Prologue
A man lies dying on the grime-encrusted floor of
an abandoned house on the banks of the Delaware. The air is heavy
with the stench of human detritus and the whiskey sweat of fear.
The man knows that he is dying, but after the first hot shock of
bullet burrowing through flesh, he feels no pain. Instead, he feels
the world falling away. Every ache he has ever felt, every regret
he has ever ignored, every sorrow he has ever mourned—they
evaporate into the ether. He does not care. He does not care about
the man sprawled dead at his feet or the heavyset man breathing
bourbon in his face. He does not even think of the wife and sons he
will leave behind, nor of the badge that presses against his chest,
inches from the bullet’s entry wound.
Instead, he stares at the ankles of the man
bending over him, seeing every thread of a frayed pants hem that
has been, improbably, stapled back into place. He memorizes every
crease in the worn leather shoe beneath it.
A crack has opened up in the shoe between leather
and sole. It fascinates him, that tiny gap of darkness. It beckons
him like an invitation. He stares at the sliver of darkness and
thinks of one thing only, his death, like his life, defined by the
same single, unanswerable question. He thinks, How did it come
to this?