8
IT WAS WEDNESDAY night. It was his time. And the Night Hawk was beginning to dress.
Black jeans, black socks, black sneakers. He put on a white T-shirt, and over it a black windbreaker, which he wore unzipped. He put on a navy-blue baseball cap, and pulled it low over his forehead, and looked at himself in the mirror. His beard covered the lower half of his face, and with the bill of the cap down low over his forehead he would be hard to recognize. He nodded to himself and reset the cap on the back of his head. Then he turned out the lights in his bedroom and went down the stairs and out the back door. He walked past Daisy’s Restaurant, on down toward the water, past the Gray Gull and up Water Street. With no one in sight, he turned suddenly into a narrow alley just past the Paradise Inn. In the alley he zipped up his black windbreaker and pulled his baseball cap down over his forehead, then moved down the alley and into a scraggle of trees behind the inn. Past the trees was the harbor. The Night Hawk stood nearly invisible among the trees and looked into a first-floor bedroom at the back of the inn. The shade was up. The lights were on, but there was no one in the room. I can wait, the Night Hawk thought, and stood just outside the window. Stolid, stoic, silent, and unseen. The strong smell of the harbor drifted past him on the quiet evening air. The trees he stood among were white pine, and they added their pleasant scent to the night. Faintly from the inn came kitchen sounds, a hint of television, some barely audible music. The net effect was to emphasize the quiet. He looked at his watch. I’ll give it forty-five minutes, the Night Hawk thought. He stood perfectly still, wrapping himself in the darkness. It was so still in the darkness that he could hear his own breathing. His breathing felt deep and quiet to him. He felt as if his heart was strong and his senses were keen. As if he could almost taste life in its full range and richness. The bedroom door opened and a woman came in. She was maybe fifty, with red hair and angular black glasses. She’ll do, the Night Hawk thought. He felt the pressure, as if his interior were straining against the containment of his exterior. The woman was wearing tan slacks and a dark green top. She walked to the window and looked out. She was maybe two feet from him. He breathed very softly. She touched her hair, and the Night Hawk realized she wasn’t looking out; she was studying her reflected self in the dark glass.
He held his ground. Then she reached up and pulled the shade. He stayed steady, looking closely to see if the shade fully obscured the window. It didn’t quite, but it allowed only a narrow view of a corner of the room, where a table stood. He watched to be sure. But she didn’t go to the table, and after a while the lights went out. The Night Hawk shrugged and moved back down the alley toward Water Street. Before he stepped out of the alley, he tilted his cap to the back of his head and unzipped the black windbreaker so that the white T-shirt gleamed in the dim light from the streetlamps. He looked at his watch. The night is young, he said to himself, and started up Water Street like a watchman making his rounds.
9
JESSE SAT with Suitcase Simpson in Jesse’s unmarked car parked on an affluent street on the west shore of Paradise, where, on very clear days, from the second floor of certain homes, one could look north and see Cape Ann.
“Three doors up on the right,” Jesse said. “Big garrison colonial with the fieldstone front.”
“Yeah?” Suit said.
“That’s the Clark house.”
“Okay,” Suit said.
“My information is that at regular intervals they gather a number of couples together in that house and swap wives.”
“Here?” Suit said. “In Paradise?”
“Incredible, ain’t it,” Jesse said.
“Unthinkable,” Suit said.
“I have it on good authority,” Jesse said.
“And you want me to go undercover,” Suit said.
“Be more convincing if you had a wife,” Jesse said.
“Well, maybe Molly—”
“Stop it,” Jesse said.
Suit grinned. “So what do we care that they’re banging their brains out in there?” he said.
“Ain’t illegal, is it?”
“Not that I know,” Jesse said.
“So?”
“You know the Clarks?” Jesse said.
“I don’t know, what’re the first names?”
“He’s Chase. She’s Kimberly.”
“Kimberly Magruder?”
“Yes.”
“I went to school with her younger sister, Tammy,” Suit said. “Tammy was pretty hot.”
“And you know that how?” Jesse said.
Suit grinned again. “Hey,” he said. “I was a football hero in high school, remember?”
“I remember you telling me,” Jesse said.
“I cut a pretty wide swath in my letter sweater,” Suit said.
“I’ll bet you did,” Jesse said. “You know Kimberly?”
“Just to say hi.”
“Know anything about her?”
“I know she still looks pretty good,” Suit said.
