“You oughta go into business school, Antsy,” the Schwa told me as we scarfed down fries at Fuggettaburger. “You’ve got a real knack for it.”

“Naah,” I said. “I’m just leeching off of you.” But still, what he said struck a chord in me—and no minor chord either. It was the first time anyone ever accused me of having any real talent. I mean, my mother sometimes says I should go into astrophysics, but that’s just because I’m good at taking up time and space.

I don’t know what came over me then. Maybe I felt I knew the Schwa well enough—or maybe I was just talented at screwing up a good situation. Whatever the reason, I turned to him and asked: “So, Schwa—what really happened to your mother?”

I felt him go stiff. I mean I really felt it, like we were connected in some freaky way. He finished his fries, I finished mine. We left. Then, just as we hit the street, he said, “She disappeared when I was five.” And then he added, “Don’t ask me again, okay?”

As for what happened next, call it fate, call it luck, call it whatever you want, but the next dare was the one that changed our lives. It could be that both of our lives were leading up to this moment. But I always wonder what would have happened if we didn’t take Wendell Tiggor’s dare.

I already told you about Old Man Crawley—the hermit who lived on the second floor of his massive restaurant that took up a whole block on the bay. I think every neighborhood in the world’s got a shut-in. There’s all these reasons for it, y’know, like outdooraphobia, or whatever they call it. They love to make movies about shut-ins, and it always turns out that it’s some lonely dude who’s just misunderstood. But that wasn’t the case with Charles J. Crawley. Nothing to misunderstand about him. He was old, he was rich, he was cranky, and although no one ever saw or actually spoke to him, he made it very clear he was not to be messed with.