“Rickards’ Garage,” the secretary said. “It’s set back a piece, behind the Piggly Wiggly, big ole Texaco Star up top. But he don’t pump gas no more,” and seeing Sharkey creeping back toward the aquarium, said, “Sir!”

Olive led him outside, but before she could warn him to behave he said, “Something about this place. You get the feeling that half of it is buried.” He meant the state, what he had seen of it, the sense he’d had on the drive from Little Rock. The life of the land was hidden under the hills and hollows and the trees thrashed by the wind, in the muddy creeks, an inner darkness of ghosts and corpses and bones, the dirty water and stagnation in the roadside ditches, the faded shirts and ragged underwear hung out to dry on the laundry lines of the poor farmhouses, a haunted landscape of secrets and resentments. He did not have the words to explain this vision to Olive. He said, “I found that fishbowl a relief.”

Farther up the street, passing Belle’s Diner, she saw the Piggly Wiggly store and smiled at the name—“Extraordinary,” she said—and behind it the Texaco sign the secretary had mentioned.

“I’m hungry,” Sharkey said, pointing at Belle’s Diner.

“Let’s see this guy first.”

Inside the open-fronted garage a man in blue overalls was tinkering with a car upraised on a block lift.

“Looking for Mr. Curtis Rickards,” Olive said.

“In the office,” the man said, and seeing Sharkey behind her, added, “You got some serious tats, bro.”

“You too,” Sharkey said.

In the manner of someone surrendering, the man lifted his arms, showing his forearms, in one of his greasy hands a socket wrench that he held like a weapon.

“Four years in Cummins Unit,” he said. “That’s where I learned to do this,” and wagged the wrench. “What’s your excuse?”

“Surfer tribal,” Sharkey said, but Olive was at the office door, calling to him, and when he joined her inside, she said, “This is Mr. Rickards. He’s going to tell us about Max Mulgrave.”

“Call me Curtis—pleased to meet you,” the man said, reaching for Sharkey’s hand. He wore a battered baseball cap and a T-shirt with red lettering, GO HOGS. The man spoke slowly, with a lazy mouth, his lips so loose and awry Olive couldn’t lip-read his words. “So you know Max?”

Olive said, “In point of fact, we don’t know him at all. We’re doing a bit of research on his background.”

“Something happen to him?”

“He passed away.”

“Sorry to hear it,” Rickards said, and adjusted his ball cap in a formal reflex of grief.

“Mr. Baggett told us where we could find you. We understand you were in high school with him. The Slide Rule Club.”