“No charges, right?” I said, rubbing Terrence’s blood off my lips. “No burglary. No harm done.”

The older cop considered this. Lit up a cigarette and considered it.

I turned to the Wilburs again. “Get your dirty butts off my porch and don’t ever come back!”

By the time they had oozed down the stairs, taking Bruno with them, the cop had gathered himself, and he asked the younger one for a sheaf of papers. “Let’s see now . . .” He ruffled through them. “We actually have made an arrest here already. We have the paperwork, see? We’ll need your information, Miss . . . ?”

“Granville. Roxanne.”

“ID?”

“Here, Roxanne,” said Mrs. Wilbur, coming back up the stairs, her voice huffy with outrage, “you dropped your handbag. You should thank me,” she added. Her husband called her down.

I rummaged about and found my driver’s license and gave it to him, and he duly noted the information: age, address, phone number. He asked my occupation. “I’m an agent. Granville Agency. Charlie is my client.”

“Your ex-client,” Charlie snarled. “I’m done with you. I only came here because you kept my old surfboard all this time.”

The older cop took his time while we three stood trembling with rage, anxiety, hatred, a bubbling gumbo of awful emotions I hope never to experience again.

“I dunno,” he said as he gave me back my license. “It was a suspected burglary, and a definite fight. Property damage. I might still have to report this.”

I swooped up my handbag, opened it, and found the envelope with the whole thousand dollars in it, which I counted out, one hundred dollars at a time into the cop’s hand. His eyes widened as the bills piled up. The younger cop inhaled a great big breath. I was shaking, but I mastered my rage, controlled my voice, so much so that I might have been Edward G. Robinson himself. “I’m sure everything will be fine now, Officer. It was all a misunderstanding.”

He shoved the money into his pocket, then regarded Terrence with a judicious frown. “Any harm done? What do you think? What about you?”

Please God. Please don’t let him say, “What about you, boy?” I feared for the look on Terrence’s face. I stood in front of him.

Terrence cleared his throat and spat the words out like phlegm. “No harm done.”

“And the . . . ?” The cop motioned over his own face.

“Did you do that to him?” I burst out. “Did you beat him up?”

“No harm done,” said Terrence, his voice guttural.

The older cop looked at the papers in his hand. “So, you’re a reporter? Who do you report to?”

“The Challenger.”

“Never heard of it.”

“Oh shit,” said Charlie. “Are you the guy who just came back from Alabama reporting on the buses down there for that colored paper?”