Every so often Hardwick would hit the precise note of cynicism, the perfect echo, that would transport Gurney back into the apartment from whose high window he’d shot that inexplicable arrow, the apartment from which his first marriage had provided an escape.

The image that came to him now: He was standing in their cramped apartment’s living room, his father dispensing drunken wisdom, telling him his mother was loony, telling him all women were loony, couldn’t be trusted. Best not to tell them anything. “You and I are men, Davey, we understand each other. Your mother’s a little … a little off, you know what I mean? No need for her to know I was drinking today, right? Only cause trouble. We’re men. We can talk to each other.” Gurney was eight years old.

The forty-eight-year-old Gurney made an effort to return to Hardwick’s living room, to the moment at hand.

“She helped herself to half the shit in the house,” said Hardwick. He took another sip, sat in one of the armchairs, waved Gurney toward the other one. “What can I do for you?”

Gurney lowered himself into the chair. “Kim’s mother is a journalist I know from years ago on the job. She asked me for a favor—‘Look over Kim’s shoulder’ is the way she put it. Now I’m trying to find out what I’m involved in, thought maybe you could help. Like I said on the phone, Kim listed you as a source.”

Hardwick stared at his coffee container as if it were a perplexing artifact. “Who else is on her list?”

“FBI guy by the name of Trout. And Max Clinter, the cop who fucked up the pursuit of the shooter.”

Hardwick let out a harsh bray that turned into a fit of coughing. “Wow! The uptight prick of the century and a psycho drunk. I’m in hot-shit company.”

Gurney took a long swallow from his coffee container. “When do we get to the colorful, significant tidbits?”

Hardwick extended his scarred, muscular legs and leaned far back in his chair. “Stuff the press never got hold of?”

“Right.”

“I guess one thing would be the little animals. You didn’t know about those, did you?”

“Little animals?”

“Little plastic replicas. Part of a set. An elephant. A lion. A giraffe. A zebra. A monkey. A sixth one I can’t remember.”

“And how were these—”

“One was found at the scene of each attack.”

“Where?”

“In the general vicinity of the victim’s car.”

“General vicinity?”

“Yeah, like they’d been tossed there from the shooter’s car.”

“Lab work on these little animals lead anywhere?”

“No prints, nothing like that.”

“But?”

“But they were part of a kid’s play set. Something called Noah’s World. Like one of those diorama things. The kid builds a model of Noah’s Ark, then he puts the animals in it.”