As I was leaving, somebody came up next to me and said, “Can we talk.” It was the neighbor I’d talked to when I was asking about Frank. The one who was using when I talked to him; the one I said a bunch of stuff to I shouldn’t have. The one the cops asked me about. The guy I told them I didn’t know, because I didn’t know his name. Robert Bowie. I hardly recognized him.

“Sure,” I said, “for a minute.”

“We should go someplace,” he said. “You’re in trouble. I want to help.”

We walked to a park a few blocks away and stood on a corner. I could see down the block and through the park, and tried to look around as often as possible to look up and down in all directions. “Let’s go in there,” he said and motioned toward the park. I didn’t move.

“You nervous?” he said.

“Shouldn’t I be?”

“Yes,” he said. “But not about me. I’m here to help. No one knows I’m here.”

I followed him into the park and we moved off the path and sat on a bench. He sat; I stood and tried not to pace.

“They’re coming for you,” he said.

“Who?”

“I don’t know exactly. I’m not supposed to know, I guess. And neither are you. But they know you have it, and they want it now.”

“I don’t have it.”

“We both know that’s a lie. Everybody knows.”

“Because the kid told you and you told everybody.”

“It wasn’t supposed to happen that way.”

“And how was it supposed to happen?”

“They told me that a guy was running stuff out of that house and that if I took it from him, it would be worth my while. That’s what I was told. So I waited and watched the house, and when I saw it was you going in, I didn’t know what to do. I froze. Then the kid went in, and I really didn’t know what to do. So I did nothing.”

“That’s not true. You shot him. You roughed him up first. You didn’t have to do that.”