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her eyelids, an image that slowly sharpened and came into full focus with the clarity of a Polaroid photo developing.
    A funeral home. Stanley in his casket. Arms crossed on his chest. A carnation in the lapel of his omnipresent brown suit.
    Stanley dead. She could see it. Absolutely and once and for all.
    Corrine felt Buddy’s breath coming in shorter and shorter bursts on the side of her neck and then something else, a tremor from deep inside her that followed its own demands, and she was suddenly wet, Corrine squeezing her eyes tighter, carrying the image of Stanley in his casket with her as Buddy moved in and out and said her name over and over again, her body suddenly taking over, running ahead of her and crashing in an orgasm that was every bit as histrionic as the one she’d been preparing to fake for her lawfully-wedded husband.

FOUR
    THE AFTERNOON LIGHT WAS CLEAR and unsparing and reminded Ben Decovic of the lighting at a line-up. It set its own terms, requiring you to look closely, and then waited for the rest of you to catch up and recognize who or what was suspect.
    Decovic U-turned the cruiser at the county line and approached the city limits and a sign reading
    WELCOME TO MAGNOLIA BEACH, SC
    “The Other Myrtle Beach.”
    More boomtown boosterism.
    The sign was new, the brainchild of the Magnolia Beach Tourist Bureau and City Council. The same one was planted at each of the city’s compass points, the slogan duplicated on the home page of the city’s website as well as on the borders of the brochures and flyers funneled through hundreds of travel agencies across the country.
    He’d heard someone say the bureau and council were working to fund a series of commercials to be run on the major networks.
    He’d been living and working in Magnolia Beach for ten months.
    At the time, it seemed as good a place as any to start over.
    Decovic followed Ocean Drive into North Shore, one of the city’s oldest neighborhoods. North Shore had yet to be trammeled by the development mania. It was hit and miss middle class, most of the houses built in the forties and fifties with generous lots by current standards and filled with magnolia, pine, and live oaks. The neighborhood reminded Ben of a radio station whose signal wavered in and out of focus. He drove past blocks of homes maintained in a time-warp Norman Rockwell respectability, bordered by others sliding toward a low-rent destiny straight out of Erskine Caldwell.
    The light followed him.
    His fingers twitched on the steering wheel. He reached up and adjusted the visor.
    What’s there and what’s not, he said to himself. Keep the line between each clear. That’s all for now. Enough for now.
    He glanced down at his left hand and the pale blue ink smudge on the inside of his wrist.
    Decovic passed a scattering of home-based small businesses. A welding shop. Florist. Lawnmower repair. Sewing and alterations. Second-hand clothes and used appliances. A corner grocery. A bait and tackle shop.
    He was the first to respond to the call from the Bull’s Eye.
    Edwin, the owner, was waiting for him outside in the oyster-shell parking lot. Flanked by a couple of muddy pickups and pampered muscle cars, he waved at Ben and then glanced back at the bar’s entrance. True to its name, the entire front of the building was haphazardly papered in fading shooting-range targets, most of which were trembling or flapping in a steady ocean-laced March wind.
    “The problem here, Edwin?” Ben said.
    “See for yourself.” Edwin ran his hand over his head and stepped away from the door.
    The inside of the Bull’s Eye was steeped in a murky light. Next to the cash register a cheap plastic boombox cranked out early Metallica. Ben nodded at the regulars lining the bar. Most returned the greeting, but a couple made a point of turning their backs.
    “Down there,” Edwin said, then ducked behind the bar to serve up new orders.
    A man circled one of the small tables fronting the long pool