He went inside, locked his door (stupid; the thing was so flimsy a single kick would stave it in), shucked down to his underwear, and lay on the bed, which was saggy but bugless (as far as he had been able to ascertain, at least). He put his hands behind his head and stared at the picture of the grinning black men manning the frigate or whatever the hell you called a ship like that. Where were they going? Were they pirates? They looked like pirates to him. Whatever they were, it would eventually come to loading and unloading at the next port of call. Maybe everything did. And everyone. Not long ago he had unloaded himself from a Delta flight bound for New York. After that he had loaded cans and bottles into a sorting machine. Today he had loaded books for a nice lady librarian at one place and unloaded them at another. He was only here because I-95 had loaded up with cars and trucks waiting for the wreckers to come and haul away some unfortunate’s crashed car. Probably after an ambulance had loaded up the driver and unloaded him at the nearest hospital.

But a night knocker doesn’t load or unload, Tim thought. He just walks and knocks. That is, Grandpa would have said, the beauty part.

He fell asleep, waking only at midnight, when another freight went rumbling through. He used the bathroom and, before going back to bed, took down the crooked picture and leaned the crew of grinning black men facing the wall.

Damn thing gave him the willies.

8

When the phone in his room rang the next morning, Tim was showered and sitting in the lawn chair again, watching the shadows that had covered the road at sunset melt back the other way. It was Sheriff John. He didn’t waste time.

“Didn’t think your Chief would be in this early, so I looked you up online, Mr. Jamieson. Seems like you failed to note a couple of things on your application. Didn’t bring them up in our conversation, either. You got a lifesaving commendation in 2017, and nabbed Sarasota PD’s Sworn Officer of the Year in 2018. Did you just forget?”

“No,” Tim said. “I applied for the job on the spur of the moment. If I’d had more time to think, I’d have put those things down.”

“Tell me about the alligator. I grew up on the edge of Little Pee Dee Swamp, and I love a good gator story.”

“It’s not a very good one, because it wasn’t a very big gator. And I didn’t save the kid’s life, but the story does have its funny side.”

“Let’s hear it.”

“Call came in from the Highlands, which is a private golf course. I was the closest officer. The kid was up a tree near one of the water hazards. He was eleven, twelve, something like that, and yelling his head off. The gator was down below.”

“Sounds like Little Black Sambo,” Sheriff John said. “Only as I recollect, there were tigers instead of a gator in that story, and if it was a private golf course, I bet the kid up that tree wadn’t black.”

“No, and the gator was more asleep than awake,” Tim said. “Just a five-footer. Six at most. I borrowed a five-iron from the kid’s father—he was the one who put me in for the commendation—and whacked him a couple of times.”

“Whacked the gator, I’m thinking, not the dad.”

Tim laughed. “Right. The gator went back to the water hazard, the kid climbed down, and that was it.” He paused. “Except I got on the evening news. Waving a golf club. The newscaster joked about how I ‘drove’ it off. Golf humor, you know.”

“Uh-huh, uh-huh, and the Officer of the Year thing?”

“Well,” Tim said, “I always showed up on time, never called in sick, and they had to give it to somebody.”

There was silence for several moments on the other end of the line. Then Sheriff John said, “I don’t know if you call that becomin modesty or low self-esteem, but I don’t much care for the sound of it either way. I know that’s a lot to put out there on short acquaintance, but I’m a man who speaks his mind. I shoot from the lip, some folks say. My wife, for one.”

Tim looked at the road, looked at the railroad tracks, looked at the retreating shadows. Spared a glance for the town water tower, looming like a robot invader in a science fiction movie. It was going to be another hot day, he judged. He judged something else, as well. He could have this job or lose it right here and now. It all depended on what he said next. The question was, did he really want it, or had it just been a whim born of a family story about Grandpa Tom?

“Mr. Jamieson? Are you still there?”

“I earned that award. There were other cops it could have gone to, I worked with some fine officers, but yeah, I earned it. I didn’t bring a whole lot with me when I left Sarasota—meant to have the rest shipped if I caught on to something in New York—but I brought the citation. It’s in my duffel. I’ll show you, if you want.”

“I do,” Sheriff John said, “but not because I don’t believe you. I’d just like to see it. You’re ridiculously overqualified for the job of night knocker, but if you really want it, you start at eleven tonight. Eleven to six, that’s the deal.”

