Niceville

was something evil … living up there.”
    Coker followed his look.
    “You mean Crater Sink?”
    “I guess.”
    “Something evil lives up there, that it?”
    “You don’t like the place yourself, Coker. I heard you talking to Merle about it.”
    A silence.
    “Well, maybe I don’t.”
    He threw his cigarette onto the road, lit another, sucked the smoke in deep.
    “Hell, maybe I
am
getting meaner since I got here. Maybe something came outta Crater Sink one cold winter night and slithered into my ear and it’s eating through my brain right now. You think?”
    Another pause while Danziger thought it over.
    “If all it had to eat was your brain, Coker, then the fucker died of starvation a while back.”
    “Fuck you, Charlie.”
    “Thank you, Coker. And fuck you too.”
    “Well, one thing,” said Danziger, after a another long pause and in a thoughtful tone, “I don’t wanna shoot poor young Twyla in there without we have a good reason. I mean, why add to my sins?”
    Across the street the weed-whacker episode was ending, as it had to, in tears. Somebody called their names.
    “Charlie. Coker.”
    They turned around and saw Twyla Littlebasket framed in the open door, her powder blue semi-porno hygienist’s outfit askew, half the buttons all undone, her hair in a tangle, and her pretty nose as red as a rosebud.
    “You guys got a minute?” she said, her voice hoarse from crying and her big brown eyes rimmed with runny mascara. She looked like that sexy Betty Boop doll, only with two black eyes.
    “We sure do, sweetie,” said Coker.
    “We need to talk,” said Twyla.
    Danziger and Coker looked at each other.
    “Oh shit,” said Danziger.

Lemon and Rainey Meet Again
    Beau and Nick stood back from the bed, letting Lemon take the lead. Nick was wishing that Kate were there. She still hadn’t called back.
    Two young doctors, one a black woman in a Muslim head scarf and the other a Somali man with horn-rimmed glasses and a disapproving frown, stood far enough apart from everyone else to signal their professional objection to this intrusion.
    The boy was on his back, skeletal, his lips cracked, his pale cheeks raw from the sheets, but his large brown eyes were wide open and he was looking at Lemon Featherlight with a sweet, slightly drugged expression that was touching in its vulnerable affection for Lemon Featherlight.
    Lemon was leaning over the bed, holding Rainey’s hand in his.
    “There are some men here with questions, Rainey. Can you think about answering some questions?”
    “I … was awake … some of the time. I could hear people in the room. I remember you would come and talk to me. I smelled smoke. It smelled nice. I tried to answer you but I couldn’t make my voice work. I couldn’t move. But you were there. Then you were gone. Then everything would go away again.”
    So much for catatonia
, Nick was thinking, glancing over at the docs, who had their heads well down and were busily whispering to each other in magical medical mystery words.
    The boy was still speaking.
    “I want to see my mom,” he said.
    “I know. You love your mom.”
    “Is she here?”
    “Not here, no,” said Lemon, refusing to lie to the boy.
    “Soon?”
    “She loves you very much,” said Lemon. “Can I ask you an important question, Rainey?”
    The kid blinked up at Lemon.
    “Yes, Lemon,” the boy said, yawning.
    “When you woke up, was someone in this room?”
    A silence, and then a whisper.
    “You mean, just now?”
    “Yes.”
    “A man was here.”
    “Did you know him?”
    “His name is Merle.”
    “Merle?”
    “Yes.”
    “Was he a nice man?”
    Rainey hesitated, as if he didn’t know how to form an answer to that.
    “He wasn’t mean.”
    “Did he frighten you?”
    “No. He woke me up.”
    “He woke you up?”
    “Yes. He called me.”
    “That’s all? He just called you?”
    Rainey tried to nod, didn’t have the muscle tone for it yet. He was looking at weeks of therapy just to sit up straight, Nick figured. Kate would see that he got it. Kate would see that Rainey got everything he needed. Under Kate’s care, Rainey’s estate was in better shape than the year before. Rainey Teague was a very wealthy young boy.
    “He just called my name a couple of times. I heard him and I … came back.”
    “Came back? Do you remember where you were?”
    “I was at a farm.”
    Lemon glanced over his shoulder at Nick, and then back to Rainey again.
    “You mean like a park?”
    Rainey