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film clips. But he can’t put them together in the right way. His father keeps assuring him that he will be able to, but he was drunk last night. Very drunk. It was all messed up. Messed up bad.
    â€œMatt’s dead,” he says.
    â€œMatt was a piece of shit, and he got killed by an even bigger piece of shit. You remember that.”
    Maybe Matt was a piece of shit. Maybe he’s a piece of shit, too. But Matt Laferiere and the others were the only ones who didn’t treat him like a piece of shit. Even though he was the “virgie,” Matt and the others treated him right. Like he was someone. This is so fucking messed up.
    R ONNY DOES WHAT Pete told him to do. He leaves the station, feeling the emptiness on his right hip where he keeps his weapon. As he climbs into his truck he suddenly feels a great weariness. He parked the truck here a little over twelve hours ago, but it seems he hasn’t been in it for weeks.
    His truck is his favorite possession, certainly his largest and most expensive. It’s a Dodge 1500 four-by-four. He bought it the day after he graduated from the academy, the day before he was hired on full-­time as a Lydell cop. He struggles to make the payments, but he won’t consider giving it up for something cheaper. It is the first nice, new thing he has ever owned.
    His apartment is cold. Usually coming off the night shift, it takes a ­couple of hours for him to settle down enough for sleep, so he keeps the heat low, only turning it up when he gets home. It’s a small apartment, the upper floor of a two-­story garage that belongs to Nathan Greene, the pharmacist, who lives in the house in front of the garage. The furnishings are sparse. Most came with the apartment. The only thing that’s his is a forty-­inch flat-­screen TV that sits on the stand they threw in to sweeten the deal.
    He thinks about having the TV attached to the wall, but he likes knowing he can just pick it up and take it with no hassle. He could, if he wanted, be completely out of the apartment in two hours.
    He kicks up the heat and makes a pot of coffee, though he is not particularly fond of it. It’s Starbucks Sumatra, Vanessa’s choice, pre-­ground in deference to him and her only contribution to the apartment, though she stays over at least once a week. He stays at her place about the same, maybe more, especially if he has the weekend off. He prefers his place because it’s closer to the station, and he wants to be ready to respond in a hurry if there is an emergency, but hers is nicer. The only emergency they’ve had in the months he’s been on the force was last night, and he was right in the middle of it.
    He calls Nessa while the coffee brews. At just two rings he gets voice mail. “Hi. There was a bad accident last night,” he says. “I was involved in it. I’m OK. I spent the night in the hospital, but I’m OK. Call me.” He clicks the call screen off, relieved that he didn’t have to tell Vanessa he had killed her old boyfriend, but still dreading the conversation.
    He goes into the bedroom to shower and change his clothes. He tries to keep the bandages on his leg and forearm dry, but it’s impossible. He’ll have to go to the drugstore later and get gauze and tape, but for now he pats them dry and hopes they’ll stay on to keep the wounds from bleeding into his pants and shirt.
    Both his pants and shirt are ripped. That looks like another hundred or so dollars. Maybe the dry cleaner’s can mend them, but he’s afraid they’ll never look right again. He puts on a T-­shirt and his other pair of tactical pants, then a sweatshirt. He takes out his dress shoes, which are shined to a high luster, and wears them, though they look ridiculous with the pants. He checks his boots to see how much damage they took last night. They’re badly scuffed, but he’s sure he can salvage them.
    He goes back to