the wired broom handles in the front of the coveralls and walked to his car. He never locked it. I had checked it every time. He never locked it. I got into the back seat and waited. It wouldn’t be long.

It was too long.

I could smell him in the car; I could smell his hair and sweat, his shaving cream and toothpaste; his deodorant and Tiger Balm he probably rubbed on his shoulder after all those shitty shots at the baskets. I thought about the kid in the house at the bottom of the stairs. He wasn’t breathing. I thought about who might have come in after me and what the kid told them and why they would have killed him anyway. I thought about the kid and how he’d never get any older, not old enough to tell anybody anything ever again, not old enough to get mixed up in any of the awfulness that surrounded him and took him down. I thought about Frank walking from that same house, wondering if he knew what was going to happen to him when he turned the corner. I thought about him lying there in the basement of the hospital, lying on the street, waiting to be found. I thought about who he was and who he would never be again. I thought I might throw up. I thought I would have to get out. The car was so small and getting smaller. I thought I couldn’t do it.

Then the door opened and closed and I didn’t have to think at all. I only had to act.

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