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Mike reached for the control, popping the clear plastic lid over the wide red button. Down below, Dodge finally turned, hip-deep
in the huge bucket of the crusher, his legs lost in the snarl
of the partially crumpled front wheel well. Their eyes met across twenty yards of dust-filled sunshine.

Mike pushed the button.

The hydraulic crushing cylinders hummed to life, the contraption beginning to clench. Like a dumb animal, Dodge moved deliberately
and without panic toward the edge, trying to climb out. But then he stiffened, and it was clear that the jagged metal had
folded in on him. With his flat gaze fixed on Mike, he started his descent without whimper or complaint, descending until
only one hand remained in sight, lifted as if for a life preserver. It quivered once and vanished slowly into the metal crush.

Pressing a hand to the wound in his side, Mike slumped forward over the controls, his vision spotting. It occurred to him
how very nice it would be to go to sleep. His blinks grew longer.

A faint movement registered through the black-and-white speckling before his eyes, and he blinked several times, squinting
through the cab window.

William.

His left leg trailed lifelessly behind him, the screwdriver still jammed through the side of his wilted knee, but he was tugging
himself forward with his forearms, making herky-jerky progress, like some awful stop-action film. His face scraped along the
ground, his mouth and nose powdered with dirt.

Mike stared for maybe a full minute in disbelief. William belly-crawled, arm over arm, past the rows of smashed cars and into
the clearing. He paused now and again to catch his breath, his head wriggling on the yoke of his shoulders.

Mike’s hands twitched forward onto the console, moving across the steering levers, the joystick, the pushbuttons. Having worked
a lot of big construction machines, he found the controls familiar. The magnetic hoist hung high in his field of vision, maybe
forty feet above the ground. Mike clicked the joystick, and the boom whirred over toward the car crusher, the hoist rocking
at the end of the giant cable.

He tried three buttons before he found the servomotor. The entire crane vibrated from the massive charge, the generator shooting
a jolt of current to the magnetic hoist at the cable’s end. Mike rode the joystick left a few beats more and dropped the boom,
undershooting the release to compensate for the skewed perspective from the cab, a trick he’d learned from years on wheel
loaders and hydraulic shovels. The giant magnet clanged onto the roof of the crushed VW Bug. Mike lifted the neat bale of
metal and flesh from the vise of the crusher and began to swing it across the clearing.

William paused to take note, his raw face tilted to the early-morning sun.

The rectangular shadow fell across him, and he began tearing at the dirt, trying to make quicker progress, but it seemed his
arms had nothing left.

Mike pulled back on the control and raised the compacted car to the clouds. Seventy feet, eighty – he kept on until all he
saw was the underside of the vehicle, the wheels smashed up into the box of the frame.

William lay still, panting, glaring across at Mike through a tangle of fallen hair.

A moment of perfect tranquillity stretched out and out.

Then Mike tapped the button, cutting the power to the magnet above. The car detached from the hoist without a whisper of noise
and plummeted in absolute silence. William let out a bark of a cry and had just enough time to cover his head.

An explosion of dust, pluming like the aftermath of a bomb. The cloud rose halfway to the hoist and then began to dissipate.
The warmth of the sun slanted through the glass, and again Mike was tempted to set his head down on the console and doze off.

Mustering strength, he shoved open the door of the cab and tumbled to the dirt. He lay there panting, holding his side, the
flesh tacky and warm. Parked before him was the station wagon that William and Dodge had planned to crush him in, but his
slanted view also took in the swirling brown mist in the air, thinning by degrees. Emerging from the dust, stacked against
the chain-link across the lot, was a distinct stack of smashed cars, clearly set apart from the other rows. Some were newer,
some so rusted that no color was discernible. The dust thinned further, and he saw, wired to the front of every neatly baled
car, a license plate –
FRVRYNG, MSTHNG, LALADY.
Metal coffins, a body interred in each one. Just John. Danielle Trainor. Ted Rogers.

Mike’s breath kicked up little puffs of dust, Indian red and oddly beautiful. His hand, lying a few inches in front of his
face, was caked with layers of blood, slick and bright over dry and black.

