The door of 172 Pacific was heavy, black. A Hot Topic’s worth of religious trinkets had been tacked up on the white frame. There was a mezuzah, a dreamcatcher with blue threads faded from the weather, a bronzish crucifix with a nappy-headed Jesus hanging from the nails. Just to the left of the doorbell, Finch swore he spotted a smudge of blood.

After knocking, Finch went through a litany of questions, whose answers, he hoped, would help verify his sanity. What has happened today? Did these circumstances happen to you, or did you create these circumstances? Answer chronologically, please. Where the fuck is your gun?

Before he could draft any answers, the door swung open.

It was Bad Vibes Bob. Finch almost didn’t recognize him out of his wet suit, but there were the burlish, Popeye forearms, the marine chin, the bright blue eyes, which might have been even beautiful had they not been sold off, soul and all, into the slavery of scorn. For a moment, the two men stared at one another in the doorway. Finch, poker-faced, coppish; Bad Vibes Bob seething, but not with anything more than the usual bad vibes.

Bad Vibes Bob broke the silence. “What’s up, dude.”

“Can I talk to you?”

“Yeah.” Bad Vibes Bob turned his back and slouched off into the dark foyer. Over his shoulder, he said, “Come on in. We were wondering when you guys would show up.”

172 Pacific was in dire need of a woman’s touch. Finch felt his nose wrinkling at the bare white walls, the cracked cornices and moldings, the scatter of empties, loose pretzels, the bags and fry containers from Burger King, McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Carl’s Jr.

Finch muttered, “Where is there a Wendy’s in this city?”

Bad Vibes said, “Daly City. On the way back from Lindy.”

“You surf Lindy now?”

“I did three weeks ago. South winds.”

“You’re going all soft on us, Bob.”

In the kitchen, a pyramid of pizza boxes was stacked up on the island. Everything smelled like trash after a heavy rain. Through some unseen speaker, Finch heard the crescendoing chorus of “Take on Me.” The doors of the cabinets had all been ripped off. An army of plastic figurines, most still in their original boxes, stared down from the shelves. Finch could feel their menace. At the back of the kitchen, at a table crammed with CD cases and computer monitors, sat the fattest man Finch had ever seen in his life. Some striped, yellow thing sat atop his mountainous gut. The fat man was stroking this thing’s head, but his attention was riveted on the screens. He did not look up when Finch and Bad Vibes Bob entered the kitchen, nor did he look up when the yellow thing hopped off his gut and scampered over to Bad Vibes Bob. Only when “Take on Me” finally wound itself out did the fat man look up at Finch with two unblinking and noncommittal troll eyes, staring through Coke-bottle glasses. The glare from the monitor contoured the whorls of grease on the lenses, the matting of sweat on his forehead, and the two-day growth on his chin, sparse and black.

Finch regretted not bringing his gun to the party. The fat man fanned out his monitors invitingly and said, “Hello. Welcome, Inspector Finch. We have something to show you.”

That was when Heather stepped into the kitchen. With Finch’s gun, of course.

Before Finch could envision what might go down, Heather just up and fired.