Barb and I were at Lake Sunapee at my son’s. We watched it. I saw my house on TV before I saw it in person.”

“I guess that could be good news.”

Arnie didn’t respond.

“What d’you want me to do, Arnie?”

“I’m driving down to meet the cocksuckers. Flip companies. You heard of them? Speculators.” Arnie had started speaking in some kind of tough-guy, Jersey gangster growl.

“I heard about them.” I’d read about it all in the Times.

“So you see the whole deal. I need your advice, Frank. You used to be honest.”

“I’ve been out of the realty business a while, Arnie. My license is expired. All I know is what I read in the newspaper.”

“It’ll make you more reliable. Take away the profit motive. I’m not planning to shoot you, if you’re worried about that.”

“I hadn’t quite gotten to there, Arnie.” Though I had. It had already happened. Once in Ortley Beach, once in Sea Girt. Listing agents shot sitting at their desks, typing out offer sheets.

“So. Are you gonna show up? I could say you owe me.” Another truck’s withering horn went blasting past. “Jesus. These fucks. I’m gonna get killed out here. So?”

“Okay, I’ll come,” I said, just to get Arnie off the road shoulder and on to the scene of destruction.

“Eleven o’clock tomorrow. At the house,” Arnie said. “Or where it used to be. You might recognize it. I’m driving a silver Lexus.”

“I’ll be there.”

“Are we gonna have NHL this year, Frank?” Hockey. Destruction’s great leveler.

“I haven’t really kept up, Arnie.”

“The shit-for-brains players,” Arnie said. “They got the best deal they’ll ever get. Now they’ll have to settle for less. Sound familiar?” As always, Arnie was on management’s side. “Hail to the Victors, Frank.”

“Champions of the West, Arnie.”

“Mañana en la mañana.” Which seemed to be how Arnie said thanks.

OUT ON LITTLE LEAGUE WORLD CHAMPIONS BOULEVARD, Toms River, nothing looks radically changed stormwise. In a purely retinal sense, the barrier island across the bay has done its god-given work for the inland communities, though much lies in ruins here, back in the neighborhoods. Traffic is anemic along the once–Miracle Mile, headed toward the bridge.