Velocity

weary, and cynical specimen. Maybe this was one of those days when you should stay away from roulette because every bet on black would ensure a red number.
    “Mr. Wiles?”
    “Yeah. That’s me.”
    “William Wiles?”
    “Billy, yes.”
    Sergeant Napolitino shifted his attention back and forth between Billy and the living room behind him.
    The sergeant’s face remained expressionless. His eyes revealed neither apprehension nor even disquiet, nor as much as wariness, but were only watchful.
    “Mr. Wiles, would you mind stepping out to my car with me?”
    The sheriffs-department cruiser stood in the driveway.
    “You want to come in?” Billy asked.
    “Not necessarily, sir. Just to the car for a minute or two, if you don’t mind.”
    This almost sounded like a request, but it wasn’t.
    “Sure,” Billy said. “All right.”
    A second patrol car pulled off the county blacktop, into the driveway, and halted ten feet behind the first.
    As Billy reached for the knob to pull the front door shut after him, Sergeant Napolitino said, “Why don’t you leave it open, sir.”
    The deputy’s tone of voice did not signify either a question or a suggestion. Billy left the door open.
    Napolitino clearly expected him to lead the way.
    Billy stepped over the pint bottle, past the spilled Seagram’s.
    Although the puddle was at least fifteen minutes old, less than half of it had evaporated in the heat. In the still air, the porch stank of whiskey.
    Billy went down the steps and onto the lawn. He didn’t pretend to be unsteady. He wasn’t a good enough actor to play drunk, and any attempt to do so would call his sincerity into doubt.
    He intended to rely on his potent breath to suggest functional inebriation and to give credence to the story that he intended to tell.
    As a deputy got out of the second patrol car, Billy recognized him. Sam Sobieski. He also was a sergeant, and perhaps five years older than Sergeant Napolitino.
    Sobieski visited the tavern once in a while, usually with a date. He came for the bar food more than to drink, and two beers were his limit.
    Billy didn’t know him well. They weren’t friends, but knowing him at all was better than dealing with two strangers.
    On the front lawn, Billy turned to look back at the house.
    Napolitino was still on the porch. He managed to cross to the steps and begin to descend without fully turning his back on either the open door or the windows, yet appearing unconcerned all the while.
    Now he took the lead and brought Billy around the patrol car, putting it between them and the house.
    Sergeant Sobieski joined them. “Hi, Billy.”
    “Sergeant Sobieski. How’re you doin’?”
    Everybody called a bartender by his first name. In some cases, you knew familiarity was expected in return; in this case not.
    “Yesterday was chili day, and I forgot,” said Sobieski.
    Billy said, “Ben makes the best chili.”
    “Ben is a chili god,” Sobieski said.
    The car was a lodestone to the sun, scorching the air around it and no doubt blistering to the touch.
    First on the scene, Napolitino took charge: “Mr. Wiles, are you all right?”
    “Sure. I’m okay. This is about my screw-up, I guess.”
    “You called 911,” Napolitino said.
    “I meant to call 411.1 told Rosalyn Chan.”
    “You didn’t tell her until she called you back.”
    “I hung up so fast I didn’t realize a connection had been made.”
    “Mr. Wiles, are you to any degree under duress?”
    “Duress? Hey, no. You mean was somebody holding a gun to my head when I was on the phone with Rosalyn? Wow. That’s a pretty wild idea. No offense, I know that sort of thing happens, but not to me.”
    Billy cautioned himself to give short answers. Longer ones could sound like nervous babbling.
    “You called in sick to work?” Napolitino asked.
    “Yeah.” Grimacing but not too dramatically, he put one hand on his abdomen. “I’ve got this stomach thing.”
    He hoped they could smell his breath. He himself could smell it. If they could smell his breath, they would think his claim of illness was a lame attempt to conceal the fact that he was on a little bit of a bender.
    “Mr. Wiles, who else lives here?”
    “No one. Just me. I live alone.”
    “Is anyone in the house right now?”
    “No. No one.”
    “No friend or member of the family?”
    “No. Not even a dog. Sometimes I think about getting a dog, but I never do.”
    Scalpels were not sharper than Sergeant Napolitino’s dark eyes. “Sir, if