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know them. But not well. You might say no one knows ’em well. I met them through the agency a ways back. They ask you to locate their missing animal?”
    â€œYep.”
    â€œSomething to do with a fella name of Dennis Reach?”
    â€œYep.”
    He said, “He doesn’t have the dog.”
    â€œNope.”
    â€œIt’s a swindle gets run out here sometimes. Country places.”
    â€œI know.”
    â€œHow much you into them for?”
    â€œThink of a number. It’s less than that,” I said.
    He thought about it a moment, sucking his long front teeth, then nodded.
    â€œYou want to borrow one of the trucks?”
    â€œI was hoping you’d offer.”
    â€œI’ll get the key,” he said. “But it’ll cost you.”
    â€œName it.”
    â€œA few hours with your little girl. It’ll make my Eun Hee happy.”
    I said, “She was kind of wanting to tag along, but I bet she’ll go for it.”
    â€œGood. She’s a good girl.”
    â€œYes, she is.”
    â€œAnother thing.”
    â€œName that, too.”
    â€œThe dog, you’ll bring her to me first?”
    â€œHe doesn’t have the dog.”
    â€œI know,” Lew said. “They never have the dog. It’s what the whole deal is about. If he does have her, though.”
    â€œFor a checkup?”
    â€œSomething like that. You can count on her not being fixed or vaccinated. That wouldn’t exactly be the Cleaveses’ style. The last thing we need is a surplus of stray pits roaming our neighborhoods. We had a boy attacked up here not long ago, in Tolu. Thing tore through him like a buzz saw. Kid lost an arm.”
    â€œI’ll see what I can do,” I said.
    â€œI’ll owe you one,” he said, and then the two of us walked together back down the property.
    The day got hotter. I don’t know how it managed it, but it did. We were having that global warming, probably. Someday—and someday soon—the earth would bake for good, the waterways empty, the glaciers collapse beneaththe weight of our error. I reflected on that sometimes, as I reflected on the part I’d played in it all during my time as a coal miner and more generally as a person who liked cheap electricity. I guess you could say I was ashamed. I liked to think others would be ashamed, too—those fools in government and public life who denied anything was amiss—but cash money beat shame every time, and by a span, too.
    I stopped thinking about the end of the world and followed Lew into a detached four-bay garage, whereupon we laid eyes on part of the problem: a pair of oversized Dodge gas-guzzlers. There were dog crates welded in their beds, though both were basically big enough to transport circus elephants. I refrained from comment. My own truck wasn’t exactly a Matchbox car. Forgive us, America. We rural folk have stupidly large vehicles in our blood.
    â€œI ain’t seen that black one before,” I said.
    Lew nodded.
    â€œI’ve reached that age when the people in your life start dying off, leave you things. Money.”
    For a moment, both of us were thinking about the woman in the farmhouse up the hill. Neither of us looked at each other. Then Lew shrugged. He took a key ring off a pegboard on the wall and gave it to me. He unlatched a container crate in the corner and scrounged up some equipment: a pair of heavy leather gloves and a telescoping metal rod fixed with a retractable noose.
    â€œOne more thing,” he said. “I’ve got some pretty good tranquilizers in my kit. You want them?”
    â€œNo, thanks. I’m plenty relaxed.”
    â€œEver been dog-bit, son? I mean, really bit? Pit’s bite tops out in the neighborhood of two hundred thirty-eight PSI. How much you weigh?”
    â€œYou know what, I think I’ll take those tranqs.”
    After a while, I had my kit together, and Lew and I went back to the house,