The man lifted the flopped-over locks of hair from her forehead and they kissed as the dog twitched and fussed. When the man withdrew, touching her lips with his fingertip, Sharkey said, “I have just one favor to ask.” He slipped the document from Olive’s folder and handed it to the woman.

She lifted the paper and read, “Declaration for Deposition of Cremated Remains,” and handed it to the man, who studied it, running his finger down the page. But the woman was still facing Sharkey. “Why me?”

“Your name was listed as next of kin. If you sign it, I’ll take care of the rest. I was thinking of arranging a paddle-out, traditional kine. Flowers. A bunch of surfers. Some of his friends.”

But the woman had begun to talk over him, saying, “I know what happened in Hawaii. He turned into a bum. He bought a big expensive house on the beach, he gave money away. His friends were deadbeats and leeches, but he didn’t care. I suppose they gave him drugs. He always had a thing for uppers. Coke, when we were married, but it was mainly recreational. He probably got into speedballs and freebasing. Meth, crack—he probably tried everything. The wonder is that he got away with it.”

“Putting junk like that in your body,” the man said. “It’s just poison.”

“Listen,” Sharkey said, “I like drugs as much as the next man. Maybe more than the next man.”

“Bet you’re proud of yourself,” the woman said.

“I’m not proud of myself.” Sharkey tried to suppress his anger, but his voice was tortured. “I was zorched when I killed him.”

Unmoved, the woman said, “What do you do besides surf? What kind of work?”

“Just surf.”

“What have you accomplished—what have you made?”

“Made moves,” Sharkey said. “On water.”

The man smiled and made a mocking noise in his throat. The woman said, “Like I said, how did he get away with it? He was famous for his speeding tickets in Palo Alto. But as far as I know he never got one in Hawaii. It would have shown up on his insurance. Never got arrested. No drug bust—they would have told me, as next of kin.”

“Mordidas,” the man said knowingly, smoothing his hair. “Must have bribed the cops.”

“The cops totally respected him,” Sharkey said, and thought, I’m not going to tell her about the prostitute’s funeral, or Wai‘anae, or the homeless camp, or his will, the trust for the schoolchildren, nothing about his lover Rhonda. She’d just mock him for it.

“Say five or ten thousand,” the man said. “I’m curious. How much cocaine does that buy?”

Sharkey cupped his hands, he shaped them, forming a small pinched pile, saying, “More or less.”