“What?”

“You’re just…” He ran his hand from her heel, up the back of her calf, over her ass and across her back again. “Fucking gorgeous.”

“Now you said fuck.”

“I always say fuck.” He kissed her shoulder, then the back of her ear. “Why did you want to say fuck, by the way? Or, in your case, fook.”

She sank her teeth into his neck. “I wanted to say I’ve never fucked a vice president before.”

“You’ve limited yourself to treasurers?”

She slapped his chest. “Aren’t you proud of yourself, boy?”

He sat up and took his pack of Murads from the nightstand and lit one. “Honestly?”

“Of course.”

“I’m…honored,” he said. “When they called my name out on the ballot—I mean, honey, I had no idea it was going to be there.”

“Yeah?” She ran her tongue across his abdomen. She took the cigarette from his hand and took a puff before handing it back to him.

“No idea,” he said. “Until Denton tipped me just before the first ballot. But, shit, I won an office I didn’t even know I was running for. It was crazy.”

She slid back on top of him and he loved the weight of her there. “So you’re honored but not proud?”

“I’m scared,” he said.

She laughed and took his cigarette again. “Aiden, Aiden,” she whispered, “you’re not afraid of anything.”

“Sure, I am. I’m afraid all the time. Afraid of you.”

She placed the cigarette back in his mouth. “Afraid of me now, are you?”

“Terrified.” He ran a hand along the side of her face and through her hair. “Scared I’ll let you down.”

She kissed his hand. “You’ll never let me down.”

“That’s what the men think, too.”

“So what is it you’re afraid of again?”

“That you’re all wrong.”

On August 11, with warm rain sluicing against the window in his office, Commissioner Edwin Upton Curtis composed an amendment to the rules and regulations of the Boston Police Department. That amendment to Rule 35, Section 19, read in part:

No member of the force shall belong to any organization, club or body composed of present and past members of the force which is affiliated with or part of any organization, club or body outside of the department.

Commissioner Curtis, upon finishing what would become commonly known as Rule 35, turned to Herbert Parker and showed him the draft.

Parker read it and wished that it could be harsher. But these were upside-down days in the country. Even unions, those Bolsheviki sworn enemies of free trade, had to be coddled. For a time. For a time.

“Sign it, Edwin.”

Curtis had been hoping for a bit more effusive reaction, but he signed it anyway and then sighed at the condensation on his windows.

“I hate rain.”

“Summer rain’s the worst, Edwin, yes.”

An hour later, Curtis released the newly signed amendment to the press.

Thomas and the seventeen other captains met in the anteroom outside Superintendent Crowley’s office in Pemberton Square. They stood in a loose circle and brushed the beads of water off their coats and hats. They coughed and complained about their drivers and the traffic and the miserable weather.