Maybe they'd put a cruiser nearby. But if they're watching and they see the cops they'll get us.

He drove past Boston University into Kenmore Square. One foot was cocked up on the door frame. He wore a blue Levi shirt, washed often.

The sleeves were rolled, the top three buttons were open. As he moved the steering wheel the muscles in his arms swelled beneath his tan.

"Machismo," he said aloud. Jiving it in self-mockery. He looked in the rear-view mirror at the thick brown column of his neck, the strong jaw, the square tanned face. In circles where there weren't any, he was thought a tough guy.

Past Kenmore Square he pulled onto Park Drive and drove through the Fenway. Automatically he looked, as he always did, at the light towers of Fenway Park as they showed above the apartment buildings. They had loomed for him, when he was a boy, like the towers of Camelot.

He went past the Museum of Fine Arts and pulled into the faculty parking lot at Northeastern University. His wife's parking sticker entitled him. Northeastern was an urban university of unrelieved ugliness. Janet's office was in a converted industrial building.

Inside, the brick walls and hardwood floors had been veneered with paint and vinyl and the open spaces partitioned with wallboard. It was air-conditioned. In Janet's office there were another woman and two men. Newman knew them. He didn't like them much. He was jealous of Janet's work and her friends at work and her commitment to both the work and the friends.

As he came to her door she was talking animatedly. Her eyes were bright and wide, her hands moved. Her color was high. Goddamn isn't she something. There was a faint red line on her left wrist, where last night the rope had marked it. He felt anxiety heavy in his stomach, but also faintly, around the edges, desire as he remembered her naked helplessness.