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nothing they could do.”
    Margie was small and very slim with perfectly black hair and good features. She was much younger than Janet. “Anything wrong?” she said.
    “No,” Janet said. “Just some business that had to be done. It involved returning some merchandise and I was afraid it could be unpleasant.” She smiled. “That’s why I had Aaron do it.”
    “Man’s work,” he said. They were very liberated here in the English department. He loved to scandalize them. If only mildly. “How about you and me, little lady, we go down to Chris’s Place and have a few drinks and dinner.”
    “Aaron, I have my car,” she said.
    “So drive down, meet me there. Or drive down in the Jeep with me and we’ll come back and get your car.”
    “I’m not riding in the Jeep and having my hair blow all over the place.”
    He took a big breath. “Okay, then, ride down in your car and meet me.”
    “Okay, but I’ll be late. There’s a curriculum committee meeting and it’s important. I won’t be able to get there for another hour.”
    “Course, don’t want to miss that curriculum committee meeting. Probably couldn’t have it without you. What are you going to do at this meeting, plan the next meeting?”
    “Aaron, don’t be a pain in the ass. You go down and have a few beers with Chris and I’ll come down after our meeting.”
    “Yeah, okay, when can I expect you? You know how you are.” He looked at the two men. One was tall and willowy with a full beard and small round gold-rimmed glasses. The other was middle-sized and trim with a European-cut three-piece suit and a Phi Beta Kappa key on his watch chain.
Half his salary on the goddamned suit
.
    “I’ll be there in an hour, I already said that. The meeting will have to end at six because people have classes at six-thirty. Go ahead. I’ll be there.”
    He nodded, smiled at the four of them, and turned to go. He paused next to the medium man in the three-piece suit. “Charles,” he said. “You are a regular fashion plate.”
    He was close to Charles and was aware of how much bigger he was than Charles. He wanted Charles to feel that, to let the sense of his mass sink in. Charles smiled vaguely.
    “I wish I could dress as you do, Aaron, and stay home all day and cash big checks, but some of us aren’t so lucky, or talented, maybe.”
    Newman grinned. “That’s true,” he said. He waved his hand at all of them again and went out.
Jesus Christ, we got the biggest problem of our fucking life
and she’s got a curriculum meeting. Nice how she’d give up anything to be with me. Nice how she’s always there when I’m feeling bad. Very fucking nice
. He got in his Jeep and drove toward the waterfront. His eyes stung as if he would cry. But there were no tears.

5
    At forty-seven Chris Hood stood six feet tall and weighed 190. He had a black belt in karate, could bench-press 375 pounds. The skin on his body was too tight to pinch. In 1950 he had jumped into Wonson, Korea, with the Second Ranger battalion, been captured, escaped, returned to his unit, and won the Distinguished Service Cross. From 1956 to 1959 he returned punts and kickoffs for the Detroit Lions. He had been cut six weeks before he qualified for a pension. He came back to Boston and worked as a bartender and a bouncer in several different clubs and finally in 1976 opened a heavily mortgaged pub/restaurant in the area of Quincy Market. He sat at the bar with Newman and sipped Perrier water with a twist of lime while Newman drank Beck’s beer.
    “Janet coming down?” he said.
    Newman said, “Yes. She’s got a meeting first.”
    The room was dim and air-conditioned. The bar itself was mahogany. Behind the bar on the wall above the display of bottles was the mounted head of a grizzly bear Hood had shot in Alaska.
    “Hear anything from Kathy?” Newman said.
    Hood laughed. “Every time I’m a day late with the alimony.”
    “How’re the kids?”
    “Okay, I guess.” Hood looked at the