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there.”
    â€œI’m losing now,” said Lucas. “I’m getting whipped.”
    â€œWell, you and me both.”
    Lucas hung his hook on an eyelet of his rod and reeled the line taut. He rested the whole rig on the pier. He looked down at nothing for a time, his head bowed like an exhausted traveler, then he spat deliberately into the water. “So,” he said. “I’m not agreeing to this, but how would we do it?”
    Garner talked it over with him, encouraged that Lucas didn’t seem drunk, and they decided the simplest method would be for Lucas to drop an anonymous tip into the Dean of Students’ box. Just wait until the hallway was empty and stroll by and slip it in. There was a geology class all the athletes took, a class that was exactly the same every semester. Lucas could drop a typed note asserting that Forde had copies of all the tests. They only needed him to be held out of this one game while the dean’s office investigated the claim. Forde would be cleared eventually, no harm done. Just a mistaken tip, an empty rumor, and no one to attach it to.
    â€œI guess no one’s going to look after my future but me,” Lucas said.
    â€œCan you do this?” Garner asked him.
    â€œI can do more than you probably think I can.”
    Neither of them wanted another drink. Garner offered Lucas one of the sandwiches still sitting there in the cooler, but he didn’t want it. The day was getting hot finally, the silvery sun getting a bead on the marshland, that sweet rotten smell rising up from the reeds.
    *      *      *
    On Friday, Garner parked down the block from Cuss Seafood, under a stunted myrtle that offered little shade. Lucas had not backed out, as Garner had thought he might. Lucas had, just minutes before, called Garner’s cell phone and hung up when Garner answered, meaning the tip was planted. Early that morning Lucas had dropped off his $6,100 at Garner’s mom’s house, all the money he had.
    Garner emerged from his mother’s Honda and took a sharp breath. His date with Ainsley the night before had not gone well. They hadn’t made it past the hors d’oeuvres course, the samosas Ainsley had spent half the day making. He’d arrived three or four gimlets in, and had immediately started working on an oversize Indian beer. He’d been too drunk and could now feel the proof of that in his temples. This was why Garner didn’t usually drink. He couldn’t handle it. He’d gone to the bar yesterday afternoon because he was anxious about dragging Lucas into this. Garner had felt impatient since the minute he’d arrived back on the coast, and it had all caught up with him last night. He’d kept trying to rush things to the bedroom, and Ainsley had kept slowing him down as politely as she could. He’d asked her why the hell she’d invited him over, and then watched injury bloom in her face. She’d stood up from the couch stiff and composed. He was different from his old self, Ainsley had told him. There wasn’t any sweetness in him anymore. Not a trace. Whatever he’d been pretending to be in Atlanta, he really was now. She’d handed him the wristwatch and given him a long look that expressed mostly disappointment.
    Maybe he could patch that up in a few days, but he couldn’t let it distract him right now. It was a bad date with an old flame; that’s all it was. It was time for business, time to look Cuss in his good eye. The reason schemes didn’t occur to most people, he knew, was they couldn’t pull them off. Garner could. This is what he did. He found the soft spots, and there were plenty of them. He swung the door of the Honda shut and stepped over a row of lilies and up onto the sidewalk, the day open and bright in every visible direction, feeling the fist of rolled cash in his pants pocket with each stride.

THE PICNICKERS
    A t the close of the