Everything hurt worse than before. I could hardly lift my arm; my shoulder shot a deep depth-charge ache as I put my hand on the wheel. I wasn’t sure I could drive. I wasn’t sure I could go anywhere. But I did. I bit the inside of my cheek and kept my eyes on the road and tried not to think about the pain. I just needed to get into a bed somewhere and get Mobley to stop putting his fist into the side of my head and a hot iron into my shoulder. Another second or two and I would have been done, I thought. At least unconscious, concussed, and then he could have taken his time. I lowered the window and let the cool air find me.

“You want me to drive?” Casey said.

“Thank you. I’ll be all right,” I said. “I meant thank you for everything. Thanks for not listening, you know.”

“I know.”

She knew I wasn’t going home, not yet. She grabbed the bag from the back seat and put it in her lap. “Can I look at it?” I nodded and she opened the bag and looked in, maybe just to convince herself what everything had been about. “Fuck them,” she said.

“People who have everything fighting over nothing,” I said.

I drove past Froehmer’s house and saw his car in the drive. I parked a few blocks away and told Casey to stay put. “I mean it this time. I will be right back.”

I was still sore but my head was clearing at least. I carried the black bag in my left hand and put my right hand in my coat pocket. It was empty except for two unused magazines. I thought about putting them in the bag, but didn’t.

Every light was on in Froehmer’s house. I‘d been by his house a hundred times when I was a kid. We’d drive by and my father would always point to it from behind the wheel, “There’s Froehmer’s house.” I even sat in the car, parked right out front, while my father went inside. I remember thinking how impressive the house was, how much bigger and better it seemed than our house. It seemed small now, and all I could think about was how I’d never been inside. I’d known Froehmer almost my entire life and I’d never set foot in his house, had never been invited. It didn’t matter. Froehmer would get the trophy.

Maybe it was for himself, maybe he had a thing for them; maybe his whole house was full of stolen trophies. Or maybe it was for somebody else after all, a nothing piece of glory that had become its own sport, its own business. It had cost him. At least it cost him.