He hit a hundred ninety thousand on a dollar machine in Tunica fourteen months earlier and the casino handed him a form he folded into his back pocket. He replaced the truck. He took eleven guys from the shop to a steakhouse and ordered for the table. By February the money was a story he told well and the rest was gone.

The envelope came at 6:40 on a Tuesday and he opened it at the mailbox in his pajamas because standing there seemed safer than bringing it inside. Fifty-two thousand, plus penalties. He read it three times on the lawn. Then he went in, poured coffee, and told his wife it was about the truck registration, which bought him nine more days of her sleeping well.