A snowy patch blotted out all sight, and then somehow he was standing, leaning heavily against one of the crane’s high, hot
tires. He staggered forward, falling onto the back of the station wagon and then shoving himself along its side, leaving mime
handprints in blood along the dusty windows. The driver’s door groaned open, and his legs went to water. He fell into the
soft cloth seat, the springs sighing beneath him. He would not be able to pull himself from the car, so he prayed the broke-down
piece of shit ran. His arms felt heavy, filled with gravy. He swatted a hand forward once, twice, his fingers somehow hooking
onto a key, but he didn’t believe it was real until he twisted and the engine sputtered irritably to life.

He’d been driven into this mess in a station wagon; now he’d go out in one.

Yanking the stick into drive was a herculean task. Tailpipe dragging, the car shuddered around the dropped bale of VW, out
of the yard, down the harsh slope of the desolate dirt road. The turns were punishing, the switchbacks agonizing.

He realized halfway down the hill that he was probably going to die.

Time became a wash of movement, a confusion of images. Impressions swam through his head. A house on a shady lane at the end
of a road, jungle-gym bars, a faded salmon-pink shirt, the yellow cushion reeking of cat piss, him with his elbows propped
on the sill, waiting. Mike Doe at the bay window blended into Katherine Smith at the bay window.
My dad’s coming back
.

You swore it, now. You
swore
it
.

A film reel turned in his head, the run-on sentence that was his daughter’s life.

–
her fist, hours old, around his pinkie, Where’s Kath-a-rine?, rocking her to sleep to the
na na nas
from ‘Hey Jude’, her baby tongue fluttering, scorched with thrush, the soporific pulse of the breast pump at midnight, goodnight
chair and the red balloon, holding on to his leg, reaching for him to pick her up, him looking at
—

—the sunlight through the windshield, so strong that he had to fight to keep his eyes open so he could see—

—
a plaster of paris handprint, the
pchhhhht
sound of pouring imaginary tea, that No Tears scent, her going boneless in a grocery-store aisle, him struggling with the
jointless arms, like trying to pick up water, crying the first time she watches Annabel get her hair cut, the movie-theater
seat popping up beneath her tiny legs until he reaches over and holds it down, covering her eyes when the teapot shrieks,
walking in his sneakers, in Annabel’s high heels, in his boots, and—

—the station wagon was off the road now, stopped, and he
was slumped forward, his lips smashed against the top of the steering wheel. He looked down through the rip in his T-shirt
and saw the glittering stick of his rib in the wash of blood at his side. The surrounding skin was fish white. He closed his
eyes again and dreamed about how lovely it would be just to keep them that way.

You will come back for me.

I will come back for you.

He set his hands on the wheel and pushed himself upright. He was shuddering; his
flesh
was shuddering. He willed his arm to move, to throw the car into reverse. The station wagon thumped its way up out of the
roadside ditch and onto the road, and he gritted his teeth, blinked the sweat from his eyes, took a creaking breath, and—

—
then she is five, jumping rope, smiling at him, missing eyeteeth, the lavender dress with the flaking Disney princess iron-on
she sleeps in until it grows brittle, the first time she can read her own fortune at a Chinese restaurant, round red-framed
spectacles, the spring break she wants to eat only licorice, orange slices at halftime, the Abominable Snowman on the Matterhorn,
High School Fucking Musical.
You swore it, now. You
swore
it
—

—a horn blared, bringing him back to life, but by the time he lifted a sluggish arm, the driver had skidded angrily around
him and kept on, leaving him behind, coasting down the wrong side of the road. A flash of awareness told him he was driving
about five miles per hour, and he did his best to send a signal to his foot to tamp down on the gas pedal. Sometime in the
past few minutes, the pain had shifted to numbness. His flesh felt as hard and cold as ice. Vaguely aware of the loose photocopies
fluttering around the backseat, he cranked the wheel, righting the station wagon’s course. The road looked wider, a real road
now. The sun had notched a few clicks higher in the sky. Pins and needles pricked his fingertips and his breaths were shallow,
almost delicate, the breaths of a newborn.

