The second drink tasted better than the first. Jesse held it up so that the light shown through it. The ice cubes were crystalline. The IF I drink was golden with scotch and quick with carbonation.

"You know a family in town named Hopkins?"

"Yeah. He's some kind of financial consultant, I think."

"Kids?"

"They got a couple," Doc said.

"Kids are real assholes."

"Lot of that going around," Jesse said.

"Yeah, all fifteen-year-old kids are probably assholes," Doc said.

"But these kids are worse. You know I got a lobster boat."

Jesse nodded.

"I caught them one day stealing lobsters out of my boat while II was in the wharf office for a minute."

"Maybe they were having a clam bake," Jesse said.

"They weren't taking them. They weren't even throwing them back. They were stealing them and throwing them up onto the deck | of some guy's Chris-Craft."

"So the lobsters die and the guy's boat gets messed up and you lose money and all they get out of it is the pleasure of being pricks," Jesse said.

" Jesse, you're wasting your time as a cop. You should be a child psychologist," Doc said.

"I wanted to drown the little fuckers."

"But you didn't."

Doc shrugged. The sleeves of his white shirt were rolled above his elbows and his sun-darkened forearms were those of a man who'd done a lot of heavy physical labor in his life.

"They're too old to scare, too young to kick the shit out of. I chased them off, climbed on the Chris-Craft, and got my lobsters back."

"Say anything to the parents?"

"No."

Doc moved down the bar and drew two pints of Harp. He put them on the bar, picked up the tab, rang it up and put it back in front of the drinkers. Then he moved back to Jesse.

"How come you're asking?" he said.

"Just making conversation," Jesse said.

Doc squinted at Jesse and shrugged.

"Yeah, you're a big conversation maker," he said.

"I try," Jesse said.

He got up from the bar and went to a pay phone and called the station.

"Anthony? Jesse. You know those Hopkins kids, torched the house on Geary Street? Well, I want a cruiser to park outside their house for a half hour every shift, starting tonight. No don't say anything, don't do anything. Just park outside the house a half hour every shift. That's right. I want to make them nervous."

EIGHT.

At 2:15 in the afternoon, Macklin was sipping a Kettle One martini with a twist, at a sports bar on Huntington Avenue. He was wearing baggy olive linen slacks with three reverse pleats, a loose-fitting black silk tee shirt, and alligator loafers with no socks. In his wallet he had ten one hundred-dollar bills from Faye's savings account. In his pants pocket, he had a hundred and a twenty left from the liquor store.

There were four people besides Macklin in the room: a man and woman at a table eating buffalo wings, and a white-haired man down the bar, watching the soccer game that was on every big screen television in the room. The bartender was slicing lemons.

"Quiet afternoon," Macklin said.

"Usually is," the bartender said, "this time on a weekday." He was a middle-sized young guy with a thick moustache.

"Soccer don't help," Macklin said.

"Some people like it," the bartender said.

"Can't get into it myself."

"Whaddya like?" Macklin said.

"Football," the bartender said.

"Now you're talking," Macklin said.

"You bet?"

"Sure," the bartender said.

"Last year I was up about a bill and a half."

He finished slicing the lemons and put them in a jar and put the jar in the refrigerator under the counter. Then he came down the bar and nodded at Macklin's glass.

"Buy you one?" he said.

"Be a fool not to say yes," Macklin answered.

The bartender scooped some ice into a shaker. Without measuring, he poured in vodka and a splash of vermouth.

"You must know the game," Macklin said.

"Come out ahead."

The bartender rattled the martini around in the shaker and then poured it through the strainer into a chilled glass.

"I played some in high school," he said.

"And I pay attention."

He ran a twist of lemon around the rim of the glass and then dropped it into the martini.

"Makes the game more interesting," Macklin said, "you got something on it."

"You got that right."

Macklin sipped his second martini.

"Nice job," he said to the I bartender.

The bartender grinned and went down the bar to the white-haired man. Macklin took the hundred from his pocket and put it I on the bar. The bartender poured a double shot of Jack Daniels over some ice and put it on a paper napkin in front of the man.

Then he strolled back up the bar to Macklin. He gave no indication that he saw the hundred.

"I'm from out of town," Macklin said.

"And I'm bored. You know where I could find a card game?"

"Where you from?"

"Dannemora, New York," Macklin said.

"And you want to play poker?"

"Yeah. Good game. Some money changing hands, you know?"

"Sure," the bartender said.

"Lemme make a call."

The bartender went down the bar and punched out a number I on the phone. He talked for a moment and then hung up and walked back down to Macklin.

"You know the Lincolnshire Hotel?"

Macklin shook his head.

"You can walk there. You call Tommy King from the lobby. Tell him Lennie Seltzer sent you. They'll tell you the room number and up you go."

"You Lennie?"

"No, Lennie's the guy I called."

"Excellent," Macklin said.

"How do I get there?"

He finished his second martini while the bartender gave him directions. Then he got up, left the hundred on the bar and headed for the door.

"Wish me luck," he said.

The bartender gave him a thumbs-up, and Macklin went out onto Huntington Avenue and walked to the Copley Place Garage where he had parked his car. He took the thousand dollars from his wallet and crumpled the bills and put them in his right-hand pants pocket. Inside the car, he unlocked the glove compartment and took out his 9-mm pistol. He undid his pants. Instead of shorts, he was wearing an oversized jock with a cup. He shoved the pistol down inside the cup. He took a roll of adhesive tape from the glove compartment, tore off some, and taped the handle of the gun against his belly, well below the navel. Then he got out and tucked in his shirt and buttoned his pants. He locked the car and cut through Copley Place on his way to the hotel. He paused outside a leather goods store and looked at himself reflected in the dark glass of the display window. The gun didn't show, just as it hadn't shown when he rehearsed this morning.

It was a perfect summer day in Boston as Macklin strolled through the Back Bay. He didn't need the directions. He knew where the Lincolnshire was. Inside the ornate lobby, he called Tommy King on an ivory house phone.

"Name's Hoyle," Macklin said.

"Lennie Seltzer sent me."

"Room four-eighteen."

"I'll be up," Macklin said.

The elevator smelled of lilacs. The corridor was done in dark red carpet and ivory woodwork. The numbers on the doors were done in gold. At room 418 Macklin stopped. The emergency exit was two doors beyond-out the door and turn left. He rang the little illuminated bell beside the door. When the door opened, he stepped into a small foyer. Room 418 was in fact a two-bedroom suite.