“Names?”
“Nope. Pictures of some members and their first names. But I know a couple of them from school.”
“In addition to Kimberly Magruder Clark?” Jesse said.
“Vinnie Basco. He played football with me in high school, wide receiver.”
“Anybody else?”
“His wife,” Suit said. “I think she was Debbie Lupo in high school.”
“I’d love to be in a club like that,” Maguire said.
“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