He closed his eyes for a quick prayer, but then, like magic, he has flown forward in time. He sees the future, and it is present.
It floats out of reach, as fragile and elusive as a butterfly, and—

—
there she is at graduation, the free spirit with the peace sign stitched to her gown who busts a dance move on the dais before
shaking the principal’s hand, the pale blue sky filled with graduation caps, and then her wedding night, a speech from a younger
sister, or brother maybe, Annabel squeezing his hand beneath the table, and the first strain of the song for the father-daughter
dance, him rising, cameras winking from the surrounding tables, and there she is, his daughter, in a shower of white, he takes
her gloved hand and
—

The collision hammered him into the dashboard, his eyes flying open. He rolled to the side, his forehead leaving a smudge
on the driver’s window. He noted the clean little homes spaced on the landscaped slopes outside, the old folks in their yellow
golf shirts and beige walking shoes, pointing at him.

Through the wobbling sheet of steam rising from the crumpled hood, he saw the barely dented stucco pillar of the activity-center
building and realized he must have been going only about three miles per hour. The car had ended up on some shrubs a few yards
through the rear gate, a sad little terminus to a slow-motion journey.

A photocopied ledger page drifted dreamily past his face and settled on the dashboard. His lips barely moved. ‘Help me,’ he
said to the wall of steam.

He heard whistles and footsteps, the rattle of a gurney, and at once a medical team was there, guiding him out of the driver’s
seat, pulling at his arms, questions raining down on him:

‘Flank wound there, see?’

‘Were you shot or stabbed? Shot or stabbed?’

‘What’s your name?’

‘Any allergies?’

‘¿
Hablas español? ¿Te pegaron un tiro o te apuñalaron
?’

‘We need to roll him. Give yourself a hug now.’

‘. . . can’t . . .’ He forced the words out. ‘I can’t die. You don’t understand. My daughter . . . Katherine Wingate . . .’

‘Don’t move. Let us do the work.’

‘Pain here? Here?
¿Dolor aquí
?’

‘Tenth rib, midaxillary line. We’re gonna need the blood bank.’

He heard what was left of his shirt rip away, and then leads plopped onto his chest. The pressure beneath his chin, he realized,
was a cervical collar. ‘. . . in a foster home. Have to fix me.’ His voice was so hoarse and weak that the sound barely reached
his own ears.

‘Open your mouth.’

‘Deep breath. Again.’

Now he was being rolled down a walk, past puzzled elderly faces and manicured flower beds. He passed by the rear gate, a sign
drifting by, cheerily announcing
NEW BEGINNINGS ACTIVE LIVING CENTER.
That painted smiley-face sun winked at him.

‘Push six of morphine.’

‘. . . so I can get to her. Tell her mother . . . Annabel. Jocelyn Wilder is the name.’

‘Little pinch, okay? Good.’

Air-conditioning on his face. Overhead lights flying past, one after another.

‘He’s tachycardic, hypotensive, blood in his belly. He needs to get to the OR
now
. Who’s on call?’

Mike’s words were fainter yet. ‘My daughter . . . she’s hidden. Tell my wife . . . Annabel Win . . . gate . . .’

‘Dr Nelson’s in already with the shattered hip.’

‘He’s lost a lotta blood. I don’t know.’

‘. . . can’t die . . . without . . .’

‘CT?’

‘No time – he’ll bleed out in the scanner.’

A sturdy male nurse leaned over him, sliding a finger into his numb left hand. ‘Squeeze my finger. Squeeze. That’s good, that’s
good.’

Mike focused hard on forming words, shaping his lips. ‘. . . Jocelyn Wilder . . . Parker, Arizona. Tell . . . my wife . . .’

The nurse leaned closer. ‘What’s that, pal? Tell your wife what?’

Our daughter is with Jocelyn Wilder of Parker, Arizona
.

Right before time stopped, Mike realized that the words had not left his head.

The voice was blurred, as if Mike were listening underwater. ‘Where’s Katherine?’

He mumbled, ‘I won’t fucking tell you ever.’

Another voice said, ‘Pleasant, ain’t he?’ And then he sank beneath another black swell.

This time he sensed the mattress beneath him.

‘—press is climbing all over everything,’ Shep’s voice was saying. ‘The state paid to medevac you in to Cedars-Sinai Med Center.
And Annabel, too. Top care – bastards are scared of a lawsuit. They’re relieved you lived. I guess you had a cut in your kidney
vein. What? Okay –
renal
vein. Bleeds fast, but not as fast as an artery. Lucky for you, huh?’

