Running on the damp, packed sand close to the water is no more difficult than running on the track behind the high school. To punish myself, though, I stay on the soft stuff that sucks at your feet with every step.

In five minutes, everything that’s attached to me hurts-legs, lungs, back, head-so I pick up the pace.

In another five minutes, I can smell the whiskey from last night as the sweat pours off my face. Five minutes after that, my hangover has nearly vanished.

Later that afternoon, Wingo and I are recovering from our midday workout, me on the couch and Wingo asleep at my feet, when a knock on the front door rouses us. It’s about four, still plenty of light outside, and a black sedan is parked on the gravel driveway.

At the door is young master Van Buren, the detective who ran the show on the beach the other night.

Barely thirty, he made detective early this summer. Considering his age, it was quite a coup. He leapfrogged half a dozen pretty decent cops with more seniority, including Belnap, and it didn’t win him any friends in the station house. So guess what Barney’s nickname is?

“Tom, I don’t need to tell you why I’m here,” he says.

“I’m surprised it took this long.”

Still dehydrated from my run, I grab a beer and offer him something, just to hear him say no.

“Why don’t we sit outside while we still can,” I say, and then because of the force with which he rejected my first offer, or because I’m acting like a prick for no good reason, I repeat it. “Sure I can’t get you that beer? It’s almost five.”

Van Buren ignores me and takes out a brand-new orange notebook he must have just bought for the occasion at the stationery store in Montauk.

“Tom, people say you did a good job getting that kid to put down his gun the other day. What confuses me is why you didn’t call the police.”

I can tell Van Buren doesn’t expect an answer. He’s simply letting me know that he can be a prick too.