“Cops. Godzilla. Whatever. Just don’t leave.” I get out and close the door behind me before Frankie can say anything else, and I walk up the driveway. There are times when stealth is required, and then there are times when you knock on the front door.

I pound my fist on the front door eight or nine times, then step back and put my hand in my pocket. When the door opens, I take the .38 out and point it at the man in the doorway.

“Jesus Christ,” Brandon Cargill says.

“Nope,” I say, stepping forward, .38 extended, and I force Cargill back into the house, like one magnet repelling another. I pull the front door shut, eyes and revolver both steady on Cargill.

“The fuck are you doing here?” He sounds more angry than scared.

“It’s the Salvation Army.” I cock the hammer back.

“Whoa, now, wait a minute—”

“And today,” I say, putting the .38 in his face, “you get to save yourself. Stop moving your hand toward that drawer.” Cargill’s hand stops inching toward the drawer of the hall table behind him. I wave him toward the living room with the .38. “After you.” As soon as he steps away from the hall table, I pull open the drawer and glance down. There’s a Colt .380 Mustang in there. I slide the drawer shut and follow Cargill into the living room. It’s got wood paneling and is full of crate furniture with dark navy cushions that look about as comfortable to sit on as life preservers. A stag head with eight points is mounted above a brick fireplace. Sliding glass doors to the right look out on a backyard almost as bald as the front. Beyond a thin line of pine trees at the back of the property is the parking lot of a McDonald’s on Lawrenceville Highway.

“Anybody else at home?” I ask.

Cargill swallows and manages to turn it into a sneer. “Actually got a couple of buddies downstairs. You done stepped in a hornet’s nest, girl.”

“No cars out front. Your buddies walk over from Mickey D’s?” I laugh when Cargill’s face falls. “Hope your imaginary friends weren’t coming over to play poker. You’d lose. Love your place, by the way. Kinda like a frat house and a midlife crisis had a baby.”

Teeth gritted, Cargill says, “It was my deddy’s.”’

That brings me up a little short. Not just because of my own daddy issues, but because it humanizes Cargill a little, and I don’t want to think of him as a human being. “I’m sure he’d be right proud of his son. How’s the garage downtown doing?”

“Least my deddy didn’t go crazy from going to war,” Cargill spits. “And he wasn’t killed in his own house, neither.”