As he came within a few feet of the pickup, Henry realized that the man sitting outside Brody’s house was black.

That made no sense.

Twenty yards past the truck, Henry braked again. A black security guard? Here? He shook his head. Emboldened by the drugs, he put the Impala in reverse and backed up until he was even with the truck. Then he pulled off his wig and rolled down his window.

The man in the cab of the pickup turned his head casually toward Henry, peering through his window with open curiosity. Something about him seemed familiar. He was about Henry’s age, for one thing. Maybe I know him, Henry thought. But … no. He couldn’t place the man.

“Are you Henry Sexton?” asked the black man, sounding far from certain.

Henry nodded slowly.

“You shaved off your goatee?”

Henry laughed painfully. He’d been through a hell of a lot more changes than that in the past two days.

“Well, I guess you found me,” said the man. “What you doin’ out here? I thought you were in the hospital.”

“I sneaked out.” Henry cocked his head. “Who are you?”

“Sleepy Johnston. I’m from Wisner, originally. I been living in Detroit for the past forty-one years.”

This revelation arced like lightning through Henry’s narcotic fog. One of Albert’s boys, he thought. With considerable effort, he opened the door and got out of the Impala, a movement that quickly punctured his OxyContin cushion.

Sleepy Johnston got out and carefully shook his hand, each man assessing the other. With gray hair and whiskers showing under his Detroit Tigers cap, Sleepy looked close to seventy, but his body appeared strong and healthy.

“Did you work for Albert Norris?” Henry asked. “I don’t remember you.”

After he puzzled out Henry’s mumbled words, Johnston smiled. “Not officially. But I hung around the store whenever I could. By the time you came along, I was on the road, playing with bands. I only came back this way for family reunion gigs, things like that. That’s how I met Pooky. He sat in with my band a couple times. But I knew Jimmy and Luther real good.”

Henry shook his head, still dazed by the sudden appearance of a man he had hunted so hard.

“So,” Sleepy went on, “why’d you sneak out of the hospital?”

A knot of foreboding formed in Henry’s stomach. He pointed at the darkened Royal house. “I’ve come to see the man who lives in there. He killed my girlfriend tonight. And he damn near killed me.”

It took Johnston a while to make out the words, but as he absorbed their meaning, his eyes widened. “Have you come to kill Old Man Royal?”

Henry thought about this. “I don’t know. I just had to come. When a man kills the woman you love, you’re supposed to do something about it. Aren’t you?”