The tears had come back in slow, steady droplets, but she didn’t appear to notice.

“Sometimes… sometimes God is just so unfair.”

33

He had about fifteen minutes to kill before Angela from Tattlers was done with her “massage” client. Stepping outside into the bracing air, Decker tried to clear his mind. The slashing rain had turned to steady globules of water, the woodland foliage melding into a thick curd of grays and browns as the daylight dimmed. He tightened the scarf around his neck and dug his hands into his pockets, feeling the jolt of iced steel on his fingers. He had forgotten about the snub-nose. He took it out, opened the chamber, and peeked inside. Four bullets. He snapped it shut, then secured the safety latch.

It would have been a perfect time for a smoke and a shot of scotch. He was cold and thirsty and could have used a kick to the system. He was sure that the place had a stash of stag toys, and with Rina absent, he didn’t have to worry about his breath or his bad behavior. That was the attraction of whorehouses. Guys could be swine and that was not only acceptable but also expected. Donatti was a down-and-dirty psycho, but the bastard understood married men. It wasn’t just a sex issue—though that played a big part—it was a control issue. Men prized freedom. Married men got tired of dealing with their wives because wives were constant reminders of their lost liberty.

In this seedy house of ill repute, he wasn’t as alienated as he should have been. In ’Nam, he had frequented brothels, but once he returned to the States, he didn’t need to pay for it. It was the 1960s and he was working in a college town. Free love was plentiful, although he frequently lied about his job when he went to bars. Cops were part of the military-industrial complex (whatever that was), pariahs with the flower-power generation. So instead of telling the girls that he was a vet and a cop—hence the short hair—he told them that his hair was short because of lice he had picked up in the Amazon jungle. They bought it hook, line, and sinker.

Sometimes, after he screwed them, if he was feeling particularly mean—and back then he often felt very mean—he told them what he really was. Far from being turned off, the women were excited by his profession, as if they were cavorting with the enemy. Jan had been one of those types. He had arrested her at an antiwar demonstration. Two nights later, they were humping like rabbits. Three months later, they were married. Six months later, Cindy was born.

Yadda, yadda, yadda.

Then there was that interim period after the divorce. Five years of being single before he had met Rina. The first couple of years were heaven—lots of sex with no emotional entanglements. The years that followed were absolutely dreadful—lots of sex with no emotional entanglements. Somewhere between the job and the sheets, he realized that the good life wasn’t endless sexual encounters and a fourteen-hour workday. He knew he was in serious trouble when he preferred his horses to his dates.