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 grizzly head on the wall. "I don't see much of them, to tell you the truth. You hear from Karen?" "Yeah," Newman said. "She's in Amsterdam. And next week she's going to Paris."
"When's she get back?"
"September, just before school starts."
"How about Sandy?"
"She's in Cleveland, she's dancing in a road company revival of Carousel. They're supposed to be in Boston in November and she says she'll be able to come home a couple of days."
Hood looked at Newman's glass, saw it was empty and nodded at the bartender. He brought a new bottle.
"Your kids are doing good," Hood said. "They're going where they want to. They're learning what they like. They're not hung up on supposed to and all that shit, You and Janet have done a good job. Hope Kathy doesn't fuck mine up."
Hood had a dark, thick moustache. His hair was curly and short with no gray in it. He wore blue-tinted aviator glasses.
Newman drank half his beer at a swallow. "You killed people in Korea, right?"
Hood nodded. "Sure," he said. "We were supposed to. Didn't you?"
Newman shook his head. "No. I don't think so. There were some skirmishes and stuff, but I don't think I ever shot anyone."
"Just like hunting," Hood said. "Nothing personal. You get in a fire fight and it's kind of fun. It's exciting. Unless you get killed."
Newman drank the rest of his beer. The bartender brought another.
"Ever kill anyone except in Korea?"
Hood raised his eyebrows. "Nice question," he said. "If I had would I admit it?"
Newman said, "No, I guess you wouldn't. Do you think you could?"
"Kill someone, sure. If I had a reason. You got someone in mind? I get through here at three."
Two women came into the bar. One wore white pants and a blue-striped halter top that showed a lot of cleavage. The other had on a denim jumpsuit with rhinestone trim and a pair of sling-strap high heels. The cuffs of her pants were rolled up in a six-inch-wide turn. They sat in a booth behind Newman and Hood and looked for a long time at Hood.
"They're both looking at you, Chris," Newman said. "Must have seen my wedding ring."
Hood turned and looked steadily at both women for perhaps a minute.
Both of them reddened. One said, "What are you looking at?" Hood said, "I'm not sure," politely and turned back toward the bar.
The bartender brought Newman another beer and, looked at Hood's glass of half-drunk Perrier. Hood shook his head slightly and the bartender went away.
"Three billion people in the world," Newman said, "and I end up living next to a guy who looks like Robert Redford."
"He's blond," Hood said.
"Oh yeah."
"You look like you've lost a little weight," Hood said.
"Oh yeah, maybe a few pounds. I'm fighting it all the time. You know what happened to me last night?"
"You got laid?" "No." Then he told Hood everything that had happened. He spoke softly, leaning toward Hood so that no one would hear him. And he spoke rapidly but with very little inflection. Hood listened and said nothing.
"I'm out taking a pleasant little run for my weight and my health, you know. And now gangsters are threatening me and tying up my wife and I don't know what the fuck to do. I mean, Runner's World doesn't cover this kind of thing."
"So that's why you were asking me about killing people."
Janet Newman came in the front door wearing huge sunglasses with wire rims, and walked the length of the bar, slowly, as her eyes adjusted to the light. She had on a white gauze dress and black high heels and carried a black shoulder bag. Three men at the bar turned to watch her walk past. When she reached them she kissed Hood on the cheek and slid in beside Newman.
"Not bad for an old broad," Hood said.
"Want something?" Newman said.
"Perrier with a twist of whatever," Janet said. Hood motioned to the bartender.
No vices, Newman thought. Won't get drunk, won't get fat, won't get out of control. Some fun, a glass of soda water. "Better be careful on the Perrier," Newman said. "You know how you get after three. Just climb all over me." She smiled, "Dream on, Aaron," she said. "Have a rich fantasy life."
Hood was looking at her. "You okay?" "Sure," Janet said. "Why shouldn't I be okay?"
"Aaron told me about last night," Hood said.
Janet frowned. She looked at Aaron. "Was that smart?"
Newman shrugged. "I thought Chris could help me make sense out of it?
Why not tell him?" Newman drank beer.
"It's not Chris," Janet said. "But I don't think it's wise to talk about it to anyone. If it stops here that's one thing, but who else will you tell? Have a few beers and…" She spread her hands, palms up.
Hood said, "We were quiet about it. I won't say a word. Who the hell else do I talk to but you?"
"And just what was Chris going to help you make sense out of," Janet said.
