exertion-heated chest and the raindrops caught in his eyelashes.

He splashed out of the wading pool and took the shovel to the sod of the park’s lawn, picking an arbitrary spot and digging inefficiently and hysterically, the bent shovel tip twisting with each stroke.

Suddenly strong hands were on his shoulders, another set prizing the shovel from his hands. He looked up and blinked his eyes clear, looking into the face of two young Asian police officers. They were bulky from the Kevlar vests they wore under their rain slickers, with kind and exasperated expressions on their faces.

“Sir,” the one holding the shovel said, “what are you doing?”

Alan breathed himself into a semblance of composure. “I… ” he started, then trailed off. Krishna was watching from his porch, grinning ferociously, holding a cordless phone.

The creature that had howled at Krishna before scrambled for purchase in Alan’s chest. Alan averted his eyes from Krishna’s shit-eating, 911-calling grin. He focused on the cap of the officer in front of him, shrouded in a clear plastic shower cap to keep its crown dry. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It was a—a dog. A stray, or maybe a runaway. A little Scottie dog, it jumped down the center of the fountain there and disappeared. I looked down and thought it had found a tunnel that caved in on it.”

The officer peered at him from under the brim of his hat, dubiousness writ plain on his young, good-looking face. “A tunnel?”

Alan wiped the rain from his eyes, tried to regain his composure, tried to find his charm. It wasn’t to be found. Instead, every time he reached for something witty and calming, he saw the streaks of blood and torn clothing, dark on the loose soil of the fountain’s center, and no sooner had he dispelled those images than they were replaced with Krishna, sneering, saying, “Lost another one, huh?” He trembled and swallowed a sob.

“I think I need to sit down,” he said, as calmly as he could, and he sank slowly to his knees. The hands on his biceps let him descend.

“Sir, do you live nearby?” one of the cops asked, close in to his ear. He nodded into his hands, which he’d brought up to cover his face.

“Across the street,” he said. They helped him to his feet and supported him as he tottered, weak and heaving, to his porch. Krishna was gone once they got there.

 Prev. P 57/295 next