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the sink. “The so-called cloak-and-dagger shit has nothing to do with you.”
    Del cocked his head. “What, then?”
    Alex sighed. “If you must know, I’ve got bill collectors of my own to worry about.”
    “You think bill collectors can’t find you in the dark?”
    “They can’t find me if they don’t know where I am, Del,” Alex said. “I keep the house dark, and you didn’t see my truck in the driveway because I park on another street.”
    “But the mailman still comes, right? What about your mail?” Del seemed genuinely interested in the logistical details.
    “P.O. box,” Alex said. He didn’t enjoy being on the other end of an interrogation. “Nothing but junk mail comes to the house.”
    “And they never catch you coming out the door?” Del said.
    Alex sighed again. “I come and go through the back yard.”
    “What do your neighbors think?”
    “My neighbor is a very sensible young man who understands the effect that a foreclosure on my house would have on his property value.” Alex took a beer from the fridge. “Plus, I walk his dog every morning.”
    Del laughed. “Dude, you’re extreme,” he said. Then he added, “But you’ve got good technique.” Great , thought Alex. Maybe next we can trade pointers on blackjack strategy .
    “How long you been doin’ this?” Del asked.
    “Too long.”
    “Does Mom know?”
    Alex said nothing.
    Alex thought he saw the hint of a smile on his brother’s face. “I know —it’s embarrassing,” Del said.
    This time Alex didn’t try to hide his anger. “Don’t patronize me, little brother. I’ve got my own problems, but y’see, I make sure they stay my problems.”
    “So not repaying my investment, that’s keeping it all your problem?”
    Alex answered him with a look.
    “Aren’t you even going to ask me how much I need?” Del said.
    “Aren’t you listening? It wouldn’t make a difference.”
    “You know, your bill collectors go home at night, but the bill collectors I’ve got aren’t going to go away.”
    “You’d know that better than I would.”
    Alex’s voice was tired and flat. Del recognized the finality in it and clapped Alex on the shoulder and pretended to smile. “You know, the trip down here wasn’t a total waste.” He took another beer from the fridge and shoved it into the jacket pocket, then started walking toward the front door. Alex followed him. “Because I learned something,” Del said.
    “What’s that?”
    “That there’s no difference between us. Till now I always thought it was that you’re more responsible, more stable. But that’s just what Mom and the others tell themselves, so they don’t have to admit our generation is a total flop.” Del opened the door. “Here you are sitting in the dark hoping your mistakes don’t catch up to you.” Del stomped a foot deftly on the back end of his skateboard, and it flew straight up to where his hand waited to catch the front axle. “You’re just like me, Alex, you’re just a little luckier, that’s all.”
    “Is that right?”
    “Just a little luckier. Thanks for the beer, by the way.”
    Del closed the front door behind him and, seconds later, Alex heard the chime of a bottle cap bouncing on the street, then the gritty treble buzz of skateboard wheels rolling over asphalt. Other people had trouble seeing past Del’s bravado, but Alex could tell that Del was more desperate than other times he had gotten behind with hi s bookies. This time Del seemed . . . scared.
    Alex took his nearly full bottle of beer back to his chair, where the Cummings file waited for him. He tried to read the police report again, but his heart wasn’t in it. He kept thinking about what Del said, that they were both failures. If his little brother was trying to get a rise out of him, it was working. Alex was in denial. He knew that. About everything. It wasn’t just the five houses and the bill collectors looking to bleed him dry. It was his priorities. Here he was,