“Sure, he’s out of Intensive. You haven’t been?”

Leo shook his head. “Not since the, you know, last Thursday.”

Officer Petrucci picked a wallcie-taude up off the desk behind him and put on his visor cap. “You want to go black this time, Sarge, or goop it all up?”

“Gimme the goop.”

The younger soldiers laughed again. The older one at the counter looked at the work boots on Leo’s feet, his bare legs, then his shoulders and face.

“Come on,” Officer Petrucci headed for the side door. “Well both talk some sense into him.”

The cruiser smelled like air-conditioning and spearmint gum. As they drove by the UFO Show, Leo looked past the young cop’s face to the lot, the glare of the sun on the windows.

“So why won’t he press charges? You think he’s scared?”

“I don’t know why.” And Leo didn’t. Chick didn’t seem to be the type to let a bygone be a bygone, especially from men like Floyd, Dwight, and Olin. But here was the young handsome cop saying just this.

“I don’t know,” Leo said. “I’d sure be mad. I am, really.”

They left downtown and drove along the wide high river, the sun shining off its center. At a low curve before the Holyoke line were more sandbags, stacked on a fresh wall of earth. Leo could see bulldozer tracks in the ground in front of it. He was thirsty and wished he’d bought himself a Coke at Beatrice’s first.

“This happen every year?” Officer Petrucci pointed at the river as they drove up a rise.

“Only in the spring. Where’re you from? I mean, you’re new here, right, officer?”

“Call me Frank. Worcester. My wife has family in Springfield, so we’re out here now.”

They drove up a side road away from the river. The car was cool and one of the air-conditioning vents was pointed at Leo’s chest. He thought how he could curl up right here on the seat and sleep away the ache in his eyes, the dried whiskey puddle in his stomach. The cruiser reached the top of the hill and Mrs. Donovan drove by on the left. Christopher sat in the front, his little head barely level with the dash. Leo jerked around in his seat to glimpse Allie as the car headed down the hill. She sat in the back seat but he could only see her blonde head through the rear window. Then the sun hit it and he couldn’t see anything. He felt like he might throw up.

Officer Frank pulled into the parking lot of Holyoke Hospital and drove under the awning reserved for ambulances, but kept the engine running. “It’s none of my business, but you don’t want to get in too deep with those people.”

Leo opened his door.

“You believe in God, Leo?”

“Sure.”

“Well, they don’t. I can’t go along with what those guys did to your boss, but stay away from the radicals, pal. They’re no damned good.”