Mike tried to make his mouth move, but it wouldn’t obey.

Shep continued. ‘The feds raided the wrecking yard, found your parents’ remains in two of those crushed cars. McAvoy’s in
custody. Looks like he’s fucked pretty good.’

‘He can’t hear you,’ someone said.

Shep said, ‘Yeah he can.’

Now his eyes were open, if barely, his vision blurry. His tongue was too thick to talk around. Metal pinched the skin of his
stomach. A tan face was floating over him, saying, ‘Congratulations, Mr Wingate. You just inherited a Class III casino.’

Mike said, ‘Mmrm.’

‘You’ll be immediately commenced at a salary of three million.’

‘A
month
,’ Shep’s voice added from somewhere. ‘And the annual dividend? It’s got more zeros than can fit on a check.’

Mike could discern the shape of Shep now, standing at the foot of the bed.

‘Guess who’s a leading expert in casino law?’ Shep flicked his nail against something that Mike finally registered as a familiar
taupe business card. Shep’s face came into focus briefly, time enough for Mike to see the gleam of that crooked front tooth.
‘’Member that high-ticket lawyer Two-Hawks hooked me up with?’

Mike took in the man who’d spoken earlier as a collection of parts – sun-baked face, hammered sterling oval belt buckle with
a turquoise inlay, Gerry Spence buckshin jacket with fringe sloping across the shoulders. The man nodded solemnly, a hint
of wryness livening his eyes, and said, ‘Chief Two-Hawks looks forward to a long era of peace and prosperity between our tribes.’

The scene blurred again, and a sharp female voice said, ‘You can’t be in here.’

Fading out, Mike heard Shep say, ‘What?’

He came awake this time – fully awake – with a single thought branded across his brain:
Katherine
.

He sat up abruptly but a hot spear lanced his gut, flattening him back down onto a brace of pillows. Even tilting his head
was excruciating, but he managed to look down at himself. The hospital gown he was wearing was thrown open to reveal a railroad
track of surgical staples running from below his belly button to his sternum. The edges of the wound were purple-pink. It
took some time for him to register the slit as a permanent addition to his body. A large gauze patch was adhered to his side
with paper tape. With some trepidation he peeled it back. The stab wound was cleanly sealed, tiny black sutures sticking out
like cat
whiskers. The skin below was trash-liner black, a shade he hadn’t known that skin could turn.

‘They had to open you up.’ The voice, from across the room, surprised him. A man sat in a visitor chair, picking a piece of
lint from the thigh of his pressed slacks, a red tie sealed firmly to his throat. Mike recognized the clean-shaven face, but
it took a few moments for him to place him as Bill Garner, the governor’s chief of staff. He noted, also, that there was no
one else in the room.

‘Had to stop the bleeding, check your liver and bowel, all that,’ Garner continued. ‘You’ve been in and out for a few days.
I guess you’re recovering really well, but there’s still gonna be a lot of—’

Mike tried to sit up again and cried out.

‘—pain.’

Mike rolled his head, looking around. The door was open, nurses and patients walking briskly past in the hall. On his nightstand,
blood-sopped bandages rested in a bedpan. Still processing the shock of the scar, Mike tried to retrieve memories from the
slush of the past few days. Shep had been here. And Two-Hawks’s attorney. Something about the state fearing a lawsuit – Yup,
there it was.

Groaning, he swung his legs over the side of the bed, the oxygen tube pulling out from beneath his nose. He tugged an IV from
his arm, saline pattering on the floor, then tore some excess paper tape from his biceps.

‘I wouldn’t do that,’ Garner said. ‘There’s a naggy nurse looking to live up to her adjective.’

Mike stood up and wobbled a bit until his legs firmed beneath him. ‘They found Hank’s body?’

Pinching his gown closed, he made progress gingerly toward the door, Garner following at his side. ‘They did,’ Garner said.
‘LAPD’s on the warpath – he was one of their own. Parker Center, FBI – everyone’s shoehorned into this thing.’

‘I can see that.’

‘Hank Danville may not have looked like much, but he was very well regarded in the law-enforcement community.’

Mike paused for the first time. Looked over at him. ‘Rightly so.’

