The room was small and spotless. The walls were white. The floor was polished oak. There was no rug. Opposite the foot of the bed was a chest of drawers painted white, and on the wall beside it was a full-length mirror with a white plastic frame. There was no night table, no lamp. The overhead light was very bright above them. Jo Jo’s naked body under the bright overhead glistened with sweat. The muscles and veins were so prominent, stretched so tight against his white skin, that he seemed an anatomy specimen as he sat beside her on the edge of the bed, hitting her gently while she sobbed and moaned into the muffling pillow.

Finally she twisted, releasing her hold on the headboard for a moment as she rolled onto her back, her body arching toward him. She gripped the headboard again and raised her knees and he eased his huge body onto her.

“You’ve got me now,” she gasped. “You’ve really got me.”

Later, standing on a chair at the foot of the bed, Jo Jo aimed carefully through the Polaroid camera at Cissy Hathaway, naked on the bed. Jo Jo snapped six pictures and placed them carefully on the top of the dresser while they took form. He stared at himself for a moment in the mirror. Then he brought the pictures to the bed and held them up for Cissy to see. She looked at them intently.

“Take more,” she said and assumed a different pose. “Different.”

“Boy, you are some sick bitch,” Jo Jo said.

His pale body seethed with muscles, the veins in his arms distended from steroids. He crouched at the foot of the bed and took some pictures. Then he stood, and reloaded the camera, and went to the far side and took some pictures. He continued to move around her, snapping pictures and letting them cure on the bureau top while he took more. As he snapped, Cissy arched her body into different positions. Finally he ran out of film. He went and stared down at the twenty-four pictures of Cissy that lay faceup on the top of the dresser. He picked one up and touched it to see if it was dry. It wasn’t quite, so he blew on it and put it back down.

Behind him on the bed, Cissy said, “Show me.”

Jo Jo turned and looked at her for a moment, and shook his head, and brought the pictures to the bed. Sitting on it while she lay back against the pillows, he held the pictures up one at a time. She studied each one carefully, her eyes shiny, her breathing shallow.

“Hard to figure,” Jo Jo said, “how you ended up marrying a geek like Hasty.”

“I don’t feel comfortable,” she said, “that you have those.”

“You want to keep them at your house?” Jo Jo said.

“No, you know I don’t dare do that.”

“Want me to burn them?” Jo Jo said.

“No.”

“Then I guess you’ll just have to be uncomfortable, huh?”

Cissy nodded. She seemed disoriented. Her manner was vague. Her eyes were wide and her pupils were so dilated that she seemed almost to have no iris. She got off the bed and began to dress while he carefully stowed the pictures of her in the top drawer of the dresser.

“See you next Thursday,” he said.

She didn’t answer.

“Your old man ever wonder where you go on Thursday nights,” Jo Jo said.

“No,” Cissy said. “Hasty always conducts field training on Thursday nights. I’m home before he is.”

“He ever wonder why your ass looks so red?”

Cissy hated it when Jo Jo talked so coarsely. But she tried not to show it. If she showed it she knew he’d just do it more.

“He rarely sees me undressed,” she said.

“Well, ain’t that a trip,” Jo Jo said. “Everybody else in town sees you that way.”

“Must you?” Cissy said.

“Well,” Jo Jo said with a wide grin, “maybe not everybody, but I’ll bet I ain’t the only one, am I right?”

Cissy shook her head without answering.

“Well, I’m not,” Jo Jo said. “One guy once a week ain’t enough for you. Maybe you do different things. Maybe Thursday’s your night for rough trade. But I’m not the only guy.”

A flush smudged along Cissy’s cheekbones. She took her small straw purse from the top of the dresser, put her lipstick in it, closed it carefully, and then, without looking again at Jo Jo, went out of the bedroom. Jo Jo made no move to go with her.

Jo Jo said, “Good night, slut,” but she was probably too far down the stairs to hear him.

He closed the door, and began to strip the bed. He put the sheets and pillowcases in the old-fashioned wicker laundry hamper in the bathroom, and remade the bed with clean sheets. When he was done he went into the bathroom and took a long shower. After he got out and toweled dry, looking at his muscles in the mirror, he rubbed a little Neosporin ointment into the scratches on his hand.

Chapter 28

Lou Burke always looked as if he were ready for inspection. His uniform was tailored and pressed. There were military creases in his shirt. His badge shined. His shoes were spit-shined. His pistol belt and holster gleamed with polish. What little hair he had left was always freshly cut. He was carefully clean-shaven, and he smelled faintly of cologne.

“So tell me about this militia group you belong to,” Jesse said.

Burke shrugged. Carefully, Jesse thought.

“Freedom’s Horsemen?” Burke said.

Jesse nodded.

“Just a bunch of guys, like to shoot, like to stay ready,” Burke said.

