“Kept what up?” said Gil, and rubbed his tongue over his chipped tooth.

“Throwing.”

“Not really.”

Boucicaut jerked the thrower out of the floor. “Your old man’s?” he said.

Gil nodded.

“What’s it worth these days, a blade like this?”

“I’m not sure.”

Boucicaut ran the edge lightly across the ball of his thumb. “Jesus.” A red line seeped onto the skin, taking the shape of a lipsticked and unsmiling mouth. Boucicaut licked it off and returned to the deer, using Gil’s knife. He sliced easily through the white tendon at the back of a hind leg; the long purple hamstring slid free.

How to hamstring a man, thought Gil: dive, roll, come up behind, slice just like that and just there. His father had taught him that with rubber knives, not far from where he now sat, in a trailer too, and with a yard outside and under the same sort of scudding clouded sky; but it had all changed.

“Sure knew how to make ’em, your old man,” said Boucicaut. He pushed himself up with a grunt, his stomach hanging over his belt, and opened the fridge. “Switch to beer?”

It was eight in the morning, Gil had a headache and still hadn’t eaten, but he said yes to Boucicaut. And thought, yes, wouldn’t it be nice if Boucicaut took over, took charge, took care of him, the way the catcher does the thinking for the pitcher.

Boucicaut took out four Labatt’s Fifties and handed him two, leaving a red smear on the fridge door. “Some watch you’re wearing, Gilly,” he said, Gil’s sleeve sliding up as he reached for the bottles.

“No one calls me that anymore.”

“No?”

“No.”

Boucicaut knelt over the deer. He stuck his hand in the rib cage, twisted, ripped out the heart. Then he whistled. A big black mongrel appeared in the doorway and Boucicaut tossed it to him. The dog caught it in the air and ran off. Boucicaut’s eyes fastened again on Gil’s car.

“No one calls you Gilly?”

“No.”

“What do they call you? Mr. Renard?”

“Some do.”

“Some do.” Boucicaut shook his head. “You made it, didn’t you, old pal? Went out into the big bad world and made good.”

Gil didn’t want to think about how he’d done. For the second time, he asked: “What are you up to these days?”

“This and that,” said Boucicaut.

“Looks like you’re making out all right,” Gil said.

Boucicaut stopped whatever he was doing inside the deer carcass, the thrower out of sight. He gave Gil a look, the same combative look, Gil supposed, that he used to see through the bars of the catcher’s mask when the game was on the line. But now it had a menacing effect he didn’t remember; maybe it was just the black beard. “Is that meant to be funny?” Boucicaut said.

“You’ve got a truck. You’ve got this place.”

Something snapped inside the carcass. “The truck’s a rusted-out piece of shit with two hundred thousand miles on it. And this pigsty isn’t even mine. Belongs to my old lady.”

Gil couldn’t stop his gaze from sliding toward the bed against the back wall, empty and unmade.

“Don’t get a hard-on, Gilly. She won’t be back till August.”

“Gil.”

Boucicaut tilted a beer to his lips, swallowed half of it. “Ask me why, Gil.”

“Why what?”

“Why she won’t be back till August.”

“Why?”

“ ’Cause she’s in the pen.”

Gil didn’t say anything.

“Ask what for.”

“Just tell me, Co.”

“No one calls me that either.”

“What do they call you?”

“Len.” Boucicaut finished his first bottle, set it on the table, coming close to Gil. Gil heard him breathing, the heavy breathing of a fat, middle-aged man, not a big-league catcher. That didn’t make sense. “It’s my name, right?” said Boucicaut.

“Right.”

“Did you know that Boucicaut was a knight in the Crusades?”

“No.”

“A real one, not like Robin Hood. A college chick told me that.”

“You went to college?”

“That’s a good one. This was a college chick I picked up in a bar.” Boucicaut started on the second bottle. “You haven’t finished asking me.”

“Asking what?”

“What they got my old lady for.”

“Speeding?” Gil, his first beer drained too, was feeling lightheaded.

“Another joke. You’re out-jokin’ me, old pal.”

“I give up, then.”

“Sellin’ her tail.”

“They locked her up for that?”

“She was workin’ the ski places. Not a bad idea-that’s where the money is. Hurt their image, though, so they went after her. Image is the whole fuckin’ deal with those assholes.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry for me. I miss the money is all.”

The mongrel returned to the door. Boucicaut threw out another red organ.

They emptied their second beers, had a few more. Boucicaut finished with the deer, bagged the meat, put it in the fridge; then kicked the remains outside, rolled up the newspaper, stuffed it in the woodstove. “What day is it?” he said, wiping the thrower on his jeans and handing it to Gil.

For a moment, Gil wasn’t sure. Was that what it meant to be unemployed, you lost track of time? Then he pictured his schedule, laid out in boxes, now demolished. “Thursday,” he said.

“Thursday,” Boucicaut said. “Sale on ammo, down at Sicotte’s. Think I’ll run down.” He stepped outside, crossed the yard, stopped by the 325i. “Wouldn’t mind a little test drive.”

“Want me to drive you there, you mean?”

“More like drive myself. Unless you don’t trust me.”

Gil went outside, gave him the keys. He’d trusted Boucicaut since he was five years old. “Be right back,” Boucicaut said. He opened the car door, saw the trophy lying on the passenger seat. “What’s that?”

“Nothing,” Gil said. “My kid’s.” He reached inside, took it out.

“You’ve got a kid?”

“Yeah.”

“Me too. A couple.”

“In school?”

“If it’s really Thursday.”

“They must have left early.”

Boucicaut looked puzzled.

“For school,” Gil explained. “They were gone when we got here.”

“They don’t live here, for Christ’s sake. They’re with their ma.”

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