Coy was jerked out of a sound slumber, the immersive dream in which he’d been a James Bond-type spy winking out of existence. Suddenly, he was looking not at a beautiful woman inside a secret underground lair but up at the ceiling in his cold dark bedroom as the doorbell chimed. He always slept in his underwear, so he hopped out of bed and grabbed his robe from the hook on the closet door before hurrying toward the front of the house.

“Hold your horses!” he called as he tied the robe’s sash, the bell continuing to ring.

It was only as he unlocked the door that it occurred to him that he should have first checked to see who was out there. It was midnight—not exactly the time for visitors—and all those B of A employees had recently been murdered by God-knew-who. Maybe someone with a grudge was killing off everyone in Montgomery who worked for a bank.

Then he was opening the door.

It was Florine.

Coy stood there confused, not sure why she was here at this hour or why she was here at all. Her face betrayed no emotion, and his first hopeful thought that she’d come to apologize and make up died before it had even fully registered.

“Florine,” he said numbly.

She was carrying a briefcase, and she pushed past him, into the living room. Opening the briefcase, she dumped its contents onto the floor. The room was suddenly filled with the disgusting odor of human waste, and he looked at the falling papers and saw that they were all defaced with streaks of brown.

Coy put a hand over his nose and mouth, realizing what he was looking at, what she had done.

“Your loans are shit,” she said flatly. “Evergreen Title is no longer going to process your escrow accounts or work with Montgomery Community Bank in any capacity. From here on in, we will be working exclusively with First People’s Bank.”

He couldn’t get past the excrement-encrusted papers littering his living room carpet. He wanted to pick up and throw away the documents but wasn’t sure he’d be able to do so without vomiting. At the same time, he wanted to grab Florine and order her to tell him what the hell was going on. None of this made any sense, not the shit-stained paperwork or the midnight visit or even her earlier attack on him at the bank. It was as if she’d become possessed or was on drugs. She wasn’t acting like herself, at least not like the Florine he knew, and he had no idea what had happened or what to do about it.

Coy took a step forward, deciding to make an effort. “Can we just…talk?” he said.