Davenport was a tall man; he drove a Porsche day-to-day, but fit better in the big Tahoe. He had black hair shot through with vagrant strands of gray; he was as dark as a Sicilian, with a permanent outdoor tan. The tan made his eyes seem bluer and brighter, and his smile whiter. Women had told him that his eyes seemed kindly, even priestly, but his smile made them nervous. He had the smile, one of them told him, of a predator about to eat something nasty.

His face was touched with scars. A long thin line crossed his eyebrow into his cheek, like a knife cut, but it wasn't. Another that looked like an exclamation marka thin line from a knife, a round O from a bullet woundmarked the front of his neck, along his windpipe. He'd been shot, and had almost died, but a surgeon had opened his throat with a jackknife and kept him breathing long enough to get him to an operating table. A plastic surgeon had offered to revise the scars, but he kept them, absently traced them with his fingers when he was thinking; personal history, not to be forgotten.

The road out was narrow and dark, and he was in no hurry. He took Highway 77 into Hayward, dropped down to 70 in Spooner, headed west, across the border into Minnesota, out to I-35. By ten o'clock he was on the far northern rim of the Cities, pulling the boat. The owner of the Lund was a guy named Herb Clay who owned the remnants of a farm south of Forest Lake, not far off the interstate.

Lucas pulled into Clay's driveway, bounced past the house to the barnyard, and turned a tight circle. He left the engine running and climbed out of the truck as a porch light came on. A moment later, Clay stepped out on the porch, supporting himself on crutches. "That you?"

"It's me," Lucas said. He started unhitching the trailer. "How're the legs?"

"Itch like hell," Clay said.

"Got a coat hanger to scratch with?"

"Yeah, but there's always a spot that you can't reach." Clays wife came out on the porch, pulling on a quilted jacket. She hurried across the yard.