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The workers clustered around Mike’s truck as soon as he pulled onto the job site.

‘Whew-wee!’

‘Boss got a new
vee
-hicle.’

‘What’d this baby run ya?’

Mike climbed out, waving off the questions to hide his discomfort. He’d never fully adjusted to being a boss and missed the
easy camaraderie that came from working beside the guys day after day. ‘Not as much as you think.’

Jimmy leaned on the hood with both hands, one fist gripping a screwdriver.

Mike said, ‘Watch the paint,’ and immediately regretted opening his mouth.

Jimmy put his hands in the air, stickup style, and the others laughed.

‘All right, all right,’ Mike said. ‘I deserve that. Where’s Andrés?’

His irritable foreman trudged over, stirring a gourd with a stainless-steel straw. The gourd held yerba maté, and the straw
– a
bombilla
– filtered out the loose leaves so Andrés could suck the bitter tea all day without spitting twigs. He shooed the workers
off. ‘Well, what you wait for? You supposed to loaf when the boss
leave
, not when he show up.’

The workers dispersed, and Andrés set down his maté gourd on the truck’s bumper. ‘Aargh,’ he said without inflection.

‘Aargh?’

‘It is National Talk Like a Pirate Day. What a country. All these holiday. Take Your Kid to Work Day. Martin Yuther King Day.’

An import from Uruguay, Andrés was finally applying for naturalization and had become a walking repository of obscure U.S.
trivia.

Mike said, ‘I’ve heard they called him Martin
Luther
King.’

‘That what I say, matey.’

They headed up the slope into the heart of the planned community. The forty houses, framing a parklike sprawl of grass in
the canyon’s dip, stretched up the slope on either side, rising in altitude and sticker price. At first glance they looked
like ordinary houses, but closer inspection revealed bioswales for storm-drain runoff, roofs scaled with photovoltaic cells
and breathing with vegetation, vitrified-clay pipes instead of nondegradable, toxin-leaking PVC. Even with all that, the houses
had barely squeaked by to get the coveted Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design green certification. But they had,
and now, aside from some final electrical and trim work and a few cosmetic flourishes, the job was done.

They crested the rise and walked down into the park. It was Mike’s favorite part of Green Valley, positioned in the center
where parents could look out their kitchen windows and see their kids playing. The development was zoned for two more lots
there, but he couldn’t bring himself to build over that land.

They headed for the hole at the far edge of the park, already prepped for the pouring of the fire pit’s foundation. ‘What
are we waiting for?’ Mike asked.

‘That tree-hugger concrete take longer to mix,’ Andrés said. ‘But my control-freak developer boss don’t let me use the normal
kind.’

This was their routine – an old couple, bitter and exasperated, but in it together to the end.

‘The LEED certification is too tight. We don’t have the wiggle room.’ Mike grimaced, ran a hand over his face. ‘Jesus, who
knew what a pain this would be?’

Andrés took another pull through his
bombilla.
‘What we gonna build next?’

‘A coal factory.’

Andrés snickered, poked the stainless-steel straw into the gourd. ‘I tole you, we no do this green, we could’ve pull another
twenty-percent profit off the top. Then we
all
drive new trucks.’

As they approached, Jimmy waved and started backing up a concrete mixer to the fire-pit hole. Andrés lifted an arm in response,
the
bombilla
flying from his gourd into the pit. He frowned down as if this were only the latest in a string of the day’s disappointments.
‘Forget it. I buy another.’

Staring at the reed-thin steel straw stuck in the mud, Mike heard Kat’s voice in his head, chattering about trash and decomposing
metals. His conscience reared up annoyingly.

Jimmy was just about to tip the drum of concrete when Mike shouted to him and pointed. Jimmy rolled his eyes and stepped off
for a smoke while Mike hopped down. The hole was about five feet with sheer walls; they’d gone deep for the gas lines. As
Mike crouched to pluck up the straw, he spotted an elbow of drainpipe protruding from the dirt wall. The water main.

He froze.

His stomach knotted. The metal straw fell from his hand. The mossy reek of moist earth and roots pressed in on him, crowding
his lungs.

At first he thought he was mistaken. Then he fingered around the crumbling dirt, and dread finally broke through the shock.

The pipe wasn’t the environmentally friendly vitrified clay he’d paid a small fortune for.

It was PVC.

‘How much was used?’ Mike stood at the edge of the hole now with Andrés, trying to keep the panic from his voice. He’d sent
the other workers away.

Andrés said, ‘I don’t know.’