“Ready for what?”

“For whatever comes. You know, like the Constitution says, a well-regulated militia.”

Jesse nodded.

“Everybody got paper for the guns?”

“Sure,” Burke said. “Mostly F.I.D.’s. Guys with handguns got carry permits.”

“And discharging a firearm within town limits?”

Burke smiled.

“No problem. Selectmen made that legal, four, five years ago, look it up, as long as it is not done in a way to endanger life or property,” Burke said. “Besides, even if it were illegal, you going to arrest half the town government, including the head selectman?”

“Not me,” Jesse said. “Any automatic weapons?”

“Nope. These guys wouldn’t know where to get one. Hunting rifles mostly, some shotguns, couple old M1’s, couple of M1 carbines that fire semi only.”

“Hasty the commander?”

“Yeah. He’s real serious about it.”

“Any talk of, you know, white supremacy, Jewish conspiracy, that kind of stuff?”

“Hell no, Jesse. We’re a self-defense force that enjoys getting together one day a week and doing some maneuvers. You know I wouldn’t be a part of anything that wasn’t straight.”

“Any blacks in the self-defense force?”

“No, but hell, there’s no blacks in town, are there?”

“Good point,” Jesse said.

“Probably why a lot of people move here, get away from what’s going on in Boston.”

“What’s going on in Boston?”

“Aw, come on, Jesse. You worked in L.A. You know you get a bunch of blacks you get crime and drugs and guns and the neighborhood goes to shit. It’s not prejudiced to say that. It’s just reality.”

“Who finances the Horsemen?”

“What’s to finance? The guys buy their own uniforms, supply their own weapons and ammo. We have a couple parties a year. I think Hasty pays for them.”

Jesse nodded slowly. He tapped the fingers of his left hand softly on the desktop, and pursed his lips in a facial gesture that Burke had seen before. It meant Jesse was thinking. Burke felt a bit uncomfortable.

“You got a problem with any of this, Jesse?”

Jesse continued to purse his lips and drum gently on the desk. Then he stopped, and grinned at Burke.

“No. Hell no, Lou. I got no problem with any of it.”

Burke did not feel entirely reassured. Sonova bitch doesn’t miss much, Burke thought.

Chapter 29

The apartment was very still when Jesse got home. The small sounds of a functioning building only underscored the silence. Jesse walked to the sliders that opened onto the little deck, and looked out at the harbor. There was still enough light to see all the way across to the Neck. A single lobster boat came in toward the town dock, otherwise the boats that bobbed on the calm surface of the harbor were moored and empty. Jesse liked the silence. It was comforting. He stood for a while looking at the quiescent harbor and let the silence sink in. Then he went to the kitchen and got the bottle of Black Label from the cabinet and poured some over ice. He let it sit for a moment while he hung his coat on the back of a chair. Then he picked up the glass and walked into the living room and looked out the window and took his first drink. First one at the end of a day was always a home run. He sat down on one of the armchairs that had come with the apartment, and put his feet up on the coffee table. He sipped again. The silence made him feel strong. And the whiskey made him feel strong. He tried to simply feel the strength and let his mind go, let it be part of the silence and the whiskey and not think about Jenn. He felt strong about Jenn. Right here at least. Right now. The prospect of life without her seemed for the moment filled with possibility. He drank again and got up and added some ice and poured some more scotch. He took the drink back to the window and looked out again. He could think about who killed Captain Cat, but he tried not to. He pushed the thoughts over to the periphery of his mind, let them drift there with thoughts about Freedom’s Horsemen. They would work on their own if he didn’t force them into the center of his consciousness and hold them too tightly. He swallowed some whiskey. The evening had come down upon the harbor. The Neck was no longer visible. Only the lights from some of the houses shone across the dark water. The lobster boat was docked now, nearly motionless against the dock in the bright mercury lamps of the town landing. Abby made things easier. He drank more whiskey. He liked her. But he knew better than to go from one monogamy to another. Abby would be the first of many. He liked the idea. He drank to it. His glass was empty. He got up and got more ice, holding the glass under the ice dispenser in the refrigerator door. He poured scotch over the ice. He looked at the bottle. There was an encouraging amount still left in the bottle. Happiness is a jug that’s still three-quarters full. It was exciting to go out with a woman and be talking pleasantly and maybe having lunch and knowing that in a few hours, or maybe next week, after another date, that you’d see her with her clothes off. It was nice. He remembered the frantic scuffle of his adolescent dates. As an adult there was a calmness and friendliness to it all. Adults made love. How soon depended on circumstance. But all concerned knew it would happen and it took all the desperation out of the procedure. Jesse hated desperation. Life, if he could make all the rules, would proceed in a stately manner. Dating as an adult was sort of stately. Stately. He liked the sound of it.