It had happened when Corey was seventeen months old. He’d been left alone in the first floor back, while his widowed mother and her latest boyfriend were out drinking wine in some joint on Addison. The baby was asleep when the rat came in. It was a huge rat, hunger-crazed, and it came creeping in from the alley, entering the room through a gap in the loose wallboards. Some moments later the tenants in the first floor front heard the screaming. They came rushing in. The rat got away, leaping off the bed and onto a chair and leaping again, went through the open window.

They tended Corey, knowing what to do about rat bite. It was a common occurrence in the Swamp. Some newly-distilled rotgut, over a hundred proof, went splashing onto the blood-gushing thigh. Then they tore the sheet and made a bandage. Inside of a week, the baby was out of bed and toddling around.

And then, when the child was six years old, another rat came in. On that occasion the boy was awake and ready and knew what to do. His mother kept certain weapons within reaching distance, in case some alley prowler happened to venture in. He snatched the six-inch switchblade resting on the chair near the bed. As the rat leaped, there was a clicking sound and the blade opened. It was timed perfectly; his aim was exact. He tossed the dead rat onto the floor, not even bothering to wipe off the blade. He went back to sleep. An hour later, when his mother staggered in, her wine-glazed eyes saw the corpse of the rat and the red-stained blade. She called the boy and he woke up. She said, “What I oughta do is bust your goddam head open. Or maybe it’s my mistake. I never shoulda told ya about him—”

She was referring to Corey’s father, who had died four months before he was born. A good man, she’d told the boy. The only really good man she’d ever known, and more than just a husband. So decent, so clean, so pure in his heart; it was a privilege just to be near him. Her man. Her Matthew.

Matthew had been a policeman. “Not an ordinary policeman,” she had told her son, “even though he’d never been promoted, even though he was listed as just another cop who walked the beat. But I swear to you, Corey, your father was one of the specials. Sure as hell he was one in a thousand. You see, boy, he was an honest policeman.”