But no, it wasn’t that. It was something more profoundly a part of Bose’s nature, a degree of inner calm that was almost eerie. She said, “You’re not like other people.”

“What’s that mean?”

“You know what it means. You just don’t want to talk about it.”

“Well,” he said, fishing his wallet out of his pocket, “we can talk about it after we get Orrin out of town.”

*   *   *

Sandra needed a change of clothes, so she persuaded Bose to swing by her apartment long enough for her to run inside and throw a few things into a suitcase. She packed items from her wardrobe, of course, but she also took her passport, her gig drives, her personal papers. She didn’t know when she would be back. Maybe soon. Maybe never. She took a last look around before she left. The apartment seemed already untenanted, as if it had sensed her intentions and dismissed her.

Downstairs she found Bose waiting patiently, playing some kind of tinny shitkicker music on the car’s audio system. She tossed her bag into the backseat and climbed in beside him. “I didn’t know you liked country music.”

“It’s not country music.”

“It sounds like an alley cat fucking a fiddle.”

“Show some respect. This is classic western swing. Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys.”

Recorded with a tin can and a string, by the sound of it. “This is what’s keeping you in Texas?”

“No, but it’s just about the only thing that makes me sorry to leave.”

He was tapping the steering wheel in merry rhythm when his phone buzzed. A hands-free app displayed the caller’s number in the lower-left corner of the car’s windshield. “Answer,” Bose said, which prompted the car to cut the music and open the phone connection. “Bose here.”

“It’s me,” a shrill voice said, “it’s Ariel Mather—is that you, Officer Bose?”

“Yeah, Ariel. What’s wrong?”

“It’s Orrin!”

“Is he all right?”

“I don’t know if he’s all right—I don’t where he is! He went out to the Coke machine and now he’s gone!”

“Okay,” Bose said. “Wait for us right where you are. We’re on our way.”

Sandra saw the change that came over him, the way his lips went taut and his eyes narrowed. You’re not like other people, she had said, and it still seemed true, as if Bose had a deep reservoir of calm inside him—but it wasn’t calm now, Sandra thought. Now it was filled with a fierce resolve.

Chapter Twenty-One. Sandra and Bose

CHAPTER TWENTY

TURK’S STORY

1.

What I saw after the surgery, as I was coming up from anesthesia, not quite awake and not entirely asleep, was a vision of a man on fire—a burning man dancing in a pool of flame, staring at me through ripples of superheated air.