"So you grew up in an all-male household."

I nodded.

"My uncles dated a lot, so did my father. There were always girlfriends around. But they didn't have anything to do with the family. The family was us.

"Three men and a boy," Susan said.

"Maybe four boys," I said.

"All unified by a connection to one woman."

"Yeah."

"Who was dead," Susan said.

I nodded.

"They were all fighters," I said. "My father used to pick up spare money boxing, around the state, at smokers, fairs, stuff like that. And my uncles did the same thing. Heavyweight, all three of them. One uncle fought for a while at light heavy until he filled out."

"And they taught you."

"Yeah. I could box as far back as I can remember."

"What were they like?" Susan said.

"They were like each other," I said. "Other than that it's hard to summarize. They were fairly wild, tough men. But one thing was clear. We were family, the four of us, and in that family I was the treasure."

"They loved you."

"They loved me without reservation," I said. "No conditions. Nothing about their love depended on my grades or my behavior. They expected me to learn how to act by observing them. And God save anyone who didn't treat me properly."

"Like what?" Susan said. I could see how she'd gotten to be such a good shrink. Her interest was luminous. She listened with her whole self. Her eyes picked up every movement of my hands, every gesture of my soul.

"I went to the store once," I said, "and on the wayback, past a saloon, a couple of drunks gave me a hard time. I was probably sort of mouthy."

"Hard to believe," Susan murmured.

"Anyway-I was maybe around ten-the bottle of milk I was carrying got broken. I went home and told my uncle Bob, who was the only one there. One of them was always home. I never had a babysitter. And he grinned and said we'd take care of it, and later that afternoon, we all went down to the place. It was called the Blind Pig Saloon, and my father and my uncles cleaned it out. It was like one of those old John Wayne movies, where bodies would come flying out through the front window. I didn't know if the culprits were even in there when we arrived. Didn't matter. By the time the cops came the place was empty except for me, and everything in there was broken."

"Where were you," Susan said, "while all this was happening?"

"Mostly behind the bar, watching, like the kid in Shane. Even had the dog with me."

We were quiet. Susan twirled the stem of her nearly full wineglass. There was the imprint of her lipstick on the rim. I thought about what it might be like going through life with everything having a faint raspberry flavor.

"Parents' day at school was an event," I said. "They'd always come. The three of them. All six feet or more. All around two hundred pounds and hard as the handle on a pickax, and they'd sit in the back row, at the little desks, with their arms folded and not say a word. But they always came."

Across Arlington Street, past the wrought-iron fence that rimmed the Public

Gardens, beyond the initial stand of big trees, I could see the weeping willows that stood around the lagoon where the swan boats drifted in pleasant weather. Through the rain the willows had a misty green blur about them, softened by the weather, almost lacy.

"When I was ten or twelve," I said, "we moved east. I think my father and my uncles thought it was a better place for a kid to grow up."

"Boston?" Susan said.

"Yeah. The Athens of America. My father read a lot. My uncles didn't, except to me. Every night one of them would read to me after dinner while the other two cleaned up."

"What did they read?"

"To me? Uncle Remus, Winnie-the-Pooh, Joseph Altscheler, John R. Tunis, stuff like that."

"And what did your father read, to himself?" Susan said.

"He had no formal education, so he had no master plan," I said. "He read whatever came along: Shakespeare, Kenneth Roberts, Faulkner, C. S.

Forester, Dos Passos, Rex Stout. Actually I think he was reading Marquand when he decided to move us to Boston. Or Oliver Wendell Holmes, or Henry

Adams, somebody like that."

"Because he thought it would be good for you?"

"Yeah. He believed all that Hub of the Universe stuff."

"So you all came."

"Oh yeah, the four of us and Pearl."

"And what about love? Was there someone before me?"

"There were a lot of women before you."

"No. I mean, did you ever love anyone before me?"

"Just once," I said.

"Was she as pretty, sexy, and smart as I am?" Susan said.

"Would you believe, prettier, sexier, and smarter."

"No," Susan said.

"How about younger?" I said.

"Younger is possible."

CHAPTER 9

R B Hot Top and Paving was behind a ragged shopping center off the Revere

Beach Parkway in Everett. A red sign with yellow letters that appeared to have been hand painted on a piece of 4 X 8 plywood was nailed to a utility pole out front. There were a couple of asphalt-stained dump trucks parked on the hot-top turnaround, and, next to the Quonset but that served as an office, a power roller was parked on a trailer. The hot-top apron was maybe four inches thick and gleamed the way new hot top does, but no one had bothered to retain it and it was crumbly and scattered along the edges.

In the backseat Pearl growled in an entirely uncute way, and the hair along her spine went up. A black and tan pit bull terrier appeared in the door of the Quonset with his head down and stared out at the car.

"Pearl appears to want a piece of that pit bull," Paul said.

"That's because she's in here," I said. Paul and I got out of the car carefully so Pearl would stay put. She was stiff-legged in the backseat, growling a low serious growl. The pit bull gazed at us, his yellow eyes unblinking.

"Nice doggie," Paul murmured.

"I'm not sure that's going to work," I said.

We walked toward the door. A squat man appeared in it wearing a gold tank top and blue workout pants with red trim. He had dark curly hair, worn longish, over his ears, and there was a lot of dark hair on his chest and arms. As we got close I could see that he was wearing a small gold loop in his left ear. There were two gold chains around his neck, a gold bracelet on his right wrist, a gold Rolex watch on his left one. On his feet he wore woven leather sandals.

The pit bull growled briefly. The man bent over slightly and took hold of the loose end of the dog's choke collar.

"He won't bother you unless I tell him," the man said.

"Good to know," I said.

"We're looking for Marty Martinelli," Paul said.

"What for?" the man said. The pit bull was motionless, his expressionless yellow eyes staring at us. There was a barely audible rumble in his throat.

The man had a forefinger hooked less firmly than I would have liked through the ring on the choke collar. On the back of his wrist, in blue script, was tattooed the name Marty.

"We need to ask him a couple of questions about some people," Paul said.

"I do hot top, you know. I put a nice driveway in your yard, put a nice sealer on it. Charge you a fair price. That's what I do. I don't go around answering questions about nobody. Gets you in trouble."