"I'll ask you about that later," she said. "Sit down and I'll be right back."

Was she going to slip into something more comfortable, just like the movies? What had I done to deserve all this? I hoped I wouldn't pay for it later. Somehow, somewhere.

Roxanne came back from the kitchen carrying a pizza box and an open bottle of Samuel Smith's Nut Brown Ale, imported very carefully from England.

Oh, I would pay for it in another life.

"Pizza," she said, putting the box on the now-wobbly table. "And I brought you this beer even though you lied to me about the state of this apartment."

"I didn't lie. I misspoke myself," I said.

"Ronald Reagan misspeaks. You tell whoppers."

"Tiny white ones."

She looked at me and went back to the kitchen for the wine and a corkscrew. It was red Italian table wine. I popped the cork and poured her a glass. We toasted.

"To England," I said.

"And pizza and you," she said. "In that order. I'm starved."

Roxanne was bubbly, chatty, and she seemed young as she talked about a case she'd won in court that week. Won was not the right word in her business, though. Sometimes she lost, and sometimes she lost big.

The decision kept an eleven-year-old girl in state custody rather than handing her over to a supposedly reformed stepfather who had served six months for molesting the girl's older sister. I remembered my last discussion with Roxanne, the one that nearly kept us out of bed, and bit my tongue.

"So with Tiberson, you never know," she said. "Some judges you do know. They lean one way or the other. Tiberson depends on what he had for lunch or the color of the kid's hair or something. I've seen the same evidence presented, the identical situation, and he goes with the guy or the child."

"Nice," I said. "A crapshoot with a kid's life as the payoff. The defendants don't go with jury trials?"

Roxanne pulled a long string of cheese off her pizza and dropped it in her mouth.

"Uh-uh," she said. "They're learning. The ones with any brains or money to get a decent lawyer know that the judge is a better bet. Hey, you figure he's seen a thousand of these things. You get a jury that's never heard all this stuff about semen and penetration. Little old lady sitting up there wishing she could plug her ears. Sometimes she lowers the boom just because she had to sit through all this crap."

I sipped the beer. It was not Ballantine Ale.

"You okay?" Roxanne asked. "I came up here to cheer you up. Keep you off the streets and out of the slammer. Something else happen?"

I shook my head, no.

"Just a lot of little stuff," I said.

"What do you call little," Roxanne said. She pulled her sweater off over her head, stretching so that her breasts were taut under her T-shirt. I lost my train of thought.

"I've just been talking to people a little," I said.

"You're not a cop, Jack," she said.

"I know that. Let's not get into that. It's just that ... This sounds funny, but there are a lot of people here who really are better off with Arthur gone."

I told her about Martin, between bites, then got up and got another beer from the refrigerator. I told myself this would be the last one.

"Why don't you just give it to him?" Roxanne asked, as I sat back down.

"Because it's evidence."

"If it's evidence, why is it in your drawer? Why don't you give it to the police? Like you told him. You'd be out of it, and they could take over. Why get into all this stuff deeper?"

"Who am I gonna give it to? Vigue? He knew about those pictures. He had to. He talked about the waitress and I never-"

"Never what?" Roxanne said.

"I never gave him that one. I, well, I put that one aside."

"Why'd you do that?"

Her voice had chilled, just slightly.

"I don't know. Just to keep some control of the thing, I guess."

I didn't mention that the waitress was very attractive. Even without that, Roxanne was finishing the wine in her glass. She wasn't smiling.

"You know, Jack, I was going to say that this town was nuts. It is. But I think some of it is rubbing off on you."

She got up and went into the kitchen and I heard the water running in the sink. I took a gulp of the Sam Smith's but it didn't taste good anymore. I put it down and picked up an old Newsweek from the floor and flipped through it, stopping at the gossip page, which was about all I could handle. The water stopped running and Roxanne came back into the room and picked up her sweater and put it back on. She pulled a copy of Farewell to Arms from the shelf that had been flipped on the floor and started reading.

I got up and got my jacket and gloves.

"I'm going out to get some air," I said. "Want to come?"

"No, thanks," she said, and turned a page.

I hadn't intended to go far. Maybe just go out behind the house for a while and look at the stars. The stars were beautiful in Androscoggin when the wind wasn't blowing the wrong way. When it did blow the wrong way, from the east, the paper-mill steam blotted out the stars like a cloud.

The stairs were dark and I walked carefully. When I got to the door, I turned to my left and looked up.

"Hey," Cormier said.

"How's it going?" I answered.

He was with another guy, smaller, in his late teens or early twenties. The younger guy was wearing a dirty baseball cap with a picture of a truck and the Ford logo. Cormier's hat was blaze orange, a hunting hat. His eye patch was white.

