He wishes that reputation could help him with the front office and the L.A. job, which has come up twice now since he retired from play. Hell, the last time the batting coach position was open he flew himself to Southern California to make an appeal to the management. When Stephen Smith said no, easy as a pitcher shaking off some call he didn’t like—and without even the pretense of conferring with the rest of the ownership—it was as if Michael’d gotten sent down all over again.

Audrey doesn’t say more, just watches him eat. When he is finished, has hardly swallowed the last bite, she takes his hand in hers. Her fingers skim over the bracelet and knead into the meat of his palm, where his calluses are red. She presses along the lines of the metatarsals, over and around the joints of each knuckle. Usually, a minute of this kind of rubbing works like a charm, relaxes him into a better place. Not tonight: the joints won’t give against her thumbs.

“That’s fine, Audrey,” Michael says after a minute more. He slips his hand out of hers and closes it into a fist.

The phone bill, thick as a Sears catalog, is waiting for Michael the next morning. Somebody liked calling 900 numbers, one in particular. Wondering what would merit $600 of conversation over the course of a week, Michael dials the number listed on the bill and, in the time it takes to say, Hello, who is this, gets an earful of smut that sends his diastolic pressure up by twenty points. The monthly water bill is three times what it is when the grass is alive and they have the pool pumping, a house full of grandkids visiting for spring break.

That day and the next Michael scrubs and sprays, Cloroxes the bathrooms so the whole house smells like the county pool. Saturday he drags the mattresses to the curb and starts ripping up carpet. Sunday he picks out new beds and box springs at Macy’s. Monday he gets out the touch-up paint (he keeps cans in the garage) and spackles the strange dents in the drywall.

He checks in daily with the precinct. No news on the home invasion—though in his impatience Michael has bleached and buffed away any possible fingerprints—and not one lead on the Cadillac. The cops seem certain the car is in California, cruising around L.A. in swapped plates. Folks in Los Angeles have no problem buying a hot car, they explain. No one bothers to hypothesize about the fate of Audrey’s Camry.