Hasty looked around the inner office. It too was white brick, with a vase full of flowers on the desk. A tall spare man sat behind the desk, and a compact efficient-looking man sat to Gino’s left, tilting his straight chair back against the wall.

“I’m Gino Fish,” the spare man said. “This is my associate Vinnie Morris.”

Morris didn’t make any sign that he even heard Gino. He simply looked at them without expression. Vinnie Morris made Hasty uncomfortable. He made him think of his new police chief, though he wasn’t quite sure why. Something about potential unexpressed, maybe. The motionless implication that there would be more than what you saw, if you pushed beyond the stillness.

“How do you do,” Hasty said.

Why was he so uncomfortable? He was meeting a couple of small-time crooks. He was the president of his own bank. He commanded a force of men that would liquefy these two thugs at his order. If one were to guess from the nance at the reception desk, Fish might even be a homosexual.

“You want some guns,” Fish said.

“As many as you can get, small arms, heavy weapons. I’m sure Jo Jo has spelled all this out for you.”

“Jo Jo couldn’t spell cat,” Fish said, “if you gave him the C and the A. What do you want the weapons for?”

“There’s no need for you to know.”

“I like to know,” Fish said. “You want to do business with me, you do it on my terms. What are you going to do with the weapons?”

“We are a group of free men,” Hasty said. “Patriots.”

Fish smiled.

“I don’t expect you to understand,” Hasty said.

He could feel his face getting hot.

“Go on,” Fish said.

“We know that the government is intent on destroying us. We are ready for it. But we need weapons. Not only for the moment but for the long struggle. We need to stockpile so that when they think they’ve confiscated our arms, we can unearth a new supply and rise when they least expect it.”

Fish nodded slowly. He glanced once at Vinnie Morris, and then back at Hasty.

“So, you’re going to bury the guns?” Fish said.

“Yes.”

Fish smiled.

“This got to do with an international Jewish conspiracy?” he said.

“I know you’re mocking, but you’ll see. Jews, Catholics, one-worlders, anybody who wishes us to give up our sovereignty to a foreign power.”

“Like the Pope, or the UN,” Fish said.

“Yes.”

Fish looked again at Vinnie Morris.

“See?” Fish said. “Didn’t I say it would be worth it to have him come in and see us.”

“That’s what you said.”

Jo Jo didn’t like the way this was going. He didn’t have any idea what Hasty was talking about. He never had known why the Horsemen ran around in the woods with guns. This was the first he’d heard about one-worlders, whatever they were. But he knew Gino was having fun with them, and it made him feel sweaty. For his part Hasty wasn’t used to being laughed at. He wasn’t sure how one was supposed to respond to being laughed at.

“Lot of unmarked UN helicopters hovering over, ah, where are you from again?”

“Paradise,” Hasty said.

His face felt somewhat stiff.

“Ah yes,” Fish said. “Paradise.”

“I am doing business with you,” Hasty said. His voice was hoarse and seemed hard to squeeze through his windpipe. “Admittedly. But you are also doing business with me, and goddamn it, if you don’t want the business, just keep it up and I’ll take my money somewhere else, where they don’t have a damned fairy at the reception desk.”

There was silence in the office for a long moment. Vinnie kept his blank stare on Jo Jo. Then Fish smiled slowly.

“He used the F word, Vinnie.”

Vinnie Morris nodded without saying anything. His eyes steady on Jo Jo.

“Spunky devil, isn’t he?” Fish said.

Vinnie shrugged.

“Well,” Hasty said, hoarsely. “You want the business or not.”

“Of course I do,” Fish said. “Let’s talk particulars.”

Chapter 38

Suitcase Simpson was blushing.

“Well, did you ever think of doing that?” Cissy Hathaway said.

They were sitting on the king-sized bed in a Holiday Inn in the middle of the afternoon drinking California champagne out of the little plastic glasses.

“Jesus, no,” Simpson said. “Cissy, you got to understand, I haven’t had that much experience, you know? I mean you weren’t my first, but, well, I got a lot to learn.”

“But you have youth,” Cissy said. “And energy.”

She drank champagne and refilled her plastic cup.

“Thank God,” she said, “for energy.”

Simpson blushed again and drank, as much to occupy his hands as any other reason. He didn’t really like champagne. It was sour compared to Pepsi, and sweet compared to beer. He really liked beer better. Hell, he admitted to himself, he really liked Pepsi better. But sitting in a motel with a married woman you were about to screw, didn’t seem the right time for Pepsi. Cissy was wearing a little black dress with thin straps over the shoulders and very high heels. She had gotten to the hotel first and he knew she had changed into these clothes. He could see the brown dress she’d worn hanging in the closet. The mirror in the bathroom was still misted so he knew she’d showered, which meant that she had put on the makeup just before he arrived. She’d brought the champagne too, and he knew she was paying for the room. He felt a little funny about not paying. But he didn’t have all that much money, and she had tons. I guess my contribution is the energy, he thought.

“You love your husband?” he said.

Cissy widened her eyes slightly.

“Do I love Hasty,” she said.

“I mean you sneak off with me every week. Maybe other people.”

Cissy narrowed her eyes and smiled to suggest that maybe he was right.

“But you don’t want a divorce or anything, right?”

“Divorce? No, I don’t want to divorce Hasty. We have been together for twenty-seven years. He is worth a lot of money. We have a nice home. He is not demanding of my time, and we are comfortable with each other.”

“So how come you cheat on him?” Simpson said.

He wished he hadn’t said “cheat” as soon as it came out. But Cissy didn’t seem to mind.

“Hasty is not passionate,” she said. “I am.”

“That’s for sure,” Simpson said.

Cissy smiled and looked at him sideways like Lauren Bacall.

“This week,” she said, “I think we should experiment with positions.”

He thought they’d already been doing that, but he didn’t say so.

“Sure,” he said.

Chapter 39

They went north from Boston, over the Mystic River bridge, Hasty driving the big Mercedes, Jo Jo looming beside him. It was a high bridge and at the peak of its arch you could look east down the long harbor where the city seemed to rise directly from the water, or west, up the river where the vast Boston Edison plant sent white vapor into the bright blue air. Neither Hasty nor Jo Jo paid any attention to the view.

Jo Jo was worried about the way the meeting had gone with Gino. He was bothered by the crack about how he couldn’t spell cat. It had been a mistake for Hasty to call the receptionist a fairy. He probably was. Gino was probably scoring him. But it wasn’t smart to talk like that to a guy like Gino. He didn’t like the way Vinnie Morris always watched him. He never looked at anyone else. Hasty had no idea what these people were like. If Gino simply nodded his head, Vinnie would have shot both of them dead. They always said with Vinnie at least it was quick. No lingering. No pain. One right between the eyes and sayonara. Hasty didn’t get that. Gino had laughed at them both. Jo Jo knew that he had. But Hasty seemed to think he was some kind of stand-up guy because he got to have war games behind the high school every week or so. He wouldn’t be so fucking stand-up if Vinnie put one right between Hasty’s eyes. Jo Jo didn’t know what Gino would do, but he wasn’t going to let that fairy remark go. Jo Jo was willing to bet the ranchos grande on that. He hunched the muscles in his back, felt them swell and press against the fabric of his shirt. He often did that when he was scared. Made him feel impregnable. As if the wall of muscle he’d created could keep him safe.