When her second period was due and did not come they went to a doctor. They had done no damage staying away; everything appeared normal. They told his parents and her foster parents and their friends, but she went on working, saving money. His promotion to plainclothes patrolman meant an increase of two hundred dollars a year, but they had spent almost as much on uniforms and equipment he did not need anymore. He had a regular partner, a man almost his own age, named Marty Harris. Marty was married and lived on Bay Slope. Six nights a week, when they were not otherwise assigned, they covered State Street and the Joytown area. They were known to the saloonkeepers and theater owners, and simply circulated. When they met friends who wanted to know what they were doing in that part of town, they were on their way in or out of a movie or had just come out of a bar. They were in a hurry, late, or not in the mood to join other people. Mostly they arrested brawlers, prostitutes, pickpockets, homosexuals, drunk-and-disorderlies, molesters, exhibitionists, masturbators, creators of public nuisance, and once, a car thief. It was easy, safe work. Bartenders offered cigarettes and bottles theater owners offered cigarettes and candy, restaurateurs offered food, whores and homosexuals offered themselves, and the rest offered money. It was part of the work and forgotten. Cases in court were only complicated by charges of attempted bribery or lewdness. Marty’s previous partner had gone to bed with a really pretty whore, and from then on he had her peddling herself under his nose. Putting one’s duke in the tambourine, one way or the other, could only lead to grief. Marty had run into pretty girls, too, but, he said, he gave his wife all the action. It was part of the job, too, like sore feet, and the trick was in not thinking too much about it.

In December, Karen’s boss asked her if she was pregnant, and when she said yes, the woman fired her. The job was not for a woman with a stomach.

“That was the way she put it,” Karen told him the next morning. “Just as cruelly as she could. It was loathsome to her. I wanted to slap her face.”

When she had come home the evening before, he had already left for work. Now the sun had been up two hours and he was aching for bed.

“It was all I could do to get home,” she said. “I wanted to come looking for you. I just came home and cried. What are we going to use for the money I could have made? Oh, damn it, Joe!” She stopped, curled her lip at her cigarette and dropped it, from the height of a foot, into her coffee cup. “Tomorrow I’ll call those people who pay you to address envelopes.”

“Let’s see what happens,” he said.