It took Clifford a week to get the nerve to call her, but he just got a phone-company recording that said the number had been disconnected. He went across the bridge and knocked on her door. Nothing. He half knocked it down and still nothing. “Goddamn it, son of a bitch, motherfucker!”

He started down the stairway and was dealt a concussive blow on the back of his head. He got the full star show as he tumbled down the stairs. Soon the blue-steel barrel of a .44 was working over his head, while his body was being kicked by a total of six combat boots. Then everything went blank.

When he came to, Clifford found himself bound in a chair in a dark room. His mouth was covered with duct tape. A tall man wearing a ski mask pointed a Mini Maglite in his face. “I want the money, the guns, and the good,” the tall man said. “Where is it?” He ripped the tape from Clifford’s mouth.

“I got the guns and most of the dope, but I spent the money.”

“Wrong answer. I want to hear the right answer.”

“I told you, I blew the money.”

Two sharp blows to the face. Clifford swallowed a tooth with a mouthful of hot salty blood.

“I don’t want to hear that fucking shit. I want the good, brother. The good.”

“There’s a way,” he said. “I know a way.”

“You find the way, you give us the good, and you can go back to your strange little life.”

He was led outside and pushed into the back of a gray Mercedes. They drove him to his apartment and collected the dope and guns. Next stop was his mother’s house. The old woman, fresh from chemotherapy treatment, got the bad news. She sat next to her son in the back of the Mercedes as they drove to the bank. She took out a second mortgage on her house, converted it to cash, and handed the tall man $19,000.

Driven to the driveway of her twice-mortgaged home, Mrs. Grimes staggered into the house, locked the door, and wet her pants on the hardwood floor.

Meanwhile, the thugs dropped Clifford in the hospital parking lot. Two days there and he was shipped to detox. From there it was in-house rehab. He had full medical, so the stay cost him only seventy dollars, which he had to borrow from his mother. He had more than exhausted his sick leave, but given the nature of his situation, other tenders contributed to a sick-leave pool on his behalf. He lay in his mother’s house watching Oprah, drag-assing between the couch and refrigerator until the end of June, a full three months.