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into his moccasins. Had to be careful where he planted the cane, too, in this soft ground. Didn’t want to take a tumble.
    The back door was locked. And glaringly visible from homes fronting on Beach Cove Drive. Through the line of mobile homes he saw a blue station wagon flash past. He waited, but the car didn’t turn onto Little Cove Lane. He caught a glimpse of it beyond the corner of Renway’s mobile home, speeding down the highway.
    He’d planned on slipping the lock and letting himself in through the back door, but that didn’t seem wise, considering its high visibility. And he’d spent enough time snooping around. Might have attracted the attention of some of the cooped-up neighbors, just looking for ways to help pass time and temperature.
    He rattled the doorknob, to show whoever might be watching that he was above-board and not sneaking around. Then he backhanded perspiration from his forehead and limped around the wide aluminum structure and back to the street. Then up the grease-stained driveway of Renway’s only close neighbor. Willa Hataris, according to the name on the mailbox perched on a rotted cedar post.
    The Hataris home was a single. Blindingly white like Renway’s but with pink trim and in disrepair. Its front square of lawn was brown in spots, and a stunted orange tree was slowly expiring from heat and lack of water. Brilliant red bougainvillea grew lush and wild along the side of the place, though, loving the sun and twining thick tendrils into the peeling lattice. The white latticework in front, on each side of the door, also needed paint, and was broken here and there as if someone had kicked it. The pink-and-white-striped metal awning over the front door was rusty and canted at a sideways angle.
    Carver started to ring the bell but saw there was only a rust-rimmed hole where the pushbutton used to be, so he knocked three times with the crook of his cane. The rapping sounded muffled and distant in the sultry air. He felt dizzy for a second, his ears buzzing.
    The woman who opened the door was about forty, overweight, with bushy, carrot-colored hair and red-rimmed blue eyes. A large wart thrived on the left side of her nose, just above the nostril. She seemed almost to have expected Carver to knock on her door; must have seen him roaming around the Renway trailer. Her eyes took a trip down him, saw the cane, then peered into his eyes curiously and intently. Hers were infinitely sad eyes, deep with self-pity and defeat and yearning. Are you one of us? The world’s victims have a quiet understanding and recognition of each other; they’re resigned to fate and to permanent membership in the losers’ club. They want pity from each other. Mock understanding. Most of all, they want to be reassured that it wasn’t their fault, any of it. It was somebody else’s fault. Or it was bad, bad luck. I’m not one of you , he screamed at her with his eyes. I haven’t given up and never will! She got the message, he could tell. A flicker of respect, then her eyes became shallow and concealing ponds of blue, her features set.
    He said, “I was looking for Bert Renway. Know where I can find him?”
    “Not if he ain’t home.”
    “You Mrs. Hataris?”
    “ Ms. Hataris.” She drew it out, pronouncing it “Mizzz.” The rancid odor of stale perspiration hit him. It was hot inside the trailer. Getting hotter as she stood there with the door open.
    “I’m Frank Carter, an old friend of Bert’s.” Carver smiled at her. He had a beautiful smile for such a fierce-looking man, and she seemed to relax somewhat. Her fleshy body, clad in shorts and a white halter, appeared to become a few inches shorter and much heavier as the tenseness left it. Had she thought he was a salesman or bill collector? He wasn’t selling aluminum siding, that was for sure.
    Now that she knew he wasn’t going to give her problems, she was more prone to talk, though she wasn’t about to invite him in out of the sun. “Mr. Renway