“Don’t try to talk tough, Starks. You’re not smart enough.”

Again, my gut tells me it’s wrong, but I can’t help offering another desperate Herkism. Again it makes no sense. “Putting butter on it don’t make it taste no better.”

Nunes’s smile is thin and straight and unpromising, a slit of light under a closed door.

Then I make a related mistake. The voice that comes from the general direction of my mouth, and which sounds remarkably like mine, says, “There’s only one problem with your scenario, Nunes: no evidence.” As soon as it’s out, I realize I have just uttered criminalese for “I am one hundred percent guilty and I double-dog dare you to find out how I did it.”

Nunes sighs with something akin to disappointment, as if she knew very well this would be the outcome of our discussion and is a little bored by it. “Give me the Rat Burglar and I’ll make sure you don’t do any time. That’s the only protection you’re going to get. But this is a one-time offer.”

“But I don’t know who the Rat Burglar is. I’m not involved,” I nearly plead.

“I’d rather have him, Starks, but I’ll settle for you if I have to.”

“I’m just a pulse!”

“Give me a better option than yourself, Starks, or you’re going down. Your choice.” Stunned, I say nothing. After a long, portentous silence, Nunes shrugs, turns on her heels, and, leaning on the umbrella with her back hunching up against a nonexistent wind, starts crunching away through the gravel parking lot.

Me vs. the Goldfish

One of the many downsides of living a double life is that it’s hard to get close to anyone and you therefore have very few people to confide in when the sudden, mortifying need for it materializes. It doesn’t help if your girl is still angry at you about last night and does not pick up the phone, even after three emasculating calls within ten minutes. Neither is it very useful if your only good pal also isn’t summonable. I sort of wish I could call the K’plua—he would know what to do—but that isn’t a productive line of thinking. The only thing I have left is the Snug.

The Snug is a mime bar on Stanton. In some ways it’s a weird choice for a down-and-out pulse—there is nothing more depressing than a bunch of deadbeat mimes streaking their whiteface with tears and gasping with shame when they get drunk enough to drop out of character—but it’s in my old neighborhood and it gives me a chance to walk my old streets. Also, no one from the biz would ever slum this low, so it’s safe for Herk and me to meet here.

Sitting on a stool in the corner, dropping zaxodoxin and Antabuse into the conga line of shots in front of me, I try to think my way out of it. I can’t. I look at my reflection in the mirror behind the bar. I don’t like it. Neither does the mime hovering over my shoulder. I know this guy. The nosiest, he considers himself the alpha mime and likes to do orangutanlikeimpersonations of Herkimer when he isn’t looking. Now he is clasping his hands prayerfully under his chin and making lip-smacky gestures while pretending to swallow shots in an attitude of despair.