pelt as me, you wouldn’t be in an exclusive thing?”
“No, I would, but—”
“Damn right, you would. Your old lady’s awesome. You know how fast some other dog would be sniffing her ass? They already are.”
I knew Richie had a small crush on Jocelyn. I wasn’t concerned. He was a good friend. In fact, I actually enjoyed knowing he liked her, because there was no way she’d ever have anything to do with him.
We stopped talking and listened to the end of the song “Peacemaker.” The lead Nuremberg prosecutor was pounding sand up the ass of some kraut who had it coming.
“That guy is no bullshit,” Richie said. “He never even went to college.”
“No shit? How’d he get this gig?”
“You don’t have to go to law school or college to take the bar exam.” Richie said it like it was something he’d considered doing.
“You should take it. But wait till your Hitler’s nice and full.”
“That would be fucking hilarious. Distract all those Amherst College lawyer wannabes. They’d shit themselves.”
“You could single-handedly change the face of the Massachusetts legal system.” Richie liked that idea.
The faces of the condemned Nazis were as sullen as their victims’. One by one, black hoods turned them into footnotes before the gallows floor vanished from beneath their feet.
“Fuck it,” Richie said. “I am officially growing a Hitler.” He lifted the window shade to gauge if the sun was any closer to cutting us some slack. A wide blade of white sunlight momentarily obliterated the Nuremberg trials.
“I got the beers,” I said. “You flip the record.”
“Christ,” Richie said. “It’s like a fucking oven in here.”
MARIE WAS PICKING me up at seven. I didn’t want her to see how I was living, so I waited on the front porch. I was already at the sidewalk when she drove up.
“You have to get in this door,” she said.
“I know.”
“Right.” She put the Subaru in park and got out. I squeezed past her. Her hair looked damp. It smelled like a banana daiquiri. I cleared the stick shifter and got myself seated. The Hefty-bag passenger window sagged in against my face.
“Sorry about the window.”
“It’s dark out anyway.” I checked out her ass as she got back in. It looked pretty good, even in navy blue Dickies. She left the door open to keep the dome light on. She let out a sigh, like the first of many hurdles had been negotiated. Then she just sat there for what seemed like an extraordinarily long time, staring at the windshield. I pretended to think nothing of it. I looked around the car’s interior like I was taking in the great room at Mon ticello. Marie snapped herself to attention. “Okay, let’s go eat,” she said, like she was psyching herself up for a Brazilian wax.
“We can do this another time if you don’t feel good. I’m not even hungry.”
“Please.” She took my hand, and I flinched. “It’s important for me to do this.”
“Okay.” My door had no handle. I was Ted Bundy’d in.
WE WENT TO the Crow’s Nest. From across the room, the waiter and cook nodded at me when we walked in.
“Come here a lot?” Marie asked.
I didn’t answer.
“Two for dinner, Captain?” the waiter asked with menus in hand.
MARIE PICKED THE chunks of meat from her lobster roll and scraped off most of the mayo before eating it. She scrubbed her front teeth with her tongue after each swallow. She looked like she was working a football mouthpiece into proper position. It was a little disgusting to watch. I deducted a few beauty points.
“So, what did you want to talk to me about?”
She took a sip of her cocktail. “Have you ever made a film?”
“No.” I didn’t think she was talking about porn, but I wasn’t sure. Jocelyn and I had snapped a few Polaroids of each other that were bluish in tint. Garden-variety back-of-the-top-drawer stuff. But that was all. We pillow-talked about doing more, and that was arousing enough. Plus it would be a drag if my parents saw it. Or if I had a kid someday—which was never going to happen, but if I did—it would blow having sex movies of me out there.
“I’m a filmmaker.” She swallowed, then pushed the sides of her hair behind her ears. “I thought maybe you’d work for me for a couple weeks.” I pictured a false-walled torture chamber retrofitted to 97 Opal Cove Road. “I can’t pay you a lot.”
“Why me?”
“Honestly? The way you take care of that baby gave me a feeling