‘Get the van here,’ Mike said. ‘I want to run plumbing cameras through the sewage and drain lines.’

‘The day rate for that van—’

‘I don’t care.’

Mike grabbed a shovel from a nearby mound of decorative rock, jumped down into the hole, and started chiseling at the wall.
He’d retained his laborer’s build – muscular forearms, strong hands, broad enough through his chest to stretch a T-shirt –
and he made impressive progress, but still the packed earth didn’t give way under his shovel as it might have a few years
ago. Andrés called for the van, then stood with his arms crossed, chewing his cheek, watching. Mike’s grunts carried up out
of the hole.

After a few moments, Andrés picked up a second shovel and slid down there with him.

The plumbing van idled in the middle of the street, a pipe video camera snaking through the laid-open rear doors and dropping
down a manhole. Despite the hour the workers, except for Jimmy, had been sent home. Aside from the occasional passing bird,
a pervasive stillness lingered over the development. The community of shiny new houses, beneath the late-morning sun, seemed
like a fake town awaiting an atomic test blast.

Inside the van, crammed beside the hose reel, their clothes muddy, their faces streaked with dirt, Mike and Andrés watched
a live feed on a small black-and-white screen – a grainy, endoscopic view of black piping. The hose reel next to their heads
turned with a low hum as the camera continued its subterranean crawl, transmitting footage so consistent it seemed looped.
Meter after meter of PVC pipe, stretching out beneath the hillside, beneath the streets, beneath the concrete slabs of the
houses.

Light from the screen flickered across the men’s faces. Their lifeless expressions did not change.

Jimmy crawled up from the manhole, his dark skin glistening with sweat, and peered through the open van doors. ‘We done?’

Mike nodded, his eyes distant. Barely able to register the words. ‘Thanks, Jimmy. You can go now.’

Jimmy shrugged and walked off. A moment later an engine turned over with a familiar growl, and then the men listened to Jimmy
putter off in Mike’s old truck.

When Mike finally spoke, his voice was cracked. ‘PVC is the worst of all of it. The chemicals leak into the soil. The shit
migrates. They find it in whale blubber. They find it in Inuit breast milk, for Christ’s sake.’

Andrés leaned back, resting his head against the wall of the van.

‘How much would it cost?’ Mike asked.

‘You kidding, no?’

‘To make it right. To replace it with vitrified clay.’

‘It’s not just under the street. It’s under the slabs. Under the houses.’

‘I know where pipes go.’

Andrés sucked his teeth and looked away.

Mike registered a dull ache at the hinge of his jaw and realized he was clenching. Tearing up the houses would be a nightmare.
A lot of the families had already sold their old places. They were middle-income folks who wouldn’t have the money for a rent-back
or a prolonged hotel stay. Hell, that had been a big part of this – to help families get into nice houses. Many of the properties
he’d placed not with the highest bidders but with people who needed them – single mothers, working-class couples, families
who needed a break.

Mike said, ‘How did you not notice this?’

‘
Me
? You choose the grading contractor. Vic Manhan. The guy roll in with thirty workers and do the whole thing over Christmas
break. Remember – you were thrilled.’

Mike stared across at his Ford with resentment and enmity. A fifty-five-thousand-dollar pickup – what the hell was he thinking?
Would the dealership take it back? His anger mounted, the fuse burning down. ‘You got Manhan’s number there?’ he asked.

Andrés scrolled through his cell phone, hit ‘send,’ and handed it off to Mike.

As it rang, Mike ran a dirty hand through his sweaty hair, tried to slow his breathing. ‘This prick better carry a hefty insurance
policy. Because I don’t care what it costs. I’m gonna hit him with as many lawsuits as I can—’

‘
This number is no longer in service. If you believe you have reached this recording in error
—’

Mike’s heart did something in his chest.

He hung up. Clicked around in Andrés’s phone. Tried Manhan’s cell.

‘
The Nextel subscriber you are trying to reach is no longer
—’

Mike hurled the phone against the side of the van. Andrés looked at him, then leaned over slowly, retrieved his phone, eyed
the screen to make sure it still worked.

Mike was breathing hard. ‘I checked his goddamned license myself.’

‘You better check again,’ Andrés said.

His shirt sticking to his body, Mike made a chain of calls, jotting down each new number on the back of an envelope. The picture
swiftly resolved. Vic Manhan’s license had expired five months ago, shortly after he’d finished the job for Mike. Manhan had
let his general-liability insurance lapse before that, so it had not been in effect when he’d laid in the PVC pipes. The policy
documents he’d produced for Mike had been fraudulent. Which meant – in all likelihood – no money to cover damages.

