The Gators man said, “You with them, the purple trucks?”

“No.”

He stood. I took a step back and mud clamped the heel of my shoe. “I thought we told you to go away,” he said. “I thought we said we don’t know nothing about him.”

“I’m not with Rubicon, I’m—”

“We know who you are.”

“But the bike—”

“Forget the bike.”

“Lady, I’d go,” the kid blurted.

The big guy laughed, half-chewed bun stuck to his teeth. “Lady, I’d go,” he mimicked.

The boy put his hands over his ears.

“Alright,” I said, “I’m sorry.”

“Lady, I’d go.” The man kept laughing, dough spewing from his mouth.

When I turned to leave, my foot came cleanly out of the shoe and I had to bend down to pry it from the muck. I hobbled across the field with one bare foot, not looking back.

—

I cleaned off the mud, took some notes, and kept driving around. Someone from Rubicon had come looking for Zeke before me, and then what? Where was everybody?

It was late in the day, the heat tyrannical, and I couldn’t find any more tents. I remember feeling as if the south-siders had withdrawn to a deeper seclusion or had fled the county altogether. I crept, picturing their camps thronging with stray dogs, and the image had the impossible glow of the afterlife.

I was about to head back to the motel when I passed the Glades one last time. Landscapers covered the development, shearing hedges, whacking weeds, hosing turf. They looked like a prison detail in their orange jumpsuits, GLADES stenciled in black on the back. I braked hard when I recognized Tori, one of Jules’s friends, pushing a mower on a lawn.

I stood on the sidewalk, clouds of exhaust wafting over me, and called Tori’s name until she noticed.

“It’s Whitney,” I said, “remember me?”

“Sure.”

She’d almost sweated through the jumpsuit, which was made of thick polyester. I offered a bottle of water from my bag and she drained it.

“I was thinking about your grandma earlier,” I said. “I noticed her house is where they’re building Bougainvillea Ravine.”

“She took the money and moved to Orlando,” Tori said. “Her sister lives there.”

“Where are you staying?”

“I’ve got a room in Manatee, like a half hour south.”

“Do you miss living here?”

Tori shrugged. “Things change. I’m not complaining. I can take the bus from Manatee, and there’s jobs here now. Before—well, you saw it, there was just a big pile of nothing, and nobody doing anything.”

I said, “My Lakers won the chip.”

Tori smiled ruefully. “Yeah, well, they do that. Anyway, nice talking to you.”

“Wait a sec.”

“I don’t want my supervisor seeing us.”

“I understand,” I said, and explained I was looking for Zeke but no one would talk to me.

“I’m surprised you found anyone from the old south side at all,” she said. “Everybody scattered—they really cleaned this place up. But I still see some old faces in Manatee and on the bus.”