‘And with the evidence?’ Garner shot a breath skyward, fluttering his bangs. ‘Brian McAvoy might as well give
himself
the lethal injection. There hasn’t been a case this airtight since O.J.’ He scratched his nose. ‘That was a joke.’

‘Sorry,’ Mike said. ‘I’m still back on Hank.’

‘You’ll have a chance to say good-bye properly. LAPD’s planning a big to-do, ceremony, all that. He’ll go out a hero.’

Mike didn’t trust his voice, so he just nodded and kept on toward the door.

‘You really shouldn’t be up,’ Garner said.

‘Feels like that,’ Mike said. ‘Which way’s my wife?’

‘Down that hall there.’

‘Shep?’

‘Around somewhere, I’m sure. He hasn’t strayed far from your side since he was released.’

Mike leaned against the doorway, breathing hard. ‘Released?’

‘He’s under investigation,’ Garner said. ‘Your lawyer turned over the security recording from Graham’s house, as well as all
the other documents. This is a high-order mess, clearly, but we’ve persuaded the AUSA and the DA to offer you full federal
and state immunity in exchange for your truthful testimony and for your cooperation as pertains to the case against Brian
McAvoy. Let me repeat: That’s
full
immunity.’

‘So I don’t sue the state,’ Mike said. ‘Which I assume is why you’re being good enough to check in on me. In a quiet hospital
room before anyone else can get to me.’

Garner affected a bored expression. ‘While they’re willing to make some allowances for you given the early investigative .
. . missteps, someone has to answer for the string of felonies you and Shepherd White left in your wake.’

Mike’s lip curled. ‘You need a fall guy.’

‘There were laws broken. Stolen vehicles, battery, robbery, the murder of an important state law-enforcement agent in his
bedroom at night. There’s you, family man, honored community leader. And there’s a convicted felon.
Someone
fired that shot from the balcony.’

‘Graham was a murdering piece of shit.’

‘It might be less complicated for everyone if it doesn’t get advertised that way.’

‘Less complicated for who?’ Mike started forward again.

‘Let’s just stop a moment, Mike.’ Garner placed a hand gently on his shoulder, halting him. ‘You could end up in prison. This
is no joke. You’re gonna want to think carefully about what you do here.’

Mike steered Garner’s arm away. ‘There’s a picture of your boss hanging in McAvoy’s trophy case in the casino. He was even
good enough to sign it – “To Deer Creek Casino, friends of mine, friends of California”. You guys took in soft-money donations
by the truckload from a guy who snuffed his opponents for
generations
with abandon while the cops, DAs, judges, and – yes – the governor looked the other way.’

‘Lower your voice, please.’

‘Not only is Shep
not
going down for any of these so-called crimes, but the governor has twenty-four hours to issue a full pardon or he can spend
the last weeks of his campaign explaining why he’s not responsible for his corrupt police force and how the hundreds of millions
that McAvoy gave the state budget didn’t have anything to do with how he got away with murder for decades.’

Mike stepped out into the hall, Garner scurrying at his side.

‘We can still make your life extremely difficult,’ Garner said.

‘You don’t know what difficult is.’

Two agents approached at a half jog, and Garner waved them off. They hesitated, not retreating, and Mike asked them loudly,
‘Am I under arrest?’

‘Sir, you’re not to leave the—’

‘
Am I under arrest?
’

The surrounding movement in the hall came to a halt. The agents looked at Garner. Garner looked back at them. They seemed
to blink a lot, and then one of the agents said, ‘No.’

Mike kept going.

‘You’re in the catbird seat right now,’ Garner said, walking sideways next to him and doing his best to lower his voice. ‘You
and your family have won the lottery a thousand times over.’ He skipped in front of Mike. ‘You’re prepared to throw all that
away to protect a felon buddy?’

‘He
is
family.’

Garner’s stare stayed even, but his lips stretched a bit with concern.

Mike gritted his teeth against the pain. ‘Now, get the fuck out of my way.’

Garner contemplated for a moment, then complied.

Leaving him in his wake, Mike continued down the hall. He grabbed a pair of scrub bottoms from a passing cart. Pulling them
on hurt more than he could have imagined, but the staples didn’t burst, and he finally managed, and let the gown fall to the
floor. Every cough, every twist brought with it a fresh jolt of pain. He did his best to bend at the hips to avoid using his
stomach muscles, but even that made his eyes water. Shirtless, he continued down the hall, eyeing the charts on doors, the
names printed on the tabs, and finally, worn down by the pain and exhaustion, he started shouting his wife’s name, turning
circles.

