Jack and Joe had their backs to Devlin as they watched Yogi motor around the bases. Devlin dropped his cigarette into Joe’s beer. Joe picked up the glass without looking, brought it to his lips, noticed the butt at last, and almost jumped off his stool. He laughed, his shoulders shaking. He turned to Devlin, whose eyes were now fixed on the television set. Joe picked the soggy butt out of the beer and wiped it on the sleeve of Devlin’s seersucker jacket, then turned back to the game.

Devlin poured his beer over Joe’s head.

Joe scrambled off the stool, backing away, glass in hand, as beer poured out of his sandy hair. Jack, wondering why he had been splashed on the back of the neck, saw that Devlin was to blame and loyally tossed his beer in Devlin’s face. Jack didn’t think this was funny; he didn’t get the joke. Joe laughed at him, then doused him, laughing louder. The bartender came running up.

“Three more,” Devlin said, deadpan.

Joe laughed for two minutes. Ten minutes later, he laughed all over again. Devlin had them. At seven o’clock all three called Maryellen to tell her where they were. This way she couldn’t say she was being stood up, Devlin explained to his new best friends.

He never learned how they got out of the bar, or how his Mercury, not a scratch on it, got into the Brennan driveway. Devlin awakened in the dark of the following morning in a Brennan guest room, made his way down the hall to Maryellen’s room where he found her asleep, nude, with her hand between her legs—not even she knew the best of her secrets. She didn’t resist him. When daylight entered the room, she was on top of him, playing a game of trying to make him cry out. He had already realized he had found her drunk. Secrets—the princess kept a fifth of gin in her room.