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widened with fear. “Are you sure…?”
    â€œIt’s all right. He told me he wants me to do it when I can’t wake him up.”
    â€œIf you insist.”
    â€œThanks, Miguel.”
    Miguel left and I spent the time he was gone hovering over Roscoe, listening to him snore. Labored footsteps approached, water sloshed, and Miguel stood by my side. He handed me a wooden fruit bucket, heavy with water.
    â€œYou may want to step away,” I gasped, raising it by its handle.
    He backed into the shadows, and I lifted the bucket high with all my might and tipped it upside down. The water retained the shape of the bucket for nearly a second as it plunged through space, pounding Roscoe with a kersplash . It worked. Roscoe’s eyes shot open when the flood hit him. He tumbled out of the bed, landing on his stomach. He lifted himself onto his hands and knees and grunted while droplets tapped the floor. He then plopped back on his rump and ran his fingers over his sopping head as he squinted up at me.
    â€œTime is it?”
    I glanced at my Bulova. “Half past nine. In the morning.”
    â€œDay is it?”
    â€œMonday.”
    â€œMonth?”
    â€œJuly,” I said. “Second. Nineteen and thirty-four.”
    He held up his hand and I gripped it and helped him to his feet. He swerved and dipped a few times and I worried he was going to fall. He stayed upright, a minor miracle, and made his way over to the chair where his jacket, shirt, and hat rested. I gave him a minute to get dressed and put on his shoes. While he tied his laces, he looked at Miguel, who stood by the door, sheepishly staring back.
    â€œDid I do any damage…?”
    â€œNo harm done, Mr. Roscoe.”
    Shoes on, Roscoe steadied himself on his feet. “Say, Miguel, is your wife still making them, uh…”
    â€œEmpanadas? Si! I tell Arturo here, she make a batch tomorrow.”
    Roscoe walked over to Miguel and handed him a soggy dollar. “I’ll take one. Tell her to throw in some of that hot sauce she makes. That stuff’s the bee’s knees.”
    â€œI get you change.…”
    â€œKeep it,” said Roscoe. He faced me. “Let’s go.”
    *   *   *
    I waited in Roscoe’s living room while he showered. He resided on the second floor of a two-story beige brick apartment building at the corner of 200 South and 800 East. Thin walls let me hear someone in the next apartment singing to piano scales. Tall trees outside the open window cooled the place in the dead of summer, and a breeze parachuted the sheer curtains. Roscoe’s cats, Barney, a venerable orange tabby, and Millicent, a younger, mischievous tortoiseshell, kept me company while I waited.
    The living room was filled with stacks of magazines, a tabletop radio that played crackling music with bluesy horn and a colored lady singing, and an antique table supporting a row of framed photographs. One showed a young Roscoe standing alongside his coworkers from Donovan and Sons, a company that called itself a detective agency, yet really specialized in rental strikebreakers. In another portrait, teenage Roscoe stood by his mother in a photographer’s studio, sometime early in the century. The next framed image was a five-by-seven school picture of a young girl that I hadn’t seen the last time I was here. I prided myself on being an observant fellow. How did I miss it before? I nudged Barney off my lap and he meowed his protest and leaped to the floor. I walked over to the table and picked up the framed photo to get a better look. I ventured a guess the girl was somewhere in her early teens, with shoulder-length dark hair, a cute squint, and a toothy grin. When hinges squeaked down the hall, I returned the frame to where it sat. Roscoe entered the living room and it surprised me to see what a difference a fresh change of clothes made. Even though the bruises and cuts were still visible, he