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his situation. “Keep moving,” I told him and he gave me his cross streets. I stuck my head in the senior sergeant’s office and told him my best friend was yet again in mortal danger.
    â€œNeed backup?”
    â€œNah, I’m good.”
    A violet night sky was darkening with storm clouds. I schlepped out east to a fancy suburb full of up-market pubs with sophisticated bouncers and clothing boutiques so expensive they needed only one customer every seventy-two hours to stay afloat. I had to be careful; during a similar “situation” I’d phoned him only to give away his position to his pursuer, so this time I opted to scour the low-lit streets without fanfare. A white sedan was circling and when I approached, it U-turned and disappeared down a side street. I cut the lights, idled a moment outside a councilman’s office, and stared at the poster of his bilious face, which I doubt had ever begotten a single sexual fantasy. A light rain fell soundlessly on the windscreen; on the streets, late joggers and contemplative men walked minuscule dogs. I moved off again, took a sharp turn down a residential street, and shined my spotlight on the discreetly lit sandstone houses. It was on my fourth tour of the block that I heard a shout; bright halogen house lights flicked on, and sprinting out from behind a flower bed was Aldo, moving like a projectile in the damp glow of orange streetlamps, a solid brick of a man charging after him.
    I hit the siren. It startled me, as usual.
    The assailant tackled Aldo and they rolled, looking like two men sharing a seizure. I hit the brakes and leaped out. Then they were on their feet and it happened fast: They were taking swings like old hillbillies settling their great-granddaddies’ squabbles. Aldo went down while his attacker kept going, throwing wild punches in the rain. You could hear the thwacks of skull against pavement. I made straight for the aggressor and pulled him off.
    â€œTaser him!” Aldo yelled.
    I pinned the man facedown on the pavement and kept my knee pressed between his shoulderblades while I cuffed him.
    â€œTaser him! Taser him!”
    Residents staggered stiffly out of their houses, as if off their couches for the first time in a week. One of Aldo’s eyes was beaten shut and there was gravel rash on his upper cheek; blood trickled down his neck over his older scars. He clutched a bruised or broken rib. He wasn’t wearing shoes.
    â€œNow,” I said, assessing Aldo’s attacker. Gelled hair. Thick, dark mustache. Colonel Mustard in his youth. “What seems to be the trouble?”
    â€œOfficer, this fucking cunt owes me fifty thousand dollars.”
    â€œWhat for?” I asked.
    â€œI invested in his horror movie.”
    â€œI never said it would win awards!” Aldo said.
    â€œIt never even got finished!”
    â€œI’m sorry, Kaplan. But you accepted the risk. Did I put a gun to your head?”
    â€œYou said I’d quadruple my investment!”
    I let this fruitless discussion go on for a few minutes before sending the unhappy investor on his way, injustice clinging to him tightly as he trudged somberly down the street. Aldo made me stop at a McDonald’s drive-thru for ice. The rain came down hard now and hit the dark streets. Aldo pulled out a pocket-sized first-aid kit he kept on his person at all times, and sprayed antiseptic on his face.
    I said, “You’re a fucking movie producer now?”
    â€œLet me tell you something. The people who invest in films hate films. They wouldn’t be caught dead at a cinema.”
    After reading about two young men who had produced a horror movie for $25,000 that went on to make over 248 million worldwide, Aldo had penned a screenplay, a period zombie movie called Van Demon’s Land, set in 1788 and featuring four principal groups: colonialists, convicts, Aborigines, and a couple of French explorers. They’d spent six months