“Is primo. Good for sashimi. Look—big, da fish.”

The fish slashed into thick bleeding slabs was as red as beef.

“Give me five bucks’ worth.”

Wrapping two steaks in a square of white paper and folding it into a parcel, the man salivated, as people do when handling fresh meat, and handed it to Sharkey. Accepting the money, he said, “Is so ono,”and touched his lips to indicate its savor.

Then Sharkey was home, on his lanai, drinking a beer as the last of the light slipped from the sky. The cloud was pulled apart and smokelike, appropriate to the fiery glow beneath it, and soon there were more flames, blazing to pure gold, and at last a quenching of pale pink and fading blue, the light cooling over the horizontal seam of sea and sky.

He sat, listening to the occasional grunts of the geese. The chickens had taken to the trees to roost for the night. Before he finished his beer he saw the headlights of Olive’s car reflected on the stands of bamboo, and he rose to greet her, but when he did he felt a stab of pain in his wounded toe, and he favored it, limping slightly as he approached her.

“Darling,” he said.

“You had a good day?”

“My mother used to say that to me.”

“What’s wrong with your foot?”

“Dinged it on a rock. Goose clawed it too. How was your day?”

“Busy.” And she knelt to examine his toe. “Ouch. That’s a deep cut. I’ll bandage it.”

“Later.”

“We had a surfer with a gash on his leg.”

“Might have been a guy I saw at Rubber Duckies. A malihini. Small world.”

“Brazilian. It was slashed to the bone.”

“A lesson,” Sharkey said. “Want a beer?”

“No. I’m shattered. I’ve been tired all day. Was that you this morning, you beastly little man, having your way with me?”

“That’s me—the incubus.”

Olive yawned, saying, “I’m hungry, though.”

“I have eggs—got them this morning. And I bought some ahi along the road from a guy. There’s salad too. I’ll make it.”

“Okay—let’s have a shower.”

They took a shower together, soaping each other, and after they’d dried themselves, Olive sat with her whining hair dryer and brush while Sharkey peppered the ahi and seared it, then sliced it thin and arranged it on the salad. He heated the smaller frying pan, cracked the eggs into a bowl and beat salt and pepper into them, and poured the mixture into the pan, scraped lightly at it and grated cheese on it, then folded it and divided it in half. Olive had put the mats on the table, and he joined her with the two plates.

They ate quietly, and when they finished they sat without speaking, and as though to explain her silence, Olive said, “I’m so fagged.”