LITMIR.BIZ

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      “Is that your name,” Trick asked, looking up at her, “or your philosophy?”

      She smiled. “Both.”

      “Well, it’s a beautiful name and a beautiful philosophy.”

      “Thank you,” she beamed. Despite a lazy left eye, she was the picture of health, tan and fair.

      Young said, “To give you a name like that, your parents, were they like hippies or something?”

      She turned to him and her brows furrowed. “No, my parents named me Cheryl.”

      “So how come you’re Freedom now?”

      “If you really want to know, I’ve been travelling for the past four years, and towards the end of my travels I spent some time meditating on Mount Shasta. In California? And that’s where my transformation took place.”

      Young was puzzled. “That’s where you got your new name?”

      She frowned. “No, you don’t understand. I didn’t get it. The mountain gave it to me.”

      As she walked away from their table, Young started chuckling, and Trick said, “Nice going, partner. I finally engage a woman in conversation, and you drive her away.”

      Young stood up. “The mountain gave it to her.” He shook his head.

      Trick said, “Fine, forget it. You ready to go?”

      “In a minute. I got to take a leak so bad I can taste it. Be right back.” Young headed off to the men’s room. As he walked up to the urinals, a man came out of one of the cubicles. It was number 99, the Narcotics shortstop. He could barely walk. Young nodded to him and said, “You all right? Where’s all your buddies, they run off and leave you?”

      “Fuck off,” the shortstop said. He staggered towards the exit, then turned abruptly and vomited into one of the wash basins.

      “Nice,” Young said. He regarded the man. “When I saw you come out of that cubicle I said to myself, ‘Well, if it ain’t our old friend the super star, the Wayne Gretzky of slo-pitch, the man who likes to take his home run trot while the other team’s guy is rolling around in pain.’ Then I saw how you were walking, and I said to myself, ‘Poor boy, is he having trouble walking because he’s drunk or because of that hit I laid on him out at second base?’”

      “Fuck you,” the man said, spitting into the basin.

      Young laughed. “You shouldn’t talk like that while you’re puking. You look like a fool.”

      He waited to see if the man had more to say, but he didn’t, so Young, zipping up, said “Next time on the diamond, fuckhead,” and left the men’s room.

      When he returned to their table, he wanted to tell Trick about the shortstop, but Trick was slumped in his wheelchair, his chin down against his throat.

      “What’s the matter with you?” Young asked as he sat down.

      Trick wouldn’t answer.

      “Trick,” Young said, “what’s the matter?”

      Trick said nothing.

      “Trick, for fucksake—”

      “That new waitress.”

      “What about her?”

      “She won’t dance with me.”

      “She won’t dance with you?”

      “No. I thought she liked me.” Trick looked at Young. “While you were in the john I asked her to dance. Hell, I won the Twist Contest, didn’t I?”

      “No, I believe you finished second to Big Urmson and that big-assed girl from Narcotics. Anyway, it’s probably because she’s working she won’t dance with you.” Young consulted the Blue Light clock above the bar. “It’s almost one. We’ll stay for last call. Maybe she’ll dance with you when her shift’s over.”

      “No, she won’t.”

      “How do you know? What did she say when you asked her?”

      Trick was silent for a moment, nodding. Then he said, “I asked the bitch to dance, and she smiled so sweet and said, ‘No, thank you, I don’t dance with niggers.’”

      Young sat forward in his chair. “Get the fuck out of here, she didn’t say that.”

      “She might as well have. Bitch named Freedom. Ironic, ain’t it?”

      “Her not dancing with you has nothing to do with you being black.”

      “That’s where you’re wrong, brother.”

      “No, you’re wrong. I told you, it’s because she’s on duty. She’s serving.”

      “No, it’s because I’m a nigger.”

      “Fine, fuck it, I’m not going to listen to this.” Young stood up to leave.

      “Nigger in a wheelchair.”

       Friday, June 9

      Dot Com Acres was smaller than Young had expected. He had envisioned a two-hundred-acre spread with rolling fields, ponds, and oak trees lining both sides of the lane that led to the century farmhouse and its attendant barns. Then he remembered that shortly after Khan had purchased Cedar Creek Stud Farm, he had sold off most of the land, so that what Young found instead was an urban ranch with a kitschy Ponderosa-style archway at its entrance proclaiming “Khan’s Dot Com Acres” in burnt cursive. Next to it was a green and white barn-shaped mailbox with “The Khans” painted on one side. Young drove under the archway, followed a short red brick driveway, and stopped in front of a colossal pink monster home. To his right, beyond a late model Dodge Ram pickup truck and a black Porsche Carrera, was a chain-link fence that enclosed a cedar deck and a teardrop-shaped swimming pool. To his left, Young could see a stable and two or three other buildings—a barn, an implement shed, and a squat structure the size of a school portable. The stable wasn’t all that large; it might have accommodated eight or ten horses. After Young parked his minivan and began to walk towards the stable, he could see that Khan’s land was bordered to the west by a vast, treeless, lawnless, still-in-progress housing development, to the east and south by the sprawling King County Golf and Country Club, and across the road to the north by a small strip mall. Right next door, just across a split rail fence, and for maybe three hundred yards—interrupting the smooth confluence of Khan’s land and the golf course—lay Morley Rogers’ Bright’s Kill. From this perspective, unlike the up-close-and-personal view he’d had on Tuesday, Young could see just how dilapidated Morley’s farmhouse was; he could also see the glassy new solarium at the back in which the meeting of May 17 had taken place. Morley owned twelve acres altogether. Young did a slow three-sixty. Mahmoud Khan’s farm was only fifteen, maybe twenty acres, tops. Two small squares on the giant quilt of Caledon horse country.

      It was 9:00 a.m., and Young was expected. Immediately after yesterday’s meeting had concluded he had called to make an appointment. When he phoned the number he had for Mahmoud Khan, it turned out to be the downtown offices of MK Internet Services. A receptionist had told him that Mr. Khan was not in at the moment, but that she would page him and he would call Young from his cell phone. Five minutes later the call came through. Young told Khan that he was a homicide detective investigating the murder of Khan’s former trainer, Shorty Rogers. Khan said, “Ah, I wondered when I might hear from you people. The circumstances of Mr. Rogers’ death were, well, unsettling.” Young remembered the rich tones of Khan’s voice from the video. When Young said that he had a few questions for Khan and asked if it would be possible to meet in person, Khan consented, saying, “It’s the only way to do business. When would you like to meet?”

      “Tomorrow morning,” Young had said, “if it’s not inconvenient.”

      “Not inconvenient

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