“I want it,” Tim said.

“All right.”

“Just like that?”

“I’m also a man who trusts his instincts, and I’m hiring a night knocker, not a Brinks guard, so yeah, just like that. No need to come in at ten. You catch a little more sleep and drop by around noon. Officer Gullickson will give you the rundown. Won’t take long. It ain’t rocket science, as they say, although you’re apt to see some road rockets on Main Street Saturday nights after the bars close.”

“All right. And thank you.”

“Let’s see how thankful you are after your first weekend. One more thing. You are not a sheriff’s deputy, and you are not authorized to carry a firearm. You run into a situation you can’t handle, or you consider dangerous, you radio back to the house. We good on that?”

“Yes.”

“We better be, Mr. Jamieson. If I find out you’re packing a gun, you’ll be packing your bags.”

“Understood.”

“Then get some rest. You’re about to become a creature of the night.”

Like Count Dracula, Tim thought. He hung up, put the DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door, drew the thin and dispirited curtain over the window, set his phone, and went back to sleep.

9

Deputy Wendy Gullickson, one of the Sheriff’s Department part-timers, was ten years younger than Ronnie Gibson and a knockout, even with her blond hair pulled back in a bun so tight it seemed to scream. Tim made no attempt to charm her; it was clear her charm shield was up and fully powered. He wondered briefly if she’d had someone else in mind for the night knocker job, maybe a brother or a boyfriend.

She gave him a map of DuPray’s not-much-to-it business district, a handheld belt radio, and a time clock that also went on his belt. There were no batteries, Deputy Gullickson explained; he wound it up at the start of each shift.

“I bet this was state of the art back in 1946,” Tim said. “It’s actually sort of cool. Retro.”

She didn’t smile. “You punch your clock at Fromie’s Small Engine Sales and Service, and again at the rail depot at the west end of Main. That’s one-point-six miles each way. Ed Whitlock used to make four circuits each shift.”

Which came to almost thirteen miles. “I won’t need Weight Watchers, that’s for sure.”

Still no smile. “Ronnie Gibson and I will work out a schedule. You’ll have two nights a week off, probably Mondays and Tuesdays. The town’s pretty quiet after the weekend, but sometimes we may have to shift you. If you stick around, that is.”

Tim folded his hands in his lap and regarded her with a half-smile. “Do you have a problem with me, Deputy Gullickson? If you do, speak up now or hold your peace.”

Her complexion was Nordic fair, and there was no hiding the flush when it rose in her cheeks. It only added to her good looks, but he supposed she hated it, just the same.

“I don’t know if I do or not. Only time will tell. We’re a good crew. Small but good. We all pull together. You’re just some guy who walked in off the street and landed a job. People in town joke about the night knocker, and Ed was a real good sport about all the ribbing, but it’s important, especially in a town with a policing force as small as ours.”

“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” Tim said. “My grandpa used to say that. He was a night knocker, Officer Gullickson. That’s why I applied for the job.”

Maybe she thawed a little at that. “As for the time clock, I agree that it’s archaic. All I can say is get used to it. Night knocker is an analog job in a digital age. At least in DuPray, it is.”

10

Tim discovered what she meant soon enough. He was basically a beat cop circa 1954, only without a gun or even a nightstick. He had no power to arrest. A few of the larger town businesses were equipped with security devices, but most of the smaller shops had no such technology. At places like DuPray Mercantile and Oberg’s Drug, he checked to make sure the green security lights were burning and there was no sign of intruders. For the smaller ones, he shook doorknobs and doorhandles, peered through the glass, and gave the traditional triple knock. Occasionally this brought a response—a wave or a few words—but mostly it didn’t, which was fine. He made a chalk mark and moved on. He followed the same procedure on his return trip, this time erasing the marks as he went. The process reminded him of an old Irish joke: If you get there first, Paddy, chalk a mark on the door. If I get there first, I’ll rub it out. There seemed no practical reason for the marks; it was simply tradition, perhaps dating all the way back, through a long chain of night knockers, to reconstruction days.

Thanks to one of the part-time deputies, Tim found a decent place to stay. George Burkett told him that his mother had a small furnished apartment over her garage and she’d rent it to him cheap if he was interested. “Only two rooms, but pretty nice. My brother lived there a couple of years before he moved down to Florida. Caught on at that Universal theme park in Orlando. Makes a decent wage.”