Ryan walked back toward the shed. He heard the pickup starting off and a moment later heard the squeal of brakes as it stopped again, but Ryan didn’t look around. He’d seen enough of the hot dog and heard enough of him and as far as he was concerned, Bob Jr. was gone forever. He opened the door of the shed and went into the mildew-smelling gloom of the place. It had once housed machinery or equipment; now there were newspapers spread over the dirt floor and the papers covered with pieces of burlap and an old straw rug. Three of them had lived in here. Now Billy Ruiz and Frank Pizarro could have it to themselves. He was glad they weren’t here.

With the door open the first thing Ryan saw was the picture of himself on the wall clipped from the Free Press and pinned there between Al Kaline and Tony Oliva: Ryan holding the bat and Luis Camacho on the ground. The caption said:

MIGRANT WORKER HITS CREW LEADER FOR RAISE

A difference of opinion resulted in Jack C. Ryan putting the wood to Luis Camacho, crew leader of a group of migrant cucumber pickers from Texas this month working in the fields of Michigan’s Thumb area. Luis Camacho has been hospitalized. Ryan has been arraigned on a charge of felonious assault and is awaiting examination.

And something else about the guy making the movie who happened to be there, but Ryan didn’t read the rest. He took off his shirt going over to his cot. His soap and safety razor were on a wall shelf; he picked them up in one hand, laid a towel over his shoulder, and went outside again.

The pickup was still in the road. Bob Jr. was out of it, beyond the front end and standing at the driver’s side of a dark green Lincoln convertible pointing this way. Ryan had never seen the car with the top down before or-walking past the truck now-he had never seen it this close. Before, it had always been a dark green car in the distance trailing dust. In the field they would straighten up over the cucumber plants; somebody would say, “There goes Mr. Ritchie,” and they would stare after the car until it was gone.