He’d come in to check… something. Oh, there it was. The fluorescent orange sticker taped to the front of the refrigerator. Opening the freezer, he found the aluminum tube where he kept the doctor’s Do Not Resuscitate form. It was still inside the tube, where it should be, where the paramedics would look for it. The form told whoever found him to let him alone, don’t try to help him, don’t hook him up to any damn machines.

He left the form in the freezer. In his bedroom again, he gathered the other paraphernalia and went back into the living room, where he laid it all out on the coffee table next to his bottle of Old Crow.

The window drew him to it. The thin ribbon of light over the fog. He sat himself on the couch and poured himself another couple of fingers of bourbon for courage.

He hadn’t heard any approaching footsteps out in the hallway, but now someone was knocking on his door.

Suddenly he realized he must have called Graham after all. To save his life for this moment. It wasn’t time for him to die yet. It was close, maybe, but it wasn’t time.

He had called Graham – he remembered now – and his boy had come and they would find some way to work it all out until it really was time.

Dignity. That was all he wanted anymore. A little dignity. And perhaps a few more good days.

He got up to answer the door.

PART ONE

1

Dismas Hardy was enjoying a superb round of darts, closing in on what might become a personal best. He was in his office on a Monday morning, throwing his 20-gram hand-tooled, custom-flighted tungsten beauties. He called the game ‘20-down’ although it wasn’t any kind of sanctioned affair. It had begun as simple practice – once around and down the board from ‘20’ to bull’s-eye. He’d turned the practice rounds into a game against himself.