Earl Borg’s wife’s lawyer had sent Lew here to serve divorce papers. That was what Lew did. He was a process server, working just enough to keep himself in food and pay the rent with a little leftover for videotape rentals, resale shop clothes, YMCA membership, soap, toothpaste and disposable razors.

The job was easy. Mrs. Borg had known exactly where her husband would be and when he would be there. The only problem now for Lew was placing the papers in Borg’s hand and getting out of the barn alive and, hopefully, untouched.

Lew wore his usual jeans and a clean drip-dry short-sleeved blue shirt with no buttons missing, a Cubs baseball cap on his nearly bald head. He fit in, almost invisible, a lean man with a sad Italian face, a lapsed Episcopalian in Baptist country. Lew had once been an investigator in the office of the Cook County States Attorney’s office. Lew had once had a wife he loved and an apartment on Lake Shore Drive. Now he was serving papers for Sarasota lawyers and living alone at the rear of a Dairy Queen parking lot in a small two-room office in a building that merited condemnation. It was the way he wanted it.

The twin holding back the pit bull cried out, “Go” and freed the dog, who shot across the ring and sunk its jaws into the hog’s snout. The hog squealed in agony, swayed slightly but didn’t move. The dog moved to the animal’s side. The crowd went silent to hear the clamping of the dog’s teeth as it made its deep, quick gash. The crowd went wild, many of them standing, shouting out “Santana” and “Get him”!

Borg watched emotionless, checking his watch, lips pursed.

The hog teetered and fell on its side but Santana didn’t let go. Both twins ran into the ring. The one in the black T-shirt shouted, “It’s over.”

The man in the red T-shirt moved in with a wooden pole the length of a baseball bat, put a foot on the fallen hog’s back, and wedged the pole between the jaws of the dog.