For the first time in a long time, Mike’s mind went to violence, the crush of knuckles meeting nose cartilage, and he thought,
How quickly we regress
. He lowered his head, made fists in his hair, squeezed until it stung. His breath floated up hot against his cheeks.

‘You can’t be
that
surprised,’ Andrés said. ‘About finding the PVC.’

‘What the hell kind of thing is that to say? Of
course
I’m surprised.’

‘Come on. Vitrified clay is heavier than cast iron. More expensive to make, to truck, to install. So how you think Manhan’s
quote come in thirty percent below everyone else’s?’ The brown skin at Andrés’s temples crinkled. ‘Maybe you didn’t
want
to know.’

Mike looked down at his rough hands.

Andrés said, ‘You got forty families moving in. This week. Even if you want to spend all the money to replace, what are you
gonna do? Jackhammer through all their houses? Their streets?’

‘
Yes
.’

Andrés lifted an eyebrow. ‘To switch one set of pipes with another?’

‘I signed,’ Mike said. ‘My name. Guaranteeing I used vitrified-clay pipes in place of PVC. My
name
.’

‘You didn’t do anything wrong. This guy screw us.’

Mike’s voice was hoarse: ‘Those houses are built on a lie.’

Andrés shrugged wearily. He climbed out of the van with a groan, and a moment later, Mike followed, his muscles feeling tight
and arthritic.

They faced each other in the middle of the street, blinking against the sudden brightness like newborns, the canyon laid out
before them, beautiful and steep and crusted with sagebrush. The air, crisp and sharp, tasted of eucalyptus. The green of
the roofs matched the green of the hillside sumac, and when Mike squinted, it all blended together and became one.

‘No one will know,’ Andrés said. He nodded once, as if confirming something, then started for his car.

Mike said, ‘I will.’

Mike sat on the hearth of their small bedroom fireplace, his back to the wall, staring at the cordless phone in his lap. Debating
with himself. Finally he dialed the familiar number.

A strong voice, husky with age. ‘Hank Danville, Private Investigations.’

‘It’s Mike,’ he said. ‘Wingate.’

‘Mike, I don’t know what else to tell you. I said I’d call if I found anything, but I’ve got nowhere else to look.’

‘No, not that. Something new. I have a guy I need you to track down.’

‘I hope it’s something I can actually make headway with this time.’

‘He’s a contractor who screwed me.’ Mike gave him a brief rundown. He could hear the faint whistle of Hank’s breathing as
he took notes. ‘I need to know where he is. To say it’s urgent is an understatement.’

‘How much you in for?’ Hank asked.

Mike told him.

Hank whistled. ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he said, and hung up.

Mike was used to searching for information he probably didn’t want to know, but that didn’t make the waiting any easier. He
got into the shower and leaned against the tile, blasting himself with steaming water, trying to pressure-wash away the stress.
As he was drying off, the phone rang. Towel wrapped around his waist, he picked it up, sat on the bed, and braced for bad
news.

‘Vic Manhan’s last-known puts him in St. Croix,’ Hank said. ‘A bounced check at a bar two months ago. God knows where he is
now. His wife left him, he was staring at an expensive divorce, all that. Probably figured pulling a last job and splitting
with his cash would be a better way to go. I’m not sure how he dummied the insurance papers and the databases, but there were
no real policies backing him when he did your job.’

Mike closed his eyes. Breathed. ‘You can’t find where he is now?’

‘The guy’s on the run from the cops and his wife’s lawyers. He probably hightailed it to Haiti by now. He’s not findable.’

Bitterness rode the back of Mike’s tongue. ‘Come on. The guy’s hardly Jason Bourne.’

‘You’re welcome to have someone else try. I thought I did pretty good for fifteen minutes.’

‘It’s just another dead end, Hank. We seem to keep hitting them.’

Hank’s voice sharpened with indignation. ‘Oh, we’re back to that now? I told you when you first came in that what you were
asking for would be next to impossible. I
never
promised you results.’

‘No, you sure didn’t.’

‘You can be displeased with the facts, but I’m too old to have my character questioned. Come by the office and pick up your
file. We’re done.’

Mike held the phone to his face until the dial tone bleated, regret washing through him. He’d acted like an asshole, looking
for someone to blame, and he owed Hank an apology. Before he could hit ‘redial,’ he heard the door to the garage open and
then Annabel breezing through the kitchen. He tossed the phone onto the bed just before she swept in, his suit slung over
her shoulder.

