Free God Hates Us All by Jonathan Grotenstein, Hank Moody

that?”
    “His name is Peter.”
    “Peter?”
    “Peter Robichaux. You said if I needed anything….”
    “I meant something that I could actually do. Finding a guy who dropped off the map ten years ago doesn’t exactly play to my strengths.”
    “Forget it,” she says, forcing a smile. “I was just fucking with you. I’m crazy, you know.”
    “I’ll see what I can do. Do you have any other information, an address or a phone number?”
    “That’s all I got,” she whispers.
    It’s a five-minute walk to the parking lot from the building where Daphne is housed. Tana is waiting for me in her car. She holds up her wristwatch when she sees me.
    “Really?” she asks.
    I climb quietly into her passenger seat. I feel disoriented—spend an hour in a mental institution, and the outside world starts to seem a little weird. Tana, God bless her, parses my mood. We drive back to Levittown in silence.

9
    CHRISTMAS IS HERE, IF THE CROWDS DESCENDing on the Macy’s in Herald Square are any indication. Which for me means that walking—the bedrock principle of my workday—is getting tougher. Bitter winds off the river pounce like Clouseau’s man Kato, knocking about the unprepared. Mini-tsunamis form by whatever angle of intersection causes rubber tires to launch numbingly-cold waves of ash-colored snow and gravel onto already icy sidewalks. Getting from point A to point B requires determination, concentration, and fortitude.
    None of which is enough to bring me down. Then again, I’m high.
    “The whole visit to Daphne, I think it transformed me. It just felt like I was doing the right thing. Like I had a place in the universe as a force for good.”
    Or so I explain to Tana as
21 Jump Street
goes to commercialbreak. She smiles brightly, unsure how seriously to take my epiphany. “You going to bogart that spliff all night?” I pass her the joint. “You’re not going to join the Peace Corps,” she asks, taking a puff. “Are you?”
    “No,” I reply, taking the weed back from her. “I don’t know. I haven’t thought this all the way through. But it’s almost like my whole life has been leading to this point.”
    “You
have
spent a lot of time in the food
service
industry. And delivering pot, you’re helping a lot of people.”
    I nod gravely, examining the burning stick in my hand. “Food for the soul.”
    “Uh-huh,” she says, reaching toward me. “Now share. Me hungry.”
    Earlier that evening, I’d spoken to Larry Kirschenbaum about Daphne’s father. He gave me the name of a private investigator he thought might be able to help—an excop named Henry Head—but he’d probably charge me five hundred a week.
    “Not a problem,” I responded a little too quickly, causing Larry to study me in a new light. Not respect, exactly—more like the instinct, earned from decades of defending criminals, that I might sometime soon require his professional services.
    The truth was I
could
afford Henry Head, thanks to my ongoing business relationship with Danny Carr. I’d planned to reinvest the extra salary into my ongoing efforts to woo K. away from Nate. But so far it hadn’t mattered: I hadn’t seen her in the nearly two weeks since we’d mashed in the bar. Inthe rush to leave I’d forgotten to ask for her number. Ray thought he had it, but couldn’t find it, and suggested I “just drop by her place.” Which I did, once again feeling like a stalker, again with zero success.
    That Friday night, I debark the elevator on Danny Carr’s floor. His assistant Rick is outside the office door, hovering over a fax machine.
    “So if it isn’t the man of mystery,” he greets me.
    “Howdy, Rick. The boss around?”
    “Just finishing up a call. You guys gonna …” Rick places his thumb and forefinger in front of his mouth and sucks in, mimicking a toke.
    “I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about.”
    Rick smiles, or at least bares his canines trying. “So it’s like that, huh?” He turns