“Ceci est mon garde du corps, Hunter Lightfoot,” she said, introducing me to her friend. To me she said, “This is Maria. She’s Italian but doe...sn’t speak English.”“Piacere di conoscerti,” I said to Maria.She smiled. “Tu parli italiano?”I nodded.The two headed to class, heads together whispering furiously.On the way home, Callie commented, “I didn’t know you speak Italian. Do you speak other languages?”