The man shrugged and said, “We aimed high on purpose. Didn’t figure you’d be so big. Sort’ve came a little close. Sorry.”

I stuttered for a moment. “I, I, um, is Elizabeth here?”

“Who the hell are you?”

“Like I said, I’m a friend of her mom’s. She asked me to check on her.”

The man stepped to the side so I could look inside the house. Elizabeth Guidry stepped from one of the rooms in the back. She wore a clean and respectable sundress with a pretty pastel sweater. And held a chromed, semiautomatic pistol in her right hand.

I said, “You’re the one who shot at me?”

She nodded sheepishly. “Sorry.” Her brown hair lay across her shoulder in an intricate braid. “I thought it would scare you off.” She gave me an odd look, then said, “I know you, don’t I?”

She motioned me inside. I stepped through the front door that hung at an angle. I was shocked at what I saw in the house. It was immaculate. It was beautifully furnished with an Ethan Allen couch. I glanced in the kitchen and noticed all new stainless-steel appliances. What the hell?

I rotated my head in every direction, looking for pieces of this puzzle. I turned and stared at the couple. I noticed she was now holding the young man’s hand. The gun was nowhere in sight.

She said, “Now I remember you. You’re Mitchum. You deliver newspapers up in Marlboro.”

I nodded and said, “I’m a little confused. To be perfectly honest, your mother asked me to rescue you. She thought you were in some kind of a drug house.”

They both started to giggle. She said, “This is my boyfriend, Eric. Does it look like I’m being held against my will? Or that I’m on drugs?”

“No. No it doesn’t.”

“We met at Hamilton College. All we did was use our business classes and accounting seminars to start a business.”

“What kind of business?”

“I can’t say out loud. Let’s just look at it hypothetically. Say we rent two apartments in the next block. One of them sells crack and one of them sells pills and synthetic drugs. Between them, we’re bringing in about $25,000 in cash a month. Pure profit.”

“So why do you live here?”

“We don’t want the police to seize our personal property if they raid one of the apartments. Now all they get is whatever cash is there and they make the arrest of one or two of our employees. So far, we’ve had no problems in almost four months of operation. We figure another year and we can retire to a legitimate business. Does that satisfy you?”

“So you’re not a victim, you’re drug kingpin.”