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hands.
    Janet Newman said, “I’ll be interested to see how you feel about it tomorrow.”
    “Why,” Newman said, “cause I been drinking? I’m not drunk.”
    “Why not sleep on it. And you might want to think what you’re trying to involve Chris in.”
    “For crissake, don’t you want me to do it? A minute ago you were talking like you wanted me to do it. You want me to do it, I’ll do it.”
    The waitress appeared, looked at Newman’s empty glass. Hood shook his head very slightly and the waitress went away.
    “Because I want you to?” Janet said.
    “Yeah. You want it. I’ll get it for you.”
    “Not because you want it?”
    “It don’t matter what I want. I do whatever you want, babe. You want something done, I’m your man.”
    “So it’s all up to me,” Janet said.
    “Some of it is up to me, Janet,” Hood said. He was sitting back in his corner, and the shadow of the booth hid his eyes. “It’s up to me how far I get involved in this.”
    “Of course, Chris. If you don’t involve yourself, I very much doubt if Aaron will. Even if he thinks so now.”
    “Bullshit,” Newman said. “I’ll do it with him or without. I got you, babe, I don’t need anything else.”
    Hood smiled and was silent.
    “Always self-sacrifice, always the martyr to love,” Janet Newman said. “If you do this it will be because you want to. I’m not going to be the one.”
    “Fuck this,” Newman said and stood up. “I’m going home. You coming?”
    “I have my car,” Janet said, “remember?”
    Newman said, “Yes, so you do,” and turned and walked out of the bar.
    In the booth Janet and Hood were silent. Then Janet said, “Chris. He’s going to do it, the son of a bitch. Or I’ll do it myself. Those bastards. They will not do that to me again.”
    “You’re thinking about revenge, Janet, and safety.”
    “So what.”
    “He’s thinking about honor and courage, maybe justice.”
    “Shit.”
    “Not to him it isn’t. They’re hard things to think about. Being the kind of man he thinks he ought to be is hard. It’s a burden.”
    “Being the kind of woman he thinks I ought to be isn’t very easy either,” she said. “I just think that killing Adolph Karl is the only intelligent solution to the problem we’ve got. It will serve as justice for the young woman he killed, it will prevent him from doing it again, it will take our own lives out of jeopardy, it will, I admit this, ease my own sense of violation. And it will solve Aaron’s problems of honor and manhood or whatever you think is bothering him.”
    “What do you think is bothering him?”
    “Oh God, Chris, I don’t know and I’m sick of trying to figure it out. He’s not a man, he’s a big child. Everything has to be romance and chivalry and …” She gestured aimlessly with her hand.
    “And a code of behavior,” Hood said. “I read the books. That’s not always a bad thing, Janet.”
    “Live with it awhile,” she said.
    Hood was silent.
    “Would it bother you to do it, Chris? To kill Adolph Karl?”
    “No.”
    “Why not?”
    “I agree with your summary of the situation. It seems your best move.”
    “It’ll bother Aaron, I can assure you.”
    “He’s never done it before,” Hood said.
    “Kill someone?”
    “Yes.”
    “Neither have I,” Janet said, “but it doesn’t bother me.”
    “I’ve got another edge on Aaron,” Hood said.
    “You’re probably in better shape,” Janet said.
    “No,” Hood said. “I kind of like it.”

7
    Newman woke in the morning uneasy and feeling guilt. As always after he’d been drinking he ran back in his mind to see if he’d done anything bad. He felt hot with embarrassment that he’d tried to swagger with Chris about being a bouncer in his pub.
    The air conditioner was humming, Janet was still asleep, her back to him, her hair up, a blue scarf tied around it. There was an old maple tree in the front yard. Its trunk was four feet in diameter. The thick healthy green