THIRTY-ONE
Johnny was of the mind that if you did the opposite to what seemed obvious, everything would work out well in the end. Something of a fatalist, presented with a list or a set of cards, for example, he instinctively knew the last one would prove to be correct. So now, with the list of Brigit’s friends in his sticky hand, he began at the bottom, believing success would follow.
Eleven names were on the list, but the eleventh proved not the one. Nor the tenth, the ninth, the eighth. Even as his theory shredded into tatters, he knew if he began again at the top, the seventh name would be the one. So he went for the middle, and it wasn’t. Returning to the seventh, he slowly made his way up, moving from address to address, repeating the routine, asking the scripted, rehearsed questio
