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pictured the covert Mobilio gaze, the too-long and too-frank stare with which he punctuated their conversations when he thought no one else was watching.
    â€œHere’s what I’m going to do,” Samuels said. “I’m going to let you off the hook as far as teaching health is concerned—”
    â€œAre you firing me?”
    â€œNo! I’ve already talked to some people in the offices—development and admissions—about administrative jobs there.”
    â€œAnd you don’t think that relieving me of my duties is the same thing as firing me?”
    Samuels shook his head. “You were hired principally to coach golf and move into the varsity slot after a one-year trial. I think the students admire you for that and at the same time appreciate that you were, shall we say, untested in the classroom.”
    â€œWho’s going to teach health now?”
    â€œChuck.” He coughed into his closed fist. “Mobilio.”
    â€œGreat. Perfect choice, since mine are extremely small shoes to fill.”
    â€œThe school is honoring its contract,” Samuels said, his voice now cool and eye contact abandoned. “Golf ends on Friday, May twenty-seventh. Finals begin the following Monday. Graduation is June the second. I’m sure you can appreciate that we’re doing our best under the circumstances.”
    â€œI’ll be gone on the third,” Sunny said.
CHAPTER  5
----
King’s Nite
    M rs. Peacock couldn’t help looking pleased that the next of kin to a tragedy had checked into her motel. There was a connection, she explained: Her husband worked for Herlihy Brothers Fuel, and it was the two bosses, Danny and Sean, who’d fixed the fatal furnace. Volunteered. For free. Not that Miss Batten’s mother was one of their accounts. Not at
all.
    â€œThat was very kind of them,” said Sunny.
    â€œIt’s good public relations. They’re smart in that way.” She ran Sunny’s credit card through her machine, once, twice, frowning. “Sometimes it’s the phone lines and not the credit limit. I’ll swipe it through again.”
    â€œThere shouldn’t be a problem.”
    â€œWe have a two-night minimum starting June first,” said Mrs. Peacock, whose gray hair had a pale lavender cast and whose coral beads matched her coral clip-on earrings.
    â€œFine.”
    â€œDon’t think people weren’t upset about all of this happening in King George. First, your mother and Miles Finn, then, before we turn around, we almost lose our police chief. Another few inches and a bullet would’ve killed him, which makes me wonder what’s so great about bullet-proof vests if you consider all the parts of the body they don’t cover.”
    â€œI’m in number ten?” Sunny said after a pause.
    â€œLast unit. Don’t put anything in the toilet but toilet paper. Our septic tank can’t handle anything else.”
    â€œFine,” said Sunny.
    â€œYou can get a decent breakfast—eggs, toast, home fries, bacon, coffee—at The Dot.”
    Finally, Sunny smiled. “Do the Angelos still own it?”
    â€œYeah. He’s sick, you know.”
    â€œDo they still make those maple sausages?”
    â€œI eat at home. You can’t smoke there anymore. Besides, I don’t like paying a dollar-fifty for a fried egg.”
    â€œI’d better unpack,” said Sunny.

    At 5, 6, and 11 P.M. , Joey Loach watched himself on three Boston TV stations looking worse than he realized and needing a shave. No reporter had asked him the question he feared—Why, in a one-horse town with no crime and no criminals, were you wearing a bullet-proof vest?
    â€œWas I
wrong
?” he would have said. “Wouldn’t I be dead now if I didn’t arm myself every morning when I left my house?” For three years his vest had been a secret, purchased with his own money, a promise he’d made to