He slammed the trunk, turned on the flashlight and headed across the drive to that brick building. The smell of urine and feces was disgusting. Chances were good that it hadn’t been cleaned in years. For the first time he noticed a ramshackle trailer that had a small sign posted. Manager. M–F 10:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m. He’d check that out later.

He walked around the brick structure, shining his light, and came face-to-face with one of the thugs he’d seen the day Charlie was chased. The guy grinned. His teeth were black and he had a couple of sores on his face. Meth teeth, meth sores. It was the kind of leer that made Blake want to look behind him but he wasn’t falling for that one. The guy slowly pulled his hand out of his pocket, gave a small flick, and the blade of a switchblade zinged into view.

Blake took a fast step closer to that knife, swung the tire iron and came down on the guy’s wrist. The meth head screamed, dropped the blade and grabbed his wrist. Before he could run or call for his backup, Blake had him up against the bricks, the tire iron against his throat. “Where is it?” he asked as threateningly as he could.

“Ach. What?”

“You know what. The box.”

“Let go and I’ll tell you.”

Now it was Blake’s turn to grin. “Not a chance in hell. Where?”

“Bruster’s got it!”

“Who’s Bruster?”

“You know. The manager.”

And probably the biggest dealer in here, he thought. Some things were as predictable as sunrise. It was always the one in charge, the one who seldom got his hands dirty. “And did it get you a hit?” he asked.

“Not even.” He choked and Blake stepped back a little. He was an addict; it could get messy.

“Let’s go get you a hit, loser.”

“You gonna roll me?”

“I’m gonna buy you a hit if I can get my box back.”

“You’d do that?”

“I want the box!”

Blake turned him around, twisted his arm up behind his back and counted his blessings. If this charged-up idiot decided to fight him, he might have a real problem on his hands. He’d seen three and four cops have trouble bringing down a one-hundred-and-twenty-pound meth addict when he was high. His flashlight was under his arm, light pointing forward, and the tire iron in his hand, ready.

“Let’s go get it,” Blake said, steering him in the direction of the manager’s trailer. When they stood outside the door, he saw a little trash on the ground right outside the trailer door.

“There it is,” the guy said, looking down.

He saw what looked like a small amount of smashed teak wood on the ground and a little unidentifiable trash—paper, cloth, picture, chain. “That’s my box?” Blake asked, incredulous.

“He wasn’t impressed.”

“What’s a hit go for in your neighborhood?”

“Twenty,” he said. “I mean, forty. Fifty.”

Blake felt himself smile. It had been a long time. He had forgotten how much drugs rotted the brain and what liars addicts were. “Here are your choices,” he said. “I can give you some money and you can run, get out of sight, or you can stay and talk to the manager with me. Or I can beat you stupid with this iron, but I think you already are stupid.”

“You kidding me? Give me fifty and I’m gone.”

Without turning the guy around, he pulled one bill out of his pocket. It was a twenty. He shoved the man away from him and he stumbled a few feet. Blake braced himself, wielding the tire iron in one hand and flashlight in the other. The twenty fluttered in the hand that held the iron. “Do you want to disappear with twenty or would you prefer to negotiate?”

As if by magic, his two compatriots stepped out of the darkness and they were a little bigger. But they were ratty and pale. They were vampires; they lived by night. He was one on three. Reasonably, his chances were zero and it was stupid to engage them. This was the time to run. They were high and strong; he was sober and his strength wouldn’t matter. So he smiled as though he had confidence, twisted the iron and flashlight, worked his shoulders a little bit and took a couple of wide swings with the tire iron.

The junkies separated, one left, one right, one head-on. One picked up a rock, one produced a knife, one held his pained wrist. Blake didn’t waste any time. He took out the knee of the guy with the rock on his left, then hit the arm holding the knife with the flashlight. He jammed the guy in the gut with the tire iron, then gave his ankle a hard whack before shoving the tire iron into the gut of his first boy. He whirled and caught one in the neck. There were a couple more whacks to legs with the iron, then higher. With any luck he’d injured a couple of ribs. Hurt leg joints and bruised ribs could really slow you down, provided you could feel pain. He hit one under the chin with the flashlight and the man sprawled, groaning. His first aggressor limped away while the other two were in the dirt.

He was surprised. He wasn’t much of a fighter anymore. He was lucky or they were impaired. And he was out of breath. He tried the manager’s trailer door but it was locked. So, tit for tat, he applied the flat end of the tire iron to the door and popped the lock. He peered inside.

Bruster appeared. He was fat and wore a wife-beater T-shirt. Why are they always fat? Blake asked himself. The biggest crook and dealer on the block was a lazy, fat blob. With a gun.

Blake put up his hands and backed away a little, though he still held the flashlight and the iron. “You can shoot me if you want but it’ll make your life miserable, I swear on the Virgin Mary. It’ll bring down the wrath of every Catholic cop in the state because I’m... I’m a priest. And all I want are the two gold coins and the other contents of that box.”

“Who the hell are you?” Bruster asked.

Blake straightened proudly. “Father Blake Smiley.”

The guy laughed. “Get outta here,” he said, reaching for the door.

Blake put the flashlight against it. “I want the stuff.”

“I don’t know about stuff. I found the coins. They’re not valuable,” Bruster said.

“Then I’ll make ’em valuable. I’ll buy ’em from you. I have to have them. They were blessed in Versailles. They’re holy. And your flunkies told me you have the coins. Now come on—let’s just deal.”

Bruster looked around Blake in time to see one guy limping away, one struggling to his feet and the third lying on the ground holding his knee and rocking side to side. “You did that? And you say you’re a priest? You’re no priest!”