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who got into the backseat next to Danny. And Danny barely had time to realize that they weren’t at the hotel at all, they were on a dark street, in front of what looked like a vacant warehouse.
    Within three seconds the man had a device around Danny’s neck, but it took almost thirty seconds to make sure he was dead.
    After which they drove off again.

I decide to take Hike with me to the jail.
    On one level, it seems to make perfect sense. It’s a depressing place, colored grey and filled with people who have for the most part moved past desperate into hopeless. Hike is a depressing person, an incurable pessimist who himself sees the world through grey-colored glasses.
    I wouldn’t be surprised if he makes an offer on a cell, maybe with a watch-tower view.
    “So you owned the same dog?” Hike asks, moments after he gets in the car.
    “Yes.”
    “That’s it?” he asks.
    I nod. “That’s it.”
    “I’m not missing anything?”
    “Nope.”
    “Why do you care about that?” he asks.
    “Hike, you don’t have a dog, right?”
    “No way. I’d wind up with the mange, and I’d break out in rash pimples, filled with pus. I hate pus.”
    “Really?” I asked. “I love pus. But the thing is, him owning Tara creates sort of a curiosity, like a bond in some way. It’s like if you were married, and you met your wife’s first husband, you’d be curious, right?”
    “No.”
    Hike has a law degree from Yale, and an M.B.A. from Harvard, but curiosity is not his thing. He figures that the more he finds out about something, the more depressed it will make him. He’s probably right.
    Once we get to the county jail, it takes about twenty minutes to get through security, and we spend another twenty waiting in a small visiting attorneys room for Galloway to be brought in.
    I’ve seen him on television a couple of times, but he looks taller and thinner in person. He also wasn’t handcuffed in those TV appearances, but he certainly is now.
    “Mr. Carpenter, I’m sorry about this,” is the first thing he says.
    “About what?”
    “My wife asking you to come down here. I didn’t want her to do that.”
    “She’s trying to help you,” I say. “This is my associate, Eddie Lynch.”
    “Hike,” is how he corrects me. “How’s the food here?”
    Galloway shrugs. “It’s okay.”
    “Watch out for bugs in the salad. I accidentally ate a couple of bugs once, I think at a rest stop off the Jersey Turnpike. They wound up taking a stand in my gut; I couldn’t get rid of them. They turned my intestines into the goddamn Alamo.”
    “Thanks for sharing that, Hike,” I say, and then turn back to Galloway. “So what can I do for you?”
    “Not much.”
    “Do you have an attorney?” I ask.
    “They assigned the public defender to me for the purposes of the arraignment. He seemed to handle it well enough.”
    The sense I get from Galloway is very different from every other recently arrested person I have ever met, and I’ve met a lot of them. Usually they are afraid, especially those who’ve been arrested for the first time. They don’t know what is ahead of them, but they know it’s going to be awful.
    Some of them, the more experienced ones, are angry. Angry at themselves for getting caught, and angry at the authorities for catching them.
    A lot of people claim to be able to judge someone’s emotional state by looking in their eyes. I don’t make eye contact, so it’s a talent I’ve never perfected. When I talk to people, I generally look at their mouth, so while I can’t judge emotions, I’m pretty good at identifying cavities.
    But there is no mistaking the vibes that Noah Galloway is giving off. He is tired, maybe even a little relieved, and wearily resigned to his fate. It’s depressing, and being in a room with Galloway and Hike, in a prison no less, is about as dreary as it gets.
    I want to get out of here as fast as possible, so I quickly make a verbal agreement with Galloway that, for the sum of