“Do you ever get walk-in clients?” I said.

“You’d be surprised.”

“Do we have beer?”

“And wine and soon a pizza,” she said. “What more could a good Jewish girl want for an evening?”

“Let’s get changed and I’ll show you.”

“My mother warned me about a goy like you,” she said. “She said they only think of one thing.”

I leaned in and kissed her on the cheek as she unlocked the door. I whispered into her ear, “Your mother was right.”

24

The next day, I hadn’t been in Blackburn all of two hours when a cop pulled me over with his flashers. He asked me to step out of the car and put my hands on the roof.

I told him this technically wasn’t a car. “It’s an SUV,” I said. “It has four-wheel drive and everything.”

“Get the fuck out of the car, smart-ass, before I drag you out.”

“That would be interesting to see.”

“What?”

“I said I’d be thrilled if you’d try,” I said. “You know, reach in, grab me by the arms, and see what happens? It’ll be fun. You look like you could use a little workout this morning.”

He looked hard at me. I looked at him. I noted the name on his badge. Murphy. I took in the features of his round face and weak chin. A thin scar over his right eye. Small, vacant blue eyes and squat, wide nose. Short, oily blondish hair. I reached down to my smartphone and flipped through the apps as I kept eye contact. Looking at him wasn’t very pleasant. It took great effort and fortitude. His breath smelled like the back alley of a seafood restaurant.

“You resisting?”

“You keep breathing on me and I’ll write out a confession.”

“Get out of the vehicle now.”

“Are you arresting me?” I said.

“You bet your ass,” Officer Murphy said.

“Just for the hell of it, what’s the charge?”

“You people make me sick.”

“Educated?”

“Pederast,” he said. “Bopping little girls. Probably keep porno shit on your computer. Now get out of the car.”

There was a lot of blood rushing into my face and I felt a jolt of adrenaline zap my chest.

I wanted to hit him very hard and very fast in the big bazoo. The cop had his hand on his sidearm and stepped back so I could open the door. I touched my smartphone to start recording as I got out.

“I think you have me confused with your old priest.”

He stared harder at me. I resisted the urge to shudder.

My window was down as I closed the door. Several cars zoomed past on Central Avenue. Across the street was a used-tire business, and you could hear the quick zapping of the air gun on the lug nuts. I started to yell over to the men working in the open bay but decided that would be cowardly. Besides, I wasn’t a local. Only special visitors to Blackburn get harassed.

He touched my shoulder, very light, and I spun very fast. He jumped back and pulled his gun. “Wow.”

“You want trouble,” he said, “you got it, big guy.”

“Big guy?” I said. “Wow. You improvise that? Or have you been practicing that in the shower. Along with other things.”

“Turn around,” he said. “Hands behind your back. And shut up.”

He touched the mic on his lapel. He let dispatch know he’d gotten the guy and would need another unit to transport. It made me feel very important.

“Are you going to tell me the charge? Or would that ruin the surprise?”

“Attempted lewd and lascivious act with a minor.”

“This minor have a name? Or was this with all the minors in Blackburn?”

“Beth Golnick.”

“She tell you this?”

“Her mother filed a report this morning,” he said. “You got the girl into your car, or fucking SUV, right by the old mill. You told the girl you wanted her to service you.”

Yeah, I very much wanted to punch the man in the bazoo. But it was a joke to him, and to me, and the more I tried to fight him, the more I’d make his day. Judging from the food stains across his uniform, I didn’t believe he had a hell of a lot of things going for him. A second unit arrived and the cop I’d met at the courthouse got out.

The young guy with the military cut had on the same dark sunglasses. He stood cocky and sure, popping gum as he looked at me. His face had so many pits in it, it resembled pictures I’d seen of the moon.

“Thank God you’re here,” I said. “Officer Murphy and I were having a misunderstanding. I just know you’re here to straighten it out.”

“Shut the fuck up,” he said. “Put the cuffs on him, Murphy. If he keeps talking, put a sock in his mouth.”

“‘O, speak to me no more; these words like daggers enter in my ears.’”

“What?” Murphy said.

“It’s a slick way of telling someone to keep quiet.”

They would arrest me no matter what I tried. I could kick both of them in the teeth, but they were dirty cops with guns drawn. When the dust settled, I’d be dead, and their version of the truth would win. I crossed my arms over my chest. It wasn’t much, but it was something. More cars zoomed past. The guys at the tire place hadn’t so much as turned their heads, finding threadbare tires a lot more interesting.

“Hands on top of the vehicle,” the pitted-faced cop said. “I got to frisk you before I cuff you.”

I shook my head and placed my hands on my Explorer. “Do me a favor?”

“What’s that?” the pitted-faced cop said. Murphy had sidled up to him and was giving the old stink eye.

“Be gentle,” I said. “I bruise easy.”

The young cop sighed and pulled the .38 I wore on my right hip. He handed it over to Murphy. Murphy called a wrecker for my Explorer and then I was chauffeured to the Blackburn Police Department.

25

They had me wait a great long while in a cinder-block room with a long table and four folding chairs. They’d taken away my phone, my .38, and my pen. I didn’t even have the pleasure of scrawling Officer Murphy Sux on top of the desk. My wrists were still cuffed.

So I sat there and waited. I paced a little bit, but the room was short and the pacing didn’t last long. I rolled my head around on my shoulders to loosen my neck. I thought about all the kids who’d probably waited in this same room. Dillon Yates, Van Tran, Jake Cotner, Ryan Bell, and Beth Golnick, who I thought wanted my help. I had little confidence there was any truth to anything the cops said. I imagined the city erecting a sign with a new town slogan: BLACKBURN, WHERE LIES ARE A WAY OF LIFE.

I wondered how Dillon was making out on Fortune Island.

I wondered if the Sox would return to the lovable bums of old.

I wondered if Bobby Talos would invite me to one of his yacht parties.

An hour later, Murphy opened the door and a man I assumed to be the chief walked into the room. He had receding gray hair and a wide florid face with bright blue eyes. He wore a blue uniform with four stars on each of his epaulets, an American-flag patch on one shoulder, and a patch that said CHIEF ARMSTRONG on the other. He sat down across from me without a word. He slipped on a pair of half-glasses he wore loose around his neck and read through a stapled report. His lips did not move as he read, which I took as a sign of middling intelligence.

When he finished, he carefully slid the paper to the middle of the desk. “What do you have to say for yourself, Spenser?”