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this psycho? What’s your plan?”
     
A strange light comes into Jessup’s eyes. “There’s only one way to take down an operation like this, and you know it.”
     
“How’s that?”
     
“From the inside.”
     
Jesus. Tim has been watching too many cop shows. “Let me get this straight. The guy you just described as Satan incarnate, you want to wear a wire on?”
     
Jessup barks out a derisive laugh. “Fuck no! These guys carry scanners into the john with them. “
     
“Then what?”
     
He shakes his head with childlike stubbornness. “You don’t need to know. But God put me in this position for a reason.”
     
When informants start talking about God, my alarm bells go off. “Tim—”
     
“Hey, I’m not asking you to believe like I do. I’m just asking you to be ready to accept what I bring you and do the right thing.”
     
I feel obligated to try to dissuade him further, but beneath my desire to protect a childhood friend lies a professionally cynical awareness of the truth. In cases like this, often the only way to convict the people at the top is to have a witness on the inside, directly observing the criminal activity. And who else but a martyr would take that job?
     
“What are you planning to bring me?”
     
“Evidence. A stake to drive through Mr. X’s heart, and a knife to cut off the company’s head. Just say you’re with me, Penn. Tell me you won’t quit. Not until we take these bastards down.”
     
Against all my better judgment, I reach out and squeeze Tim’s proffered hand. “Okay. You just watch your back. And your front. Informers usually get caught because they make a stupid mistake. You’ve come a long way. Don’t go getting hurt now.”
     
Tim looks me full in the face, his eyes almost serene. “Hey, I have to be careful. I’ve got a son now, remember?” As if suddenly remembering something, he seizes my wrist with his other hand, like a pastor imploring me to accept Jesus as my savior. “If something does happen, though, don’t blame yourself, okay? The way I see it, I’ve got no choice.”
     
Your wife and son wouldn’t see it that way, I say silently, but I nod acknowledgment.
     
Now we sit silently, awkwardly, like two men who’ve cleared the air on some uncomfortable issue and have nothing left to say. Small talk is pointless, yet how else can we part? Cut our palms and take a blood oath, like Tom and Huck?
     
“You still dating that lady who runs the bookstore?” Tim asks with forced casualness.
     
“Libby?” I guess word hasn’t spread to Jessup’s social circle yet. “We ended it about a week ago. Why?”
     
“I’ve seen her son down on the Queen a few times in the past couple of weeks. Looked high as a kite to me. Must have a fake ID.”
     
After all I’ve heard tonight, this news falls on me like the last brick of a backbreaking load. I’ve spent too much time and politicalcapital getting my ex-girlfriend’s nineteen-year-old son out of trouble with the law. He’s basically a good kid, but if he’s broken his promise to stay clean, the future holds serious unpleasantness for us both.
     
Tim looks worried. “Was I right to tell you?”
     
“Are you sure he was high?”
     
Suddenly Tim hops to his knees, tense as a startled deer, holding up his hand for silence. As he zeros his gaze somewhere past the wall between us and the river, I realize what has disturbed him: the sound of a car coming up Cemetery Road. We listen to the rising pitch of the engine, waiting for it to crest and fall…but it doesn’t. There’s a grinding squeal of brakes, then silence.
     
“Stopped.” Tim hisses. “Right below us.”
     
“Take it easy,” I whisper, surprised by my thumping heart. “It’s probably just a police cruiser checking out my car.”
     
Tim has his feet under him now. Almost faster than I can decipher his movements, he grabs the photos from the ground, shoves them into the corner of the plot, and sets them ablaze with his lighter. “Cover the light with your body,” he says.
     
As I move to obey, he