Robert Tanenbaum - Absolute rage

That was interesting, she thought: his accent was drifting from middle American to something more regional. This yee-a. Y'know whut a mean. He's relaxing a hair.

She said, "So? Kick back."

"Can't do it. I need the money. And if I'm not working, he's going to want me to go back home. My father." Dan looked blankly out at the Sound. "We all have to support the struggles of the working folks."

"You sound doubtful."

"Do I? I was raised in the faith, but it's hard to keep on believing in it nowadays. Or anything. I guess I still do. Have you ever been in southern West Virginia? The Kanawha? No, nobody has. Everyone uses the stuff they make there, plastics and chemicals, and all kinds of toxic shit, and we all use electricity from the coal, and we don't think about the poor bastards who have to live there and make it and breathe it in and taste it in their water every day, and dig out the coal while their houses get slowly demolished around them from the blasting. It sucks, yeah, and we ought to do something to change it. But…"

More interesting, she thought. The accent reverts to mid-American when he goes into speech mode, plus something else. A little roll in the r. Irish?

They both listened to the wind for a long moment, and the calls of the children.

"But, what I like to do is to hang out with smart people in Boston, and do science."

"And feel guilty," she said.

He turned to look at her, frowning, and saw from her eyes that she was not needling him, or mocking him, but just reflecting what was in his own mind. It was faintly irritating nonetheless.

"Jesus, I don't know why I'm talking like this. I just met you. You don't need to hear all this crap."

"No, we could talk about celebrities, instead." She pitched her voice up and added a slight Valley drawl. "I think Jennifer Lopez is like totally cool. Or sports. How about those Sox!"

He laughed and she joined him. She had a throaty, full-belly laugh that he found surprising in a skinny girl, but pleasant.

"Okay, deep and serious-so what do you believe in?"

Oh, well, Lucy thought, here it comes. All things must end.

"I'm a Catholic."

He snorted. "Yeah, right. Luckily, I was spared all that crap. I think my mom is some kind of Episcopal, but of course Dad is a devout atheist. He used to sing 'Pie in the Sky When You Die,' whenever we drove past a church. That's another thing that endeared our family to the McCullensburgians."

He would have chattered on in this vein, but it dawned on him that the social smile had quite faded from her face, which now bore a curious expression of resignation, a slight tightening of the jaw, as if anticipating some attack.

"Wait, you mean you're actually Catholic?" A little frown creased his brow. "You believe all that God and the saints sh-business? And the pope?"

"Uh-huh. It's a package."

"Wow. Why?"

She shrugged. "Why is the sky blue? I don't know. I'm just a believer. Mom says I have the God gene."

"So… by the whole package you mean, um, virgin birth, raising the dead? Abortion? Birth control? Lourdes?"

"Well, it's a very big package. I'm not sure the pope buys the whole package. But pretty much, yeah."

"But you're smart."

"And you're insulting," she snapped. She got to her feet, stuck two fingers into her mouth, and produced an amazingly loud whistle. The dog leaped from the shallows and started up the beach, followed by the twins and Lizzie.

"I'm frying. I'm going to take the kids for a swim." She turned and walked away.

After a moment, he followed, attracted, as was his pattern, by rejection, although this was a new, and actually a more interesting, variety.

Karp did not have to go to jail anymore. Although it had never been a place he liked to visit in the days when he had to go a lot, he still went from time to time. Usually, he went because he thought it was good for his soul to immerse himself in the literally stinking part of the system he administered. It was particularly stinking today because it was hot, stinking with the unmistakable penetrating stench produced when large numbers of male primates are kept confined. It had been hot for several weeks and was going to get hotter according to the smiling weatherpersons on the news. Karp would not have minded if they air-conditioned the jail, but he understood that his fellow citizens did not, by and large, agree. That would be coddling criminals, a practice now many years out of fashion, and it did not help to explain that the people in the Tombs were not criminals but the accused awaiting disposition, entitled to a presumption of innocence. But not to comfort.

His visit today was more than mere responsibility. Karp was visiting a prisoner named Woodrow P. Bailey, who was in the Tombs because he had beat up his girlfriend, using in the attack a forty-ounce beer bottle and a metal chair. Serious disfigurement had resulted, which put the alleged crime into the first-degree-assault category. Karp was visiting Bailey not because of this crime but because Karp had a little list, and Bailey was on it. The list contained the names of the employees of Lenox Entertainment who had made significant contributions to the congressman's campaign. Karp sat down in the hard chair the interview room supplied and dabbed his face with his handkerchief. Karp was not much of a sweat hog, but the heat and humidity in the place could have drawn moisture from a brick. The door opened and Bailey came in, accompanied by his lawyer. Karp kept his face from showing surprise. The man with Bailey was not some kid Legal Aid assignee, but David Douglas Root, a criminal lawyer who specialized in high-profile cases. If you were a hip-hop artist and you got wasted and knocked down a nun with the Navigator, Root would be your choice.

"Well, well, Butch Karp!" cried Root affably, pumping Karp's hand. "A little shorthanded at the DA? Or are we just keeping our pencil sharpened?"

Karp gave him a thin smile. Root was a big, medium-brown man in a charcoal Zegna suit, a dazzling silk shirt, and round gold-rimmed glasses. He was sweating, too, Karp was glad to see, but not as much as his client, whose jail-orange jumpsuit was soaked dark under the arms and around the collar. Bailey was heavy, dark-faced, with a dull, confused look. A drinker, Karp thought. He had a towel around his neck, with which he dabbed nervously at his dripping face.

"Christ, it's like a fucking Turkish bath in here," said Root, taking his seat. "I'm like to lose twelve pounds. So, Butch, what do we got?"

Karp looked at Bailey, not the lawyer, and said, "Mr. Bailey, as I'm sure your lawyer has told you, you're charged with a very serious offense. It's what we call a class B violent felony, and if convicted, it carries a sentence of from six to twenty-five years in prison."

"I was drunk," said Bailey in a low, resentful voice.

Karp ignored this. "How the case gets handled is really up to the district attorney's office. We have a lot of discretion. Now, sometimes when a person helps us out with an important prosecution, we're able to cut him some slack on his own case. Helps us with information, or testimony."

Karp saw the prisoner's brow knit with concentration. "I don't know… I mean, what kind of case?"

Karp pulled out a notebook and read off a list of contributions Bailey had made to the congressman's reelection war chest. A thousand dollars in August directly to the candidate, and five thousand in September to the Harlem United Political Action Committee, an organization the congressman controlled. The same in the previous year and in the three years before that.

"Where's this going, Butch?" asked Root. "What's this got to do with the case here?"

"I'm just curious how a man who works cleaning up theaters can afford to spare six grand a year on political contributions."