He heard her faint reply from around the next corner and took one jogging step before the blast of heat in his stomach reminded
him to walk. Around the bend, Detectives Elzey and Markovic were standing near a partially open door. Elzey had a gift-shop
bouquet in her hand, probably wondering how much leniency a fistful of carnations would buy when it came time for Annabel’s
official statement. When the detectives saw
Mike tottering toward them, scowling and stitched together like a low-rent Frankenstein, they turned sheepishly and slinked
off.

Heat roared in his face, in his chest, in the mouths of both cuts as he finally reached the doorway. She was on the bed, her
skin pale and smooth, her hair lying limp against her scalp. One of her hands moved self-consciously toward her face but froze
halfway up from the sheet, the tiny, instinctive gesture rending him. He gripped the door stile, wheezing against the pain,
the two of them drinking in the sight of each other. Her father faded from the room like an apparition before Mike had even
registered his presence. Mike couldn’t take his eyes off her, couldn’t move; he was frozen in pain and ecstasy.

‘You cut your hair,’ Annabel said.

She mustered a smile, then immediately started crying, the sight sending him, finally, into motion. He pressed his face to
the top of her hair, breathing her in, the scent of her still there, deep beneath the iodine and dried sweat. A nurse was
suddenly at his side, talking at them with great agitation, but he wasn’t processing her words.

Annabel hovered her fingers above his scars. He parted her gown, checked her bruised skin, the line of the wound. He felt
helpless and grateful and full of rage, the emotions cycling through him like a tornado.

Annabel turned her pale face up at him, and he thumbed a tear from her cheek. ‘Let’s go get our daughter,’ she said.

The nurse came in then at full volume, ‘You are not going
anywhere
with that nicked artery, Mrs. Wingate.’ She wheeled on Mike. ‘And you. You’d best march back up that hall and get horizontal.
And you’re due for some Percocet.’

‘Can’t take it,’ Mike said. ‘I have to drive.’

‘
Drive
?’

Annabel said, ‘Go.’

He kissed her softly on the mouth and walked out.

Shep was waiting in the hall, slumped with his shoulders against the wall like a Chicago gangster.

Mike said, ‘Can you get me some ibuprofen?’

‘How much?’

‘A million milligrams.’

Shep put a hand across his back, and they started for the elevator. Mike said, ‘You got a car?’

‘What kind you want?’

‘No, Shep. I want to
borrow
yours.’

Shep pulled the keys from his pocket. ‘It’s not a Pinto.’ He plunked them in Mike’s hand. ‘With your driving record, I’m just
sayin’.’

Shep leaned over the counter at the nurses’ station and swiped a bottle of Advil from the back shelf. Mike swallowed six pills
dry, and Shep shoved the bottle into the pocket of his scrubs, along with something else. Mike saw the furry white arm protruding
and smiled.

Riding down in the elevator, Shep nodded at the bruises covering Mike’s torso. ‘What you did for your family . . .’ He shook
his head with admiration.

‘You idiot,’ Mike said. ‘I learned it from you.’

The doors dinged open, and they walked across the lobby and outside, the breeze reminding Mike that he was, inanely, bare-chested.

The ’67 Shelby Mustang was waiting across the lot, spit-shined, the wide grille sneering. Shep said, ‘Gassed up and ready
to go.’

A town car eased up to the curb nearby, and a white-haired man in a gray linen suit emerged quickly, waving at Mike and hurrying
over to catch them. He had to walk briskly to match their pace.

‘Mr Wingate?’ he said. ‘I came immediately to offer our condolences about this terrible situation.’

‘You are . . ?’ Mike asked.

‘Now that Brian McAvoy has been detained for his egregious crimes, I am the senior trustee of Deer Creek Tribal Enterprises,
Inc. And I come here on behalf of the board to tell you that we had no knowledge of any of Mr McAvoy’s indiscretions. And
that we cared for your great-grandmother at the end of her life. I knew her personally, in fact. She wanted for nothing. If
there’s any way we can assist you in this transition or anything you need—’