1 July 2009, Before dawn, Pascoag, Rhode Island

Manny Markham sat silently, patiently dragging the last useful puff from his Camel before rolling down the window and tossing the butt out into a partly open dumpster. The white Ford F150 extended cab sat silent, engine shut off, seeming to wait as patiently as the owner.

Rain. That's all it did these days. Pissed Manny off to no end, especially since he worked construction and there wasn't jack to do when it rained. It also meant no cash coming in, which pissed him off all the more. Spooky was going to make it worth his while to do this job and a 1000 bucks under the table to grab a guy from an alley and cart him off to the middle of nowhere was better money than hauling corpses.

His compatriots, Mark and Ellis sat waiting with him, helping to fill the cab with noxious cigarette fumes. Mark spoke up finally and said, "You sure that he's gonna be here?" He rubbed some of the fog from the inside of the window with the palm of his hand.

"That's what the man said." is all Manny said.

Ellis took a drag and looked at Manny and before adding offhand, "Yeah, Spooky said so. He ain't wrong 'bout things like this." He also flicked his butt out the window and looked back to the place near the mouth of the alley before checking his watch. "10:23pm, almost time to do it."

Mark just looked on and shook his head. "I dunno, guys. Something about this feels all wrong."

"What?!" asked Manny impatiently, giving Mark the eyeball.

"Dunno, Manny. Just feels like it."

Ellis snorted and said "You just got the jitters, Mark. Get over it. We're gonna be in Hartford for the party and then you can work it off on some of the girls." He grinned in a dark and predatory way as he opened the door to get out, "'sides, I hear it gonna be a good night to fuck 'til you fall over."

Mark rolled his eyes and mumbled, "Like you can ever get enough of that?" Then he slipped out his door into the rain.

Manny sat inside and checked his watch. He started the truck up and sat with it idling. Just as he hit the defoggers, he saw the guy appear. He pulled the headlights on and then bailed out the driver door to help Mark and Ellis, who had dropped the poor sap to the ground and were wrestling his laptop from him. It took one solid kick from Manny's size 12 feet to end that argument, at which point getting rid of the offending piece of machinery was as simple as pulling the thing out of the guy's hands.

Ellis snorted and grabbed the guy by the hair while Mark made sure he didn't have any fight left in him. The guy moaned as they dragged him back and threw him in the bed of the truck.

Manny chucked the laptop into the dumpster with a noisy crash and then came back to slap the cuffs on the guy and yanked off the gold wedding band from the man's finger before he said, "They said, 'Make sure he didn't have the box and don't let him see you.'" Then he watched them pull the hood over the guy's head and duct tape it in place. He handed a small box to Mark and said, "He gives you any grief, give him the shot. They said it can knock down a horse." Manny grinned, pocketed the ring and said to Ellis. "Let's go."

As the white pickup pulled out into the pre-dawn light, the butt that Manny had thrown in the dumpster got just enough dry paper and encouragement to flare into a robust flame. Before they had cleared the next block, the whole of the thing was burning hot enough to melt the plastic and other yuck inside to a unrecognizable blob.

Old Pete Casey never saw the fire, but he did see the truck...and remembered the last time it was in town. The 72 year old man fumbled in his pocket for the little notebook he remembered things in. As quickly as his shaking fingers would allow, he wrote down the description and license plate of the truck. Pete hadn't always had the best memory, and forgot the note almost as soon as he'd closed the book. Then he was off to meet Ethel Morris at the coffee shop for breakfast.

Around 5 that afternoon, Pete finally had to remember when his doctor appointment was. It was while he was looking for the entry that the old man remembered to go talk to the police chief.