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strength, as though attacking a slab of meat on a butcher block.
     
    THAT AFTERNOON I went into Fay Harback’s office without knocking. “I just left St. Pat’s. Go down there and look at what your trained goon did to Johnny American Horse,” I said.
    “I know all about it,” she replied.
    “No, you don’t. McComb used a blackjack on him, for God’s sake. Without provocation.”
    “That’s what you say. Both detectives tell a different story.”
    “McComb came on to Amber Finley. She told him to take a walk, so he tore Johnny up. That’s what happened.”
    “American Horse is a violent man. Quit pretending he’s not.”
    “You ran on a platform of personal integrity. You’re a big disappointment, Fay.”
    “At least I’m not an ex-prosecutor who became a hump for any criminal with a checkbook.”
    She was standing now, her nostrils white-rimmed, her throat streaked with color.
    “ Adios ,” I said.
    “I didn’t mean that,” she said at my back.
     
    I WALKED ACROSS the grass, through the shade trees on the courthouse lawn, toward my office at the intersection, my blood singing in my ears. Parked by the curb was a dented, paint-skinned pickup truck with slat sides bolted onto the sides of the bed. Wyatt Dixon lay on the hood, wearing aviator shades, his shoulders propped against the windshield, his fingers knitted behind his head. The muscles in his upper arms were as big and hard-looking as cantaloupes. He wore dark Wranglers brand new from the box and an elastic-ribbed, form-fitting T-shirt stamped with the words S EX , D RUGS , F LATT ’ N ’ S CRUGGS . He pulled a matchstick from his mouth. “I hear that Indian boy got his ass kicked,” he said.
    “Get a job,” I said.
    “Want to stick it to Darrel McComb? Got some information might hep you do that, counselor.”
    “I doubt it.”
    He sat up on the hood, hooking his arms around his knees. “Before I seen the light and changed my ways, I was in the Aryan Brotherhood. The only trouble with the A.B. is it’s infiltrated. Know how come that is, Brother Holland?”
    Don’t let him set the hook, I told myself. But there was no doubt about Wyatt Dixon’s knowledge of criminality and his insight into evil. He was a genuine sociopath, totally without conscience or remorse; but unlike his psychological compatriots, Wyatt enjoyed sharing the secrets of the inner sanctum.
    “Spit it out,” I said.
    “Sometimes the G likes to employ folks that ain’t on the computer.”
    “Such as yourself.”
    “Not me, counselor. I wouldn’t get near them government motherfuckers with a manure fork. I’m just saying Brother McComb was not unknown to the fallen angels of backstreet bars. Also had a way of spreading money around when some work needed doin’.”
    “When you can clean the collard greens out of your mouth, we might have ourselves a conversation.”
    He unhooked his aviator sunglasses from his ears and rubbed a place next to his nose with his thumbnail. Perhaps because of the sky overhead, his eyes had taken on a degree of color, a grayish-blue, with pupils like burnt matchheads. He picked up a battered work hat, one with dents in its domed crown, and fitted it on his head. “About ten years ago Darrel McComb offered me five thousand dollars to do a job on a man—the tools could be of my choosing. Believe that?” he said.
    “No.”
    “Don’t blame you. If you seen what I seen of the world, you wouldn’t be no different from me. Study on that the next time you and Miss Temple are at the church house,” he said.
    “There’s a parking ticket under your windshield wiper.”
    “I declare, this life is sure fraught with trouble, ain’t it?” he said. He wadded up the ticket and tossed it on the sidewalk.
    You didn’t get the last word with Wyatt Dixon.
     
    I WAS TIRED of feeling like the odd man out, somehow allowed to know only the edges of a situation that even a morally insane person like Dixon seemed privy to. I called the Phoenix