They stood side by side. Both held longneck Bud bottles.

We looked at each other for a moment. The buddy cleared his throat and spat on the snow-packed driveway. He had a stringy mustache that looked even stringier when he pursed his lips to spit. Cormier took a sip of beer and let the bottle fall. The buddy did the same.

Beer up. Beer down. Like an oil rig.

"I wanted to know if you've been thinkin' about it," he said. "You know where I'm comin' from?"

"Out from under some rock?" I said.

The buddy took a step forward, his chin out, mouth hanging open. I took that to mean that he was offended.

"Hey, I came to talk to you," Cormier said. "Don't start in, 'cause I'll end it this time."

"That why you brought shithead here?"

"Come on," the buddy said. "Let's do it."

"I'm not gonna do anything. I live here, remember? I want you to go. Or do we have to talk about how Cormier doesn't want to go to jail?"

"Who does?" Cormier said. "Hey, I didn't come for this bullshit. I came to say somethin'."

"So say it."

Cormier looked at me for a second. I looked back at him. Army fatigue jacket. Brown leather boots. Shirt open at the neck despite the cold. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

"Hey, I got a reason to not want this to go to court," he said.

"Oh, yeah."

"If it does, it screws me up with somethin' else. My son. His mother. She sees an assault and she goes to the judge, says I'm dangerous. We got joint custody, and I don't want to lose it."

"So who's this guy?" I said. "Your lawyer?"

"Ah, don't mind him. He's a buddy. He ain't here to do nothin'. He's just ... come on, man. Cops make it sound like you killed somebody. It wasn't friggin' nothin' and you know it. I got a chance to make a grand a week cuttin' wood out in Washington, man, and I don't need this hangin' around my neck. What do you want? Friggin' blood?"

No more bar brawler. This was a young man concerned about his future. His son. If I didn't agree to erase this black mark from his otherwise-pristine record, the poor kid would end up ... end up like his father. If you can't stomp authority, talk your way around it.

The survival instinct was a wonderful thing, responsible for some of the best dramatic performances you'll see. A guy pounds his girlfriend, puts her in the hospital with her nose all mashed in and her ribs broken, spits on her bloody face. And when he gets up before the judge, he's all shined up like the Kiwanis man of the year. Yessir. No, sir. I'm very sorry, sir. I guess I just lost it.

Cormier and friend still stood there.

"So you won't get the big job in Washington with an assault charge on your record?"

"I won't get the job, waitin' around here for lawyers and cops to get their shit together. Come on, what's the big deal? You weren't even hurt, man. Gimme a break."

I said nothing. The buddy eyed me, then looked away. The street was hushed. Cormier watched me closely, probably trying to fight back his natural inclination to beat my head in until I would agree to testify to his nonviolent character.

Then he broke.

"Jesus, who the hell do you think you are? A goddamn fight in a goddamn bar and you're tryin' to put me away for life, for God's sake. Forget it. You're okay. I'm the one who had to go to the hospital."

For a moment, dej vu, the real kind. Martin, his back against the wall. Now Cormier.

We stood there, the three of us, spouting steamy breath into the cold night air.

"Why me?" I said. "Why'd you pick me out? I don't even know you."

"I told the cops that."

"Tell me. Now."

The buddy's eyes were fixed on mine, like a snake's. I stared right back at him, then at Cormier. The buddy took a long pull on his beer.

Did Cormier not want to talk in front of him? Maybe the word would be out that he wimped out. Begged instead of threatened. Some pussy hits him in the eye and he runs scared.

"They were talkin' about it at the mill," he said, almost softly.

"You don't work there anymore."

"I still see those guys around," Cormier said.

His beer was empty. My feet were cold.

"What'd they say at the mill?" I asked.

"That this guy at the paper was trying to shut the place down."

"Not true. Crazy," I said.

"Hey, it's what they said. These guys got families, car payments, you know? They don't screw around when it comes to their paychecks."

"Who does?"

The buddy's beer was gone, too. He looked restless, bored with the talk.

"How'd you know who I was at the bar?" I asked.

They both grinned.

"We just knew. We know a lot of stuff. Like you got a couple tickets in that black piece of crap you drive. Like the cops know you drink and would love to bag you for OUI. You ought to junk that pecker box and get somethin' that isn't so friggin' noticeable."

"What, you a deputy now or what?" I said.

They grinned. Joe and Frank. The Hardy Boys.

The balance of power had shifted a little. They were cocky, talking too much. But the cop thing made me feel surrounded.

I had my back to the door. They stood between me and the cars.

"So whaddya say?" Cormier said.

We were buddies now. The three of us.

"I'll think about it."

"About what?" he exploded. "About what? 'I'll think about it,' he says."