“No. I mean, I didn’t see any.”

“Good. Sanitation probably picked up the Dumpster and the body’s halfway out to sea on a barge.”

Slash their eyes . . .

“What happened at the garage?” Vincent asked.

Duncan gave a slight grimace. “I couldn’t get close to the Explorer. There weren’t that many cops, but some homeless man was there. He was making a lot of noise and then I heard shouting and cops started running into the place. I had to leave.”

They pulled away from the curb. Vincent had no idea where they were going. The Buick was old and smelled of cigarette smoke. He didn’t know what to call it. It was dark blue but “Blue-mobile” wasn’t funny. Clever Vincent wasn’t feeling very witty at the moment. After a few minutes of silence he asked, “What’s your favorite food?”

“My—?”

“Food. What do you like to eat?”

Duncan squinted slightly. He did this a lot, considered questions seriously and then recited the answers he’d planned out. But this one flummoxed him. He gave a faint laugh. “You know, I don’t eat that much.”

“But you must have some favorite.”

“I’ve never thought about it. Why’re you asking?”

“Oh, just, I was thinking I could make us dinner sometime. I can cook a lot of different things. Pasta—you know, spaghetti. Do you like spaghetti? I make it with meatballs. I can make a cream sauce. They call that Alfredo. Or with tomato.”

The man said, “Well, I guess tomato. That’s what I’d order in a restaurant.”

“Then I’ll make that for you. Maybe if my sister’s in town, I’ll have a dinner party. Well, not a party. Just the three of us.”

“That’s . . .” Duncan shook his head. He seemed moved. “Nobody’s made me dinner since . . . Well, nobody’s made me dinner for a long time.”

“Next month, maybe.”

“Next month could work. What’s your sister like?”

“She’s a couple years younger than me. Works in a bank. She’s skinny too. I don’t mean you’re skinny. Just, you know, in good shape.”

“She married, have kids?”

“Oh, no. She’s really busy at her job. She’s good at it.”

Duncan nodded. “Next month. Sure, I’ll come back to town. We could have dinner. I couldn’t help you. I don’t cook.”

“Oh, I’d do the cooking. I like to cook. I watch the Food Channel.”

“But I could bring some dessert. Something already made. I know you like your sweets.”

“That’d be great,” said an excited Vincent. He looked around the cold, dark streets. “Where’re we going?”

Duncan was silent for a moment. He eased the car to a stoplight, the front wheels precisely on the dirty, white stop line. He said, “Let me tell you a story.”

Vincent looked over at his friend.

“In seventeen fourteen the British Parliament offered twenty thousand pounds to anyone who could invent a portable clock accurate enough to be used at sea.”

“That was a lot of money then, right?”