"The whole thing. The shooting, the way they treated you, the way I had to go and tell the cops I was mistaken. The lieutenant called me yellow." Newman drank more beer. "But I can't let them harm you.
Christ, you're my whole life." Janet said, "They threatened to harm you too."
Newman shrugged and looked at the bar top and shook his head as if to clear it.
"Or the girls," he said. "You know what I'm like. I'm a husband and a father before I'm anything else. It's what makes life purposeful."
"How about the books," Hood said.
"They help, but they're not family. That's what I do, not what I am."
"You write good books, Aaron," Hood said.
"Yeah, about courage and the matter of honor and how things heal stronger at the break."
"Best since Hemingway," Hood said. Janet sipped her Perrier.
"And then two bums come around and humiliate my wife and I roll over and make gestures of submission."
"Oh, Aaron, don't be so goddamned melodramatic," Janet said. "What else are you expected to do?"
The bartender brought more beer. Newman finished his glass and poured more.
"I could kill them," he said.
Something stirred in the back of Chris Hood's eyes and tugged briefly at the corners of his mouth.
Janet said, "Oh, Aaron, grow up. You don't even know who they are."
Newman still stared at the bar top, his head lowered between his shoulders. "I know who he is," he said.
"Aaron," Janet said, "you know how you are when you're drinking."
"I'm not drunk," Newman said.
"That's one of the things you always say when you're drinking."
"You think I'd be scared to?"
"Kill someone?"
"Yeah."
"Aaron, it is a little unusual to sit about in a restaurant and discuss killing someone."
"You think I'd be scared?"
"I don't know. Would you?"
"You wouldn't, would you?"
"Be scared to kill someone?"
"Yeah."
"No."
"You feel like killing anyone when they were tying you up and maybe copping a little feel while they were doing it?"
Janet shivered. Hood looked at her and then at Newman. The muscles at his jaw-hinge moved slightly.
"You feel like killing anybody then?" Newman said.
"Yes." Janet's voice was very soft and it hissed out between her teeth.
"So why don't we?"
Janet looked at Hood.
"He's serious, Janet," Hood said.
She poked at the slice of lime in her glass of Perrier water. "And you?" Hood said, "Whenever you need help, I'll help you. Whatever it is.
You know that."
"You're willing to kill someone?" Hood shrugged. "Whatever," he said.
"I'd do it for him," Newman said. He finished his beer. "They did cop a little feel, didn't they?" There was sweat on his forehead. He felt that odd mixture of lust and horror he'd felt before when he'd found her on the bed.
Janet looked at him without speaking. She ran the ball of her index finger around the rim of her glass.
"Didn't they?"
She shook her head.
"Like hell," Newman said. "They touched you. Didn't they?" He felt desperation. He had to know.
Hood said, "Aaron, for cris sake Newman said, "Didn't they?" Very softly Janet said, "No. They made me touch them."
Newman slammed his open palm on the bar top. Hood said, as softly as Janet had spoken, "Jesus."
Newman said, "How…" and stopped. Hood looked at him once and shook his head.
Janet said, very softly and with no apparent emotion, "Yes. I want to kill them. This morning when I woke up I was afraid and didn't remember why. You know that feeling. You wake up and you think Oh something is awful but I forgot what and then you remember, and I remember how they made me touch them. And I remember how helpless I was first when they made me touch them and then when they tied me up and I couldn't move and they gagged me and I couldn't talk or even spit. I remember that feeling of nakedness and helplessness and every morning when I wake up I will be afraid. And all the time I walk around with that feeling in my stomach of sinking ness and afraid. All the time I think What if they come back and I feel helpless. It's not a good feeling for me. I need to control things. I need to feel that I am in control. You know that, Aaron. I've always needed to manage things, otherwise they frighten me. They get out of control. I can't function like this. I say "I'll not let it happen." I say I'll put it aside and go on and do my business and my work and not think about it," but it's always there and every morning I'll wake up frightened."
Hood put his hand lightly on her forearm. Newman was silent. Both men were leaning forward toward her to listen as she spoke very softly.
"I've got to get back in control," she said. "It will destroy me and destroy us. I can't be anything you'd want to live with unless I have control." "We'll get it back," Newman said. He spoke very carefully so as not to slur his words.
"I want to shoot him," Janet said. "I want to shoot him and the two men who came and tied me up. I want them to die. I want to be free of this."
"Could it be done, Chris?" Newman said.
"Sure. Sure it could."
"Would you do it with me?" "Sure," Hood said. "Sure I would."