“You know my cousin Leon? He in Rahway now, longtime, but he used to run those corners down near Baxter Terrace. His son Derek was wanting to get ahead, put some work in. Smart boy, too. Going to Rutgers, wanted to be a teacher or some shit. But he got a little one now, a baby mama, too. He needed cash, you know? He came to me, wanted me to help him out, bring him along a little. So I gave him a shot.”

“You sent him down there?”

“Set him up good. Route, expenses, every damn thing. He had a cash advance for the first shipment, prove we were serious.”

“How much money?”

Mikey twisted a thick gold ring on one finger. “A lot, man. More than I could afford.”

“How much?”

“Three hundred fifty K. I threw in some iron, too; as a gift. Island boys love their guns.”

“Why didn’t you send the twins?”

“With their jackets? Some cop pull them over, think he hit the lottery. Derek was clean. No sheet on him.”

“What happened?”

“Some shit I still ain’t figured out. He got pulled over in some cracker town down there. They say he drew on a deputy, but that’s bullshit. They capped his ass and took my money.”

“You know this?”

“Much as I need to. I ain’t known Derek to ever carry, but he might have been, I don’t know. Might have got nervous, cash in the car, dealing with some niggas he didn’t know. But shoot it out with a cop? Nah. He ain’t got the stones.”

“Maybe he got scared.”

“Maybe he did. Maybe it happened exactly like they said. But ain’t nobody said shit about the money yet. And it was in all the papers down there. They impounded the car, probably ripped the thing apart. If they found the money, some motherfucker took it.”

“Or they’re holding it and not telling anybody. Waiting to see who comes looking for it.”

Mikey shook his head. “There ain’t no DEA, no FBI involved in this. If there was, I’d have heard. This is a bunch of redneck Confederate-flag-flying small-town motherfuckers. Whether it was one motherfucker or two, or the whole goddamn town, fact remains. Somebody stole my money.”

“Hard to believe you sent that boy down there on his own like that.”

“Best way to do it. Down there, two niggas in a car get pulled over for sure. Cash was in a panel under the trunk. All he had to do was leave the car where we told him, then rent another, drive back. Didn’t have to deal with them any more than that.”

“So it went bad. Nothing you can do about it. Walk away.”

“Can’t take that kind of loss. Not now. Too much shit going on. I need that money or I need that powder so I can sell it and make that money back. Now I ain’t getting any product out of those Haitians, because that money never got to them, and they not gonna believe me when I tell them what happened. Or care, even if they did. So I need that money.”

Morgan got up. The Vicodin was kicking in, easing the tension in his stomach, taking the edge off the pain. He went to the window, bent the blinds, looked out. It was raining lightly, the parking lot shiny with it. The Suburban hadn’t moved.

“If the cops do have that money,” he said, “they’re using it to build a case. No way you’re going to get it back. And if someone stole it, they stole it. Either way, it’s gone.”

“If some nigga broke into my house and stole three hundred fifty K of my money, you think I’d let it go? Say, ‘what the fuck, it’s gone, forget about it’? Just because that shit happened in Florida doesn’t mean it’s any less fucked up. If I start letting people steal from me, I might as well pack this shit up right now. Or let some motherfucker put a bullet in my head, get it over with.”

“I still say walk away.”

“I can’t, dawg. I need that money. I need you to go get it for me.”

Morgan looked at him, then at C-Love.

“This shit can’t stand,” Mikey said. “I need that money. That’s my money and I’m going to get it back, whatever I need to do. I don’t have no choice.”

“I do,” Morgan said.

“You do. But you ain’t even asked me the terms yet.”

“Terms?”

“Three hundred and fifty K,” Mikey said. “No way whoever took it could have spent it yet. All the shit in the news down there, they’d be laying low. So somebody dug a hole and buried it till things calm down. You find it, keep a third. You find the whole three fifty, you keep an even hundred twenty. That fair?”

A hundred and twenty thousand, Morgan thought. Combined with what was in the safe deposit, it might be enough for the treatment, maybe enough to get him started in another town. More money than he’d ever had at one time before. Might ever have again.

“Well?” Mikey said.

“I don’t know anything about the South. D.C.’s the farthest I’ve ever been.”

“You don’t need to know shit about the South. Like I said, that’s a backwater cracker town, man. They still burning crosses and fucking their sisters. I’ve already got someone looking into things down there.”

“Who?”

“Derek’s shorty. She went down there to bring the body back. She ain’t too happy with the way things played out, but there it is. He took the chances. She don’t want shit to do with me, but she’s looking into things, seeing who’s who, what they say happened, all that shit. Maybe she gets us some names, too.”

“And then?”

“You go down there, straighten that shit out, get my money, and bring it back here. Take your cut. Then we clear.”

“You make it sound easy.”

“It ain’t nothing you haven’t seen before, dealt with. It’s the same thieving bullshit, man. That’s all it is.”

Morgan scratched his elbow, looked at C-Love.

“You’re the only one I can trust with this,” Mikey said. “If you get down there and it don’t work out, then it don’t work out. I’ll pay you for your time.”

“How much?”

“Twenty K.”

“I’ll need to think on this.”

“All right. But one other thing. If you do find the motherfucker that got my money?”

“Yeah?”

“You need to put him in the ground. Cop, sheriff, judge, mayor, whatever. I don’t give a fuck. Put him in the ground.”

The machinery clicked, hummed, and Morgan slid into darkness. The plastic table was cold through the thin hospital gown. Wraparound safety glasses blocked his view, but he could sense the walls of the tunnel closing in around him. A steady hum grew louder, then faded. The table buzzed, slid him farther into the tunnel, stopped. Then the hum again, rising and falling like something in a science fiction movie.

He tried to slow his breathing, fight the gathering fear. He counted his breaths as the table juddered, moved, and the hum rose again. Four more times and then the last hum faded and the table slid back out of the tunnel. He was slick with sweat.

“Take your time getting up,” a voice said. “You might be a little dizzy.”

He blinked as the glasses were drawn away. A black woman in flowered hospital scrubs stood beside the table.

“All done,” she said. “How do you feel?”

He sat up. The room was dim, light coming through a window in the far wall. He could see two technicians behind the glass, neither of them looking at him.

“I’m fine,” he said.

“You can get dressed now.”

He went into the small anteroom, the tiles cold under his bare feet, pulled on his clothes. Soft music was being piped in, some white girl singing about rain on her wedding day.

When he was dressed, he went out to the main desk, stood at the counter. The woman in flowered scrubs was typing on a computer.

“You’re all set, Mr. Morgan,” she said. “Dr. Kinzler will get the results this afternoon.”

“How do I pay?”

“We’ll bill you,” she said. She peered at the screen. “Are you still at this same address?” She gave the name of the hotel.

“I may be moving,” he said.

“I’m sure we’ll catch up to you,” she said without looking up. “We always do.”

Outside the hospital, he used his cell to call a cab. He hadn’t wanted to drive the Monte Carlo around Newark in daylight. Around him, a half-dozen people, some in scrubs with no coats, smoked cigarettes, shuffled in the cold. None of them seemed to notice him.