“That much is true.”

“You’re all Hollywood?” Jean said.

“Through and through,” Jason said. “How’d you like to come out west with me? I leave in a couple weeks and I’m driving through Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. You’ve never seen any country like it. You ever been out of Jericho?”

“Hell yes,” she said. “I’ve been to New York City.”

“How many times?”

“Once,” Jean said, looking away, smiling. “With my senior class. I’ve been to New Orleans a bunch. I’ve gone to Mardi Gras three times.”

“How’d you like to ride on the back of my bike up the PCH?”

“Depends on what the hell’s the PCH.”

“Pacific Coast Highway,” Jason said. “We follow the ocean all the way up to San Francisco. We’ll camp out at Big Sur, eat crabs at Fisherman’s Wharf, make love on the beach at Santa Cruz.”

“I think you’re getting a little ahead of yourself, Jason Colson.”

Jason grinned. He wrapped his arm around Jean Beckett’s narrow waist, feeling the warm tautness of her belly, lifting her red hair off the nape of her neck, and kissing her at the hairline while she finished up the soft serve.

The Dairy Queen was an odd little building, looking queer and out of place right at the edge of that dirty old river. It was just a cinder-block box with big neon sign above the open-air counter, where teenage girls served burgers, dogs, and milk shakes. They wore tight white shirts and kept their hair in ponytails and most nights played a rock ’n’ roll station out of Memphis.

Jason kissed Jean’s neck and she rubbed his beard.

“I’m not supposed to say this,” Jean said, “but Hamp thinks your running around with those boys is going to get you into trouble. He thinks maybe it’d be best if you left town for a while. He calls the man who runs things, what’s his name? Chains? He says he’s a stone-cold sociopath.”

“He’s not my biggest fan,” Jason said. “But I think he got his eggs a little scrambled in ’Nam. I just don’t think he can stand for people to tell him what to do, doesn’t care for the way most people live by laws and old-fashioned kind of phoniness.”

“I’d watch my step,” Jean said. “He sounds batshit crazy to me.”

Jason finished his ice cream and tossed the rest of the cone toward a trash barrel. The speakers at the stand were playing Elton John, recalling for Jason some sweet times down in San Diego with a young actress he’d dated a couple years ago. Dune buggies and wet bathing suits and burning driftwood on the beach. Jason had felt he was on another planet than Jericho. He hoped he could do the same for Jean. This wasn’t living.

“Before we go any further,” Jason said, “I need you to understand something about me.”

Jean leaned back into Jason, shoulders pressing into his chest, that red hair blowing in the hot wind off the river, driving him crazy.

“What’s that?”

“I don’t like people telling me what to do,” Jason said. “Since I was a kid, I hated when someone said I was too scared or I couldn’t do something. My brother Jerry got rich taking bets from kids in town about what his brother might try next. I could climb the tallest trees. Dove off that bridge over there when I was ten. Headfirst.”

“That is crazy.”

“That’s just the way I am,” Jason said. “It’s the way I make my living. Every day I’m out there, someone in L.A. is playing chicken with my livelihood. The day I say no mas, my reputation is done. That’s one of the many things I’ve learned from Mr. Needham.”

“So you want me to know your profession is being crazy,” Jean asked. “And riding with some real cutthroats while you’re back home is just another way of proving yourself.”

“Every day, Miss Jean.”

She got off his slick Harley, Jason watching her walk over to toss the rest of her ice cream in the trash barrel. She had on cowboy boots, with cutoff jeans and a white peasant top that was next to nothing. Jason’s heart just kind of caught for a moment as she turned, smiled, and walked toward him. Jason moving up on the seat, kicking the bike to start, and Jean Beckett crawling on back with him, wrapping her long arms around his waist. “Just where are we going, Jason Colson?” she whispered.

“Don’t have any plans.”

“Just promise me one thing,” she said, her words hot and warm in his ear.

Jason revved the motor. The little girls working the Dairy Queen squealed.

“Don’t you ever lie to me,” she said. “When that happens, there’s no second chances.”

Quinn liked to get up before dawn, feeling like he had a jump on the morning, some alone time for himself when he pulled on his PT gear and ran a fire road up behind his house. He’d fashioned an old section of pipe between a couple four-by-fours, where he could do pull-ups, and had a concrete pad he’d poured for push-ups and sit-ups. He liked to train in the elements, appreciated the cold and wet, and was happy to burn off a good sweat before showering, shaving, and putting on his uniform. That uniform almost always ironed, with starched jeans, a khaki or Army-green button-up shirt with a patch on the shoulder. He’d pin on his tin star and collect his M9 Beretta, about the only thing he took from his time in the Regiment. His cowboy boots were always shined and ready to go on top of his footlocker, and by the first cup of coffee, and sometimes a cigar, he was watching the sun rise over the big rolls of hay he kept for his cattle.

Jean was up next. And then Jason got up, bleary-eyed in Superman pajamas and a little pissed at the early hour. Jean made them both fried eggs with bacon and biscuits. Then Jason hurried back to his bedroom to get dressed for kindergarten while Jean packed his lunch. Caddy was already up and gone, serving food to homeless families at The River. This had been the way since they’d all moved in after the storm.

“You had a late night,” Jean said.

“Diane Tull had some problems,” Quinn said, telling her about the peeper and the damage to her truck.

“Why in the hell would someone do that to such a nice woman?” Jean said. “She’s the only one around here who sells decent American-made clothes for kids. And boots. She helped Jason into a new pair of boots this fall. She’s good with kids. Raised two boys of her own.”

“Lillie has a theory,” Quinn said.

“And what’s that?”

“People can be mean as hell and dumber than shit.”

“Miss Tull have any idea who might have slashed her tires?”

“No, ma’am,” Quinn said, not wanting to get into opening back up the events of 1977 with Jean. Caddy may have told her, but Quinn wanted to keep much of it confidential. He crumbled the bacon on top of the eggs and dashed them with Crystal sauce.

When he finished off the last bit of biscuit, and washed out and filled up his Thermos with black coffee, Quinn walked out onto the front porch and out to the Big Green Machine to warm it up for Jason. On days he came in late, Lillie would cover for him. And when she needed to watch her daughter, a baby girl she rescued and adopted at six months old, Quinn covered for her.

The day was bright and bleak, sun not supposed to take them much above forty degrees. The trees were leafless and brittle in the wind. Quinn poured some coffee, steaming from the mug, and tuned his radio to the Drake & Zeke morning show out of Memphis. As he listened to the latest jokes about Memphis politicians and the decline of modern culture, Jean brought out Jason and helped get him in his safety seat. They were off, riding up the long dirty road from Quinn’s house, through some logging land, and then turning toward Jericho and the elementary school.