Prologue
002
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?
Desolate Angel
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