A wave of jitters took him over. He stood, nerves jangling. The first thing he did was get a pencil from his desk. Then he reached over the bunk and pulled a book from where he kept it tucked between the wall and the bed’s metal frame. White Fang. The cover with the wolf on it, and the pages dog-eared. He tore a page from the book and turned it sideways and scratched two words. What was needed and nothing more. He folded the page and put it in an envelope and filled out the address. He sealed the edge with a lick.

Somewhere an inmate laughed. A disembodied sound. Like ash drifting.

He shoved the envelope into the waist of his sweatpants and sat on the bunk. Then he began to pace. The cement slab. Plastic chair, steel toilet. Smell of sweat. He paced back and forth, clenching his hands.

He sat on the bunk.

He waited.

The racket of fiddles receded. The room and he were silent.

At six o’clock, the bell buzzed and the door unlocked. He rose and stood in front of the mirror above the toilet. With his fingers he combed his hair to the side. On his way to the chow hall, he fished the envelope from his pants and dropped it into the prisoners’ outgoing mail.

It was dark when Jack woke. The motel room empty. He rose from the bed and went to the window and pulled apart the blinds. Lights in the street. Snow floating down in clumps under the raw glare of vapor lamps. The skyline low and shabby beneath a pewter sky. He looked for Ava’s car. It wasn’t there.

On the nightstand was a notepad. Matty’s handwriting: We went to get food. I hope you sleep good.

He went into the bathroom and filled a plastic cup with water and drank. His mouth hurt when he swallowed. He filled the cup and drank again. Matty’s clothes were on the floor. Ring of dirt in the bathtub. Batman sitting on the ledge.

He turned and saw himself in the mirror. The lumped eye, the gashed mouth. Dried vomit in his hair. Well, he thought. You never were pretty anyway.

They’d probably get back soon, but he could hurry. He sat on the side of the tub. After he rinsed out the dirt, he pushed down the plug and turned on the water. He left the door open a crack so he could hear any sounds outside. Then he undressed and gently peeled back the bandage. The floor went fuzzy. The wound was yellow and purple and swollen at the edges.

It looked like a bite. Like something out of a zombie movie.

He eased himself into the water. Sharp pinpricks tingled up his side. There was a strange weakness in his gut. He put a hand on the tub ledge.