They crawl toward each other but don’t stand up. They look over the broken ice, huge triangles that bump and lift with the current where the car used to be.

“You see him?” asks T-Man. Simon shakes his head. His ears are ringing from the cold water that soaks his shoddy clothes.

“Damn,” says T-Man, “he had the smokes, too.”

“That’s cold, man.”

“Sorry. Sorry.”

They hear the slabs of ice rubbing against one another, then a voice.

“You guys there? You guys there?”

It is Split.

Simon stands stooped over, as if this posture would save him if the ice gave way.

Split is kneeling on the ice across the broken expanse where the Ford used to be. He is wet all the way through, his hair shaggy and sodden down his forehead. Simon sees his teeth gleam as he grins and shakes his head, shedding water. He picks up one hand first and then the other, trying to warm them.

“We thought you drowned,” says Simon, still crouching. Aware of the betrayal of geography.

“Me, too,” says Split.

He pats his pockets for his cigarettes. He looks and tosses them into the slushy water.

“Wet,” he says.

T-Man crawls toward Simon and stands, craning his neck to see Split.

“Sorry about the cigarette joke, man.”

“What?”

“Nothin. Nothin. You gonna sit out there all day? Let’s go get your money.”

They see Split nod and stand. He brushes his hands off on his wool coat, takes a step, and stops.

“Fuck me,” he says.

“What?” ask Simon and T-Man in unison.

“I’m floating.”

He takes another step and Simon sees the ice tilt. Split’s arms mill and he slips. He lands with his legs spread. The ice tilts back and forth.

“I’m floating.”

Split looks around, turning his neck this way and that. Simon sees the ice tilt and Split throw himself flat on his back with his arms spread, but the motion rocks the ice farther to the side. Split hisses and rolls to his stomach, but the ice rocks and rocks. He slides and his hands and feet make shucking sounds through the iced water. His frictionless glide to the edge of the ice is slow.

“Fuck me,” says Split quietly, as his legs slide into the water then his chest and arms. He vanishes from sight and the ice flips up level with the water. Simon and T-Man stand without calling, without saying his name, and hear only the lapping of water and distant car horns, and the level slick of the river as it spills past.

13