‘Sorry I’m late. He pressed the pants wrong, made them look like Dockers. Come here. Grab a shirt. Put this on.’ She jangled
her watch around her wrist until the face came visible. ‘We can still get you there on time.’

The photo shoot. Right.

He obliged, moving on stunned autopilot. He couldn’t figure out how to stop getting dressed and start telling her.

Annabel moved around him, tugging at the lapels, straightening the sleeves. ‘No, not that tie. Something darker.’

‘It used to be I could pick out my own tie,’ Mike murmured. ‘When did I become so useless?’

‘You were always useless, babe. You just didn’t have me around to point it out.’ She went on tiptoes, kissed him lightly on
the cheek. ‘You look
amazing
. The governor will be impressed. Might hit on you, even. Could be a scandal.’ She stepped back, appraised him. ‘Certainly
beats that plaid jacket.’

‘Windowpane,’ Mike said weakly. ‘Listen . . .’

‘
Lord
.’ She’d spotted his work clothes, kicked off on the bathroom floor. ‘What’d you do, crawl through a sewer?’

She went over and scooped up the grimy clothes. A small brown box fell from the pocket of the jeans, bounced on the linoleum,
and spit out a ring – the two-carat diamond he’d chosen at the jewelry store after dropping Kat off at school. He’d forgotten
about it.

Annabel’s hand went to her mouth. She crouched reverently over the ring, plucked it up. Her eyes glimmered with tears. ‘The
deal closed!’ She laughed and ran over, embracing him. ‘I
told
you it would all work out. And this ring. I mean, Mike, are you kidding?’ She slid it onto her right hand, splayed her fingers
to admire the stone. The joy on her face was so absolute that the notion of breaking the spell tightened his throat, made
it hard to breathe.

He set his hands gently on her shoulders. Her bones, delicate and fragile beneath the skin.

She looked up at him. Her gaze sharpened. ‘What’s wrong?’

There he was, in their tiny walk-in closet, wearing a jacket and shirt with no pants. ‘The pipes. Remember the pipes?’

‘Vitrified clay. Arm and a leg. Of course.’

‘The subcontractor screwed us and took off. I just found out.
Everything stubbed up through the slabs is vitrified clay. That’s how we passed environmental inspection.’ He moistened his
lips. ‘But everything buried beneath the surface is PVC.’

A flicker of understanding crossed Annabel’s face. ‘How much? To fix it?’

‘More than we’ll make.’

She took a step back and sat on the bed. Her hands were clasped and her eyes on that big diamond sticking out, gleaming even
in the faint light of the bedroom. She and Mike breathed awhile in the silence.

‘I love my old ring anyway,’ she finally said. ‘You married me with it.’

Something in his chest unraveled a bit, and he felt suddenly much older than his thirty-five years.

‘It’s you and me,’ she said. ‘And Kat. We don’t need more money. I can put school on hold, get a job for a while. Just until,
you know. We’ll find room in the budget. We can pull Kat from that after-school enrichment program. We’ll live in a condo.
I don’t care.’

He pulled on his pants, slowly, his legs heavy and numb, like they didn’t belong to him. He couldn’t meet Annabel’s eyes because
he was scared of what that would make him feel.

‘You are always true,’ she said. She took off the two-carat ring, set it on the duvet beside her, and managed a smile. ‘Make
this right however you have to.’

The suite in the Beverly Hills Hotel was the largest Mike had ever seen. Bill Garner sat behind an antique letter desk, cocked
back thoughtfully in a leather chair that seemed designed for musing. He studied the photo, a computer printout that showed
PVC pipe protruding into the ditch.

Through the open door to the sitting room wafted laughter, tidbits of conversation, and the occasional camera flash. The recipients
of the community-leadership award were to mingle
now and take some PR photos to lay the media foundation for the formal ceremony Sunday evening. Aside from the governor,
who – judging by the chorus of salutations – had just swept in, Mike had been the last to arrive.

Garner rose, strode across, and poked his head through the doorway. ‘Are the setups ready? Okay, give us a minute here.’ He
closed the door and resumed his spot behind the desk. His face, teenage smooth, registered nothing but pleasant optimism,
as it had the entire time Mike had explained the problem.

Garner templed his fingers. ‘You’re going to pay for the fix?’

Mike said, ‘I am prepared to do that.’

‘Those PVC pipes. Where do you think they’ll go once you dig them up?’

‘I hadn’t given that much thought,’ Mike said.

‘Into a landfill, I’d guess. So you want to move pipes from the ground back into the ground in another location? And use a
lot of gas-guzzling machinery to do it?’ He smiled affably. ‘Sounds a bit silly, doesn’t it?’

Mike became suddenly aware of his new suit. ‘Yes. But honest, at least.’

‘These houses you’ve built, they’re ninety-nine-percent green. There’s a lot to be proud of.’

Mike studied him a moment, trying to read his face. ‘I don’t see it that way.’ He shifted on the plush armchair, uncomfortable
in the dress clothes. ‘I’m not sure I’m following the direction this conversation is taking.’

‘The governor’s hung his hat on this project, Mike. You know how strong he is on the environment. And your housing community,
with our pilot subsidy program, shows that a green model can work not just for rich assholes – that it can make sense for
working folks. Green Valley is the governor’s baby. He’s been talking it up in the press for
months
.’

‘I understand that this is an embarrassment,’ Mike said. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘The subsidies are a pilot program, tenuous at best. The governor is under fire from both sides of the aisle. If we don’t
parade out a community model to show the energy benefits – soon – those subsidies will be off the table. You’re aware of the
election in a month’s time? The governor’s got a host of ballot initiatives he’s put his neck on the line for. That’s why
we timed the press, the photo shoot, the award ceremony this Sunday.’ He pursed his lips. ‘How long will it take you to switch
out these pipes?’

Discomfort glowed to life in Mike’s stomach, crept up his throat. ‘Months.’

‘And your award for outstanding community—’

‘Obviously, you’ll have to withdraw that.’

‘See,’ Garner said, ‘that’s the thing. No award ceremony means no press. No press means no public support. No public support
means no state subsidies for those home buyers.’

Mike’s mouth went dry.

‘How much are the subsidies?’ Garner asked. ‘Three hundred thousand per family?’

‘Two seventy-five,’ Mike said faintly.

‘And these are middle-class families you have moving in there. I mean, that was the point, really. And now you’re gonna tell
these folks that not only can they not move into their new houses for
months
but that the subsidies upon which they’ve based their financial planning will no longer be there for them?’ He grinned ruefully.
‘That they will have to come up with nearly
three hundred grand
more apiece? Or were you planning on covering that as well?’

Mike swallowed to wet his throat. ‘I don’t have anywhere near that kind of money.’

‘Then are you sure you want to pass on this problem to those families?’

For the first time, Mike had no ready answer.

Garner placed a manicured fingertip on the photograph and slid it slowly back across the antique desk.

Mike stared down at it.

An impatient knock on the door. A young aide leaned into the room and said, ‘We need him
now
. The photographer’s restless, and I have to get the governor on a plane back to Sacramento.’ From behind him Mike could make
out the governor telling a joke, the firehose-pressure vowels of the Austrian intonation. Garner held up a finger. The aide
sighed, said, ‘You got thirty seconds,’ and withdrew.

Mike and Garner regarded each other, the silence cut only by the ticking of a carriage clock and muffled conversation from
the sitting room.

‘So what do you say?’ Garner leaned forward on the desk, a flash of skin peeping through the slit in his shirtsleeve. ‘For
the benefit of forty families, think you can smile for a few cameras?’

He gestured toward the sitting room, his gold cuff link glittering.

On his knees, Mike peered into the flickering fire. It threw an orange glow across his face, the carpet, the white duvet of
their bed. In his hand he clutched the photo showing that telltale elbow of PVC. Ridiculously, it struck him that his posture
was that of a shamed samurai.

Annabel stood behind him, still absorbing the scene. Kat, thankfully, was in her room with the door closed, engrossed in homework.

Annabel hadn’t spoken. Not since he’d trudged in, tugged off his suit jacket, and taken his spot on the floor. She didn’t
have to. She already knew and was just waiting for him to tell her.

‘They don’t want a delay,’ he said. ‘They need the PR from the award ceremony. They threatened that the families will lose
the subsidies.’

‘Then we should absorb the cost for them,’ Annabel said. ‘How much is it? On top of the pipe replacement costs?’

‘Eleven million dollars.’

He heard the breath leave her.

‘So what . . . what are we going to do?’ she asked.

He held out his hand, dropped the photograph into the flames. The picture curled and blackened.

‘Okay.’ Her voice was faint, crestfallen. ‘I guess I’ll buy a new dress.’

The bathroom door clicked shut behind her. He stared into the fire, wondering what the hell else a lie like this could open
up.