“Wife-swapping?” Suit said.
“You bet,” Maguire said. “As long as my wife isn’t involved.”
“I don’t think it works that way,” Jesse said.
“A shame,” Maguire said.
Jesse grinned.
“Suit, can you talk to any of the people you know?” Jesse said.
“The guys, Clark and Basco,” Suit said. “We were pretty tight, you know, playing football and all.”
“See what you can find out,” Jesse said.
“I don’t even know what we want to find out,” Suit said.
“Gives you plenty of room to maneuver,” Jesse said.
15
THE NIGHT Hawk was tense. Last Wednesday he’d had his first big score. He’d seen her naked, making out with her husband. But they’d seen him and he’d had to run. It was sort of embarrassing to have to run off like that, like some pathetic little Peeping Tom kid. It had violated his autonomy, as the invisible watcher, taken away the power of his anonymity. But it had been sort of exciting as well, a little flirt of jeopardy that had intensified the Night Hawk’s experience. As he dressed, the Night Hawk tasted the experience again, rolling it on the tongue, trying to discern it as if it were an expensive red wine. It is like wine, in some ways, the Night Hawk thought. It’s kind of intoxicating, the search, the possibility, the triumphant moment of total nudity in that woman’s most intimate moment. The Night Hawk wanted more. It’s rather like wine in that, too, the Night Hawk thought as he started down the back stairs. At least for certain kinds of drinkers, drinking makes you want to drink more. . . . I may be that kind of watcher . Maybe there is never enough. As he walked through the darkness in the quiet town he could feel himself swell with importance, and tighten with uncertainty. Would he see her, any her, tonight, as he had last Wednesday? Would she be good-looking? A little plump? A little thin? Would she be younger, or old enough to show some gray? Sometimes women, after they undressed, had a little reddish indentation around their belly, where the elastic top of an undergarment had pressed into their skin.
He never went to the same part of town twice. Tonight he was in the commuter part of town, where they lived in rows of neat, expensive houses on quiet side streets. Halfway down such a street there was a cut-through to the next street, one that kids had probably worn. It was narrow, screened by bushes, and out of reach of the streetlights out front. The Night Hawk glanced around, saw no one, and turned into it. The land rose somewhat halfway along the cut-through, and at the top of the rise, if he stood up among the trees, the Night Hawk could see into the second-floor windows of the houses on Birch Avenue. At that place, the Night Hawk took up his vigil.
16
“I DON’T WANT to talk about myself today,” Jesse said. “I need to talk a little bit about business.”
“Sure,” Dix said.
“You don’t believe me?”
“Why would you lie to me?” Dix said.
“You shrinks ever give a direct answer?” Jesse said.
Dix smiled.
“Yes,” he said.
Jesse nodded. Dix waited. His shaved head was shiny. His white shirt was bright. He seemed freshly showered and gleaming. Which was how he always looked.
“You hear about the school principal who made the girls show her their underwear?”
Jesse said.
“I read a squib on it in the paper,” Dix said. “I noticed it because it was in Paradise.”
“I’m flattered,” Jesse said.
Dix nodded his head once.
“Parents raised hell, we got called in . . .” Jesse shrugged. “What do you think of that?”
“Underwear surveillance?” Dix said.
“Yeah.”
“I think it violated the civil rights of the girls,” Dix said.
“Yeah,” Jesse said, “I do, too.”
Dix waited. His elbows were on his desktop. His thick hands were folded in front of his chin. He was perfectly still.
“I’ve had her in a couple of times,” Jesse said. “Even if I’ve got no case against her, I at least want to make her uncomfortable.”
Dix nodded.
“Her husband always comes with her,” Jesse said. “You know who her husband is?”
“No,” Dix said.
“Managing partner at Cone, Oakes, and Baldwin,” Jesse said.
“Ah,” Dix said.
“Ah is right,” Jesse said. “DA won’t prosecute and, in person, has told me to leave her alone. I’ve been admonished by the town selectmen not to bother her, also the chairman of the school committee.”
“Has he supported the candidacy of these people?” Dix said.
Jesse smiled without humor.
“Oddly enough,” Jesse said, “he has.”
Dix nodded.
“But you can’t let it go,” Dix said.
“What will these kids think, if someone can violate their privacy like that and get away with it.”
“Probably what they already think,” Dix said.
“Even more reason,” Jesse said. “And . . . and, goddamn it, I want to know why she did it.”
“You’ve asked her,” Dix said.
“Every time,” Jesse said. “Sometimes she says she doesn’t want them embarrassed if someone saw them.”
“Which is why she made them publicly show what they were wearing?” Dix said.
“Uh-huh. I don’t have kids,” Jesse said. “So maybe I don’t know. But my guess would be that the most embarrassed would be some kid wearing white cotton undies that her mother bought in a six-pack at Kmart.”
Dix nodded.
“Last time we talked she said she was trying to keep them from becoming sluts when they got older,” Jesse said.
Dix smiled.
“Would that it were that easy,” he said. “She offer any other explanations?”
“Not really. As I said, her husband is always with her, and he doesn’t let her talk much.”
“Like any good attorney,” Dix said.
“Yeah,” Jesse said, “I know. He always accuses me of harassment and threatens to bring charges.”
“So why have you told me this,” Dix said.
“I don’t know,” Jesse said. “You got any thoughts?”
“There may be a civil action available to the parents,” Dix said.
“Yeah.”
“But you want more,” Dix said.
“I want to know what she was really doing,” Jesse said. “What do you think?”
Dix leaned back a little in his chair and put one foot against the edge of his desk. His shoes gleamed with polish.
“I agree with you that her avowed reasons are bullshit,” Dix said.
“So what was she doing?”
“Acting out something we know nothing about,” Dix said. “We don’t know what her interior life is. We don’t know what underwear means to her in that life. One reason she did what she did is that she could.”
“You mean power,” Jesse said.
“Yes. And we don’t know where the connection is made between power and sluthood and underwear. Or why it’s made.”
“How do we find out?”
“We could have her come talk to me for a couple of years.”
Jesse grinned.
“Her and her husband,” Jesse said. “Who’d be telling her not to speak.”
“You think he oppresses her in more than a lawyerly way?” Dix said.
“I don’t know. He’s an oppressive kind of guy.”
“If he is, then you could throw that into the mix,” Dix said.
“And then what have I got?” Jesse said.
“A mystery,” Dix said, “wrapped in an enigma.”
“So far,” Jesse said.
17
“GOT TWO more Peeping Tom reports,” John Maguire told Jesse.
Maguire was a fitness guy. He did martial arts. He lifted weights. And he looked it.
“Any pattern?” Jesse said.
“No,” Maguire said. “Not that I can see. One downtown, near the wharf. One up in the west end of town.”
“Maybe he’s making sure there is no pattern,” Jesse said.
“That’s sort of a pattern,” Maguire said.
“Doesn’t help us much,” Jesse said.