“Of course. Do you know if we got anywhere with the Palm Beach PO box for the fund?”

  “You mean like a street address? Not so far.”

  “Well, keep at it.” I made for the door.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To see a man about a dog.”

  Lizzy rolled her eyes, and I walked out. In the Jeep, I headed down Route 1 until I got to Okeechobee Boulevard, then I began the long schlep west—such was the way of east–west travel in South Florida. I crawled along until I got to the wrong side of the turnpike, then traffic sped up just as I needed to go no further.

  I pulled into the strip mall and around two sheriff’s cars parked outside the Chinese restaurant. I stopped outside Sally’s Check Cashing and Pawn. When I stepped inside the store, the little bell rang. The girl in the Perspex booth looked up from her phone with an expression that suggested she could cash a check or not; it wasn’t going to be the highlight of her day either way. I waved and continued past as she shifted her attention back to her phone.

  A pawn shop always reminded me of someone’s garage—full of the stuff you collected through life that you didn’t really want anymore—but without the musty garage smell. Sally was sitting on a stool behind the counter at the far end of the store, using a loupe to inspect gems like a jeweler.

  “I’m loving those Patriots,” he said to the gemstone as I approached.

  “They say the Jets are in a rebuild.”

  “Aach.”

  “That’s more rebuilds than a sandcastle.”

  “Aach.”

  He took the loupe away from his eye. “You come here to give me a stroke?”

  “A winning season will do that.”

  “Then I’m safe, ain’t I?”

  “How are you, Sal?”

  “I’m still ticking, kid, so it’s all good.”

  “I see a couple PBSO vehicles outside the Chinese.”

  “It’s what they eat when there’s no donut shops around.”

  “Nothing to do with you.”

  Sal gave me his nicotine-stained grin. “Why would it have anything to do with me?”

  I shrugged.

  “So what can I do you for? You want an air fryer?”

  “No, Sal, I don’t want an air fryer.”

  “I’m getting drowned in the damned things.”

  “Why?”

  “Who knows? Maybe people figure out they can cook oven fries in the oven.”

  “Genius. Actually, I was wondering what you knew about a guy called Priestly.”

  Sally pouted and pushed the solitary hair across the top of his head. “Rings a vague bell.”

  “Global Boxing Council.”

  “Yeah, right. What are you into, kid?”

  I told him about Johnny Cabrini and the fund that wasn’t funding anything.

  “Good money in cases like that?”

  “It’s a favor for Mick. He’s a buddy of this Johnny guy, and the guy is really doing it hard.”

  “Don’t know many boxers who aren’t.”

  “You know many boxers?”

  “Not many good ones. But the GBC, I seem to recall them doing a fair bit in Orlando.”

  “Orlando?”

  “That’s what I remember, but my memory ain’t what it used to be.”

  “Me either.”

  “You in a rush?”

  “Not really.”

  “I’ll make a few calls. You pick yourself out an air fryer.”

  Sally disappeared into the back room, but I didn’t select an air fryer. Instead, I wandered over to a collection of musical instruments: a violin, several guitars, a tuba. I tried not to look at the instrument that had caught my attention, because it suddenly made me feel empty in my guts. I couldn’t quite pin down why—a saxophone is not an inherently morose thing, unless played by a musician who makes you feel like your soul’s being torn from your body. Like a persistent psychologist, the shining brass wouldn’t let me look away until I had confronted why it had drawn me over in the first place.

  This saxophone remained mute and mocked me with its silence. Mine, procured from this very store and now packed away in a box somewhere, was more than a twisted pipe with lots of holes and buttons. It represented moments lost, opportunities come and gone. I could always say that I played the saxophone because I had—a professional jazz musician had taught me enough to make the thing sound less than terrible.

  At one point, I had thought about how life would look if I walked down that path—not all that different. I wasn’t earning my living playing smokey clubs. In this dream I was still a PI who sat on a stool at Longboard Kelly’s more often than a doctor would think was healthy, but I also hung with my musical friends, felt our common language over sips of brandy, and laughed as the trumpet player stole my solo right out of my lungs. But that dream had always remained exactly that.

  There had been a time when I had dedicated my every waking thought to something. I didn’t train at football or baseball because I wanted to; I did it because it was who I was right down to my bones. Like a node in a brain or a computer in a network, part of something larger in a way that I couldn’t comprehend. When I retired I knew, like most professional athletes, that the thing I would miss most was not the winning or the losing but doing so with a group of people who were as consumed by it as I was. Folks referred to it as camaraderie, but it was even bigger than that. It was a connection to something so ethereal that it need not be explained.

  Something I had and was now gone. Something I had searched for since and never found again. Something that I would probably continue to seek out even when I didn’t know I was doing it, until I hit the realization once more that the connection was lost to me. That damn saxophone looked me in the eye, and I blinked first.

  “You already got one of them,” said Sally, his voice pulling me back into the room.

  I spun around to face him. “What? Yeah. You find something?”

  “My guys say there’s a Priestly who promotes boxing out of Orlando. Very connected, so I’m told. I got you an address.”

  “That’s great, Sal. Thanks.”

  “You all right, kid?”

  “Sal, you ever miss the old days?”

  “New York? When the mood strikes, sure. Why?”

  “Wish I knew. Just wondering what I’m doing with my life, I guess. Stupid. In a pawn shop of all places.”

  “Most logical place in the world for it. This is a place for things that are left behind, so you’re wondering about all those things you did as a young man, when everything was still possible.”

  “You ever do that?”

  “I’m human, ain’t I? But let me tell ya, it’s sleight of hand. It’s your mind playing games. Sure, I miss the old days, but when I do, it’s the days that counted for something. I remember through rose-colored glasses, don’t I? We all do. We don’t reminisce the bad stuff, the days we hurt. Those damn northern winters. I’m telling you, it’s a trick.”

  “I know. But I still fall for it.”

  “We all do. That’s what they won’t tell ya. But let me ask you, do you love your wife?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “That’s weak.”

  “With every fiber of my being.”

  “That’s cliché.”

  I frowned at him as if I didn’t know what he wanted from me. “More today than any other day, and every day in a different way.”

  “You pinch that from a song?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “All right, then. You got friends?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Are they good people?”

  “You know most of them. Salt of the earth.”

  “Do you put money in the plate?”

  “I don’t go to church.”

  “Metaphorically.”

  “I have an autopay each month for Médecins Sans Frontières and St. Jude’s.”

  “And have you tried to be your best self today?”

  “I sat on a guy’s Porsche and made him late for golf.”

  “Okay.”

  “But he wasn’t a very nice guy.”

  “Then we’ll go with yes. So I’m gonna quote Bull Durham: ‘Stop thinking, meat.’ You can’t be a brain surgeon and bat .350 for the Yankees. It’s a lie. Being a half-decent human being is hard enough. You got me?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  “You got me?”

  “Yes, Sal. I got you.”

  “All right. Now go do your thing, I got work to do.”

  “Thanks, Sal.”

  “And take an air fryer, will ya? I’m drowning in the damn things.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Whenever I am feeling lost in the great cosmos of life and at risk of being flung into the far reaches of a cold and endless universe, I find the best approach is to recalibrate my equipment by heading for the center of my own personal galaxy.

  The winter sun had dropped fast and low, and the umbrella shadows were long streaks across the courtyard, terminating at the bar where I sat with Danielle, the Lady Cassandra, and Ron. Ron and I gave up the stools shaped like our butt cheeks and moved out to the flanks with our wives in between. The view was different but no less reassuring.

  Muriel lined up the drinks: beer, vodka tonic, French champagne, beer. The fact that Mick even had French champagne amazed me the first time Cassandra ordered a glass. I had even asked Muriel if the remains had been tossed out afterward for a lack of other customers.

  “Cassandra bought the bottle and gave it to a group of tennis ladies in the courtyard when she left.”

  It wasn’t exactly Robin Hood, but it was generous, and that was the Lady Cassandra to a tee. She had a way of leveling me out, getting to the core of a problem, and calling me on my baloney in the nicest possible way. Plus she smelled good. Rich people usually do.

  Danielle was smiling at me and pulling me toward relaxed when Mick came out from the bowels of the bar with a phone at his ear.

  “Trouble,” he said to me.

  “What’s up?”

  “Johnny. Busting the place up.”

  Mick strode back inside and reappeared on our side of the bar.

  “Whose place?” I asked.

  “Tina’s.”

  Danielle frowned as I slipped from my stool. “I’m coming,” I said.

  Mick didn’t say no. Instead, he looked at Muriel, who said, “I got this.”

  I kissed Danielle and said I’d be back shortly. Ron asked if he should come, but I explained that a full army might feel a little intimidating for Tina and the girls, then I followed Mick out.

  This time he drove. I had never seen Mick drive, but I knew his car from the lot: the massive Cadillac Eldorado convertible. It was Detroit steel from bumper to bumper and drank fuel like a thirsty dragon.

  He cruised down to the Cabrini residence without speaking—I got the sense that half the reason Mick had a convertible was to minimize the chitchat while driving—and stopped in front of the house. As we crossed the lawn to the door, Tina was already opening it.

  “Mick,” she said.

  “Okay?”

  She shrugged. Mick stepped inside, and I followed, checking if Tina had any obvious bruises or abrasions.

  All I saw was a living room in disarray. The sofa was askew, and a side table had been knocked over, with its lamp on the floor, its shade crushed. The wallpaper behind Tina had a hole in it—jagged and rough, and slightly larger than a fist.

  “The girls are packing a bag,” she said. “I can’t do this anymore.”

  Mick looked crestfallen, as if he was somehow at fault, and his usual chatty demeanor eluded him, so I asked the questions.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “No, Miami, I am not okay.”

  “I mean physically. Did he hit you?”

  “No.”

  “The girls?”

  “No, he’d never.” She said it in a way that suggested she once believed it but was no longer sure.

  “So you’re leaving?”

  “For tonight. I’ll be back when the red mist fades.”

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “He just lost it.”

  “Why? What made him so angry?”

  “That’s the problem, Miami. There’s nothing. It just comes on out of nowhere. Used to be a funk, like a grumpy mood, and he’d go quiet or go out to the garage and stew. Then it turned into ranting about things, about people who were doing him wrong.”

  “Paranoia?”

  “Yeah. Now he’s screaming about me having an affair.”

  “Are you?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Sorry to be blunt, but it happens. Living with him clearly isn’t easy.”

  “No, it’s not. But between picking up after an ill husband, working to pay the rent when he keeps getting fired, and looking after teenagers, when do you think this affair would happen?”

  “It happens. It’s not a question of blame.”

  “Well, not for me. Look, I love Johnny, but I don’t love what he’s become. It’s not his fault, and I know that, but it is what it is. And now he’s a danger to my girls, and I can’t have that. I need to protect them.”

  “And yourself,” I said.

  “Yeah, that too. Listen, I need to pack some things.”

  “Do you have somewhere to go?”

  “My oldest daughter lives with her boyfriend in Palm Beach Gardens. It’s not a big place, but it will do in a pinch.”

  “Okay.”

  “Hopefully he’s better tomorrow.”

  “Hopefully.”

  She moved toward the hallway, then turned back to me. “I want to help him, I really do. But the doctors say he won’t get better. Maybe medication can manage it, but he won’t get better, especially if he doesn’t even take the meds and he keeps drinking. Taking care of our girls has to be priority.”

  “I get it.”

  She walked away, and I turned to Mick. He looked as lost as I had ever seen him, staring at the hole in the wall as if it were his fist that had made it. It was as if he felt responsible somehow.

  “You got any idea where he might have gone?” I asked.

  Mick nodded but kept looking at the hole, then he walked out the back door.

  I followed him into the small, barren backyard, more weed than grass and in need of a mow, and stepped around a rusted-out grill and propane tank. Mick strode across to the garage and went in through a side door.

  The space smelled of sweat, cheap liquor, and motor oil. The garage wasn’t full of the detritus of life. There was very little in it. Some bags holding I had no idea what, and a row of steel shelves with a couple paint cans and a plastic tote. Against the wall was a camp cot, with a sleeping bag and pillow on the floor beside it.

  Johnny Cabrini lay curled up on the cot, holding a bottle of whiskey like an infant with milk. Mick came closer, and Johnny stirred and came to.

  “What?” spat Johnny.

  “Brother,” said Mick.

  Johnny tried to get up suddenly but tumbled off the cot. He hit the concrete floor, cradling the bottle, keeping it from harm. He shook his head like a wet dog and used the cot to lever himself into a standing position.

  His hair was a tangled mess, his eyes were bloodshot, and his face was in desperate need of a shave. Snot oozed from his nose. He was a man fighting his demons, and it didn’t take a trained eye to know the demons were winning.

  “Whadda you looking at?” he slurred.

  Mick said nothing.

  “Huh? What ya say? Cat got your tongue?” Johnny lifted the bottle to his mouth and made to take a long gulp, but the top was screwed on. He didn’t seem to notice. He dropped the bottle onto the cot and stepped toward Mick like he was on a trawler being tossed around the Bering Strait. Johnny put his fists up in an approximation of a fighting stance.

  “You can’t have her,” he said. “She’s mine. You get me? Mine!”

  Johnny took a long, loping swing at Mick, who didn’t raise his hands; he just leaned back and let the punch pass lazily by his face. Johnny staggered, losing his balance for a moment, then looked back at Mick as if he forgot what he was doing.

  “Time to go,” said Johnny.

  “Brother.”

  “Go! Go on. You go. They all are.” Johnny sat on the cot, and the frame winced under the weight. His head wobbled and he blinked hard. “Time to go,” he said again, and he curled up on the cot with the bottle beside him.

  Mick and I stood in silence, breathing in Johnny’s fumes and his sadness, until a guttural snore began rocking the cot.

  Mick eased the bottle from Johnny’s grip, then I led the way out of the garage and over to the driveway. Tina’s car was gone. Bugs were raising a chorus in the still night. We stood there for a moment. I assumed Mick didn’t know what to say about Johnny, because I didn’t know what to say either. He wasn’t much of a talker at the best of times, but now the silence seemed to envelop him.

  “I’ll get them the money,” I said.

  Mick nodded like this was the answer to everything, when we both knew it was the answer to nothing. We liked to think that if we all had more money we could solve any problem, but we stood there dealing with the certainty that it was a lie. Money could tide Tina over, pay some rent, buy some food. Important stuff. But it wasn’t going to right this wrong whether Johnny was a panhandler or a billionaire. The silence that engulfed Mick was the realization that he could tinker around the edges, but this was not something he could fix. I could see him questioning his value as Johnny’s friend as a result. I couldn’t read his mind on this, but I didn’t need to. It was exactly how I was feeling about him.

  After a few minutes, we walked to the car, and Mick drove us back to Longboard’s. He parked but didn’t get out.

  “I saw a picture of you,” I said. “At the Pugilists’ Club.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Three young guys hanging off the ropes.”

  Mick nodded. “Another time.”

  “Yeah. You didn’t get into boxing like the other two?”

  “Too short, too slow.”

  “I wouldn’t take you on.”

  “Good.”

  “Can I ask you something? I’ve known you a long time, but I’ve never heard you mention those guys or go drinking with them, and I’ve never seen them here at Longboard’s.”