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again, even if they did show up. All college kids looked to him as if they came from the same homogenous gene pool, as if they were all grown in some remote basement laboratory. Arrogant, loud, their little faces as yet unmarked by the heart’s weather – they were like bright, wriggling grubs. Members of the Larval Class.
    He drank a little more than normal that night, riding his usual buzz a little further into the red. The clientele was sparse enough and familiar enough, though, that he could afford to work with dulled senses.
    Derek, the cop, did eventually show up, his partner in tow. They fetched their beers from him and settled into their customary orbit around the pool table, the rails of normal activity so comfortable and rigid that it seemed nothing peculiar could possibly exist in the world.
    He and Carrie did not discuss what they had seen on the phone. She’d looked at the pictures, watched the clip, while he peered over her shoulder. She was quiet the whole time, until the fingers crept over the rim of shaved bone, and she uttered a high, small sound. Then they watched it several more times. Somewhere in there, she cried. Then she stopped. When it was time for him to go, they didn’t say anything to each other, or kiss each other. Something dead was in the air with them, its limp black wings pressing them flat.
    He didn’t consider giving the phone to Derek. His mind corrected for its presence, setting up new neural links to avoid its consideration altogether, so that it existed like a black hole in his brain.
    At some point, Alicia came in without Jeffrey. He felt an immediate lightening of his spirit, and her arrival seemed like a kind of justice to him, as though this were some secret communication from the universe, some kind gesture to balance the scales for him. She took her usual stool and he mixed her usual drink. The comfortable click of the pool balls punctuated the low chatter of Derek and his partner, Sam Cooke crooned easily from the jukebox, and it was as though the true order of the world had nestled back into place.
    “Quiet in here tonight,” Alicia said. “You hear anything about Eric?”
    He’d actually managed to forget about Eric. “Yeah, actually. Went to see him this morning. He’s cut pretty good, but he won’t go to the hospital. He thinks he’s Rambo.”
    “You tell Derek about it?”
    “Not yet. I’m sure it’ll come up.” He didn’t want to talk about Eric. “So where’s Jeffrey tonight?”
    Alicia looked irritated and her gaze travelled along the rows of bottles behind him. “He’s being an asshole. I’m punishing him.”
    “Really? What did he do?”
    “Like I said. Being an asshole. Anybody come in to claim that phone?”
    The mention of it loosed a dark tide through his brain, and he found himself reaching for the Jameson. “Not yet.” He poured them both a shot.
    “Just this one,” Alicia said. “I have to go easy tonight.”
    “Why?”
    “I just don’t feel like being wasted. I want to try to cut back.”
    He wondered if that meant he’d be seeing less of her. The thought was terrifying in a way that even the strange video was not. A great sorrow, disproportionate and bewildering, moved through him. “You don’t have to get wasted,” he said, trying to sound normal. “Just do what I do. Maintain the buzz. It’s like surfing.”
    “You don’t have to tell me how to drink, Will.”
    They drank the shots; and then, as is the way of these things, they drank a few more. The night achieved its rhythm. Derek and his partner shot a few more games, then ambled outside into the course of their own lives. As they left, Will did not spare a thought for the phone he failed to tell them about. The dull anxiety he felt each time the door opened to admit someone new did not abate completely, but as midnight swung around and receded, it faded to a quiet hum. The whole event retracted into a dim kernel of absurdity. Alicia stayed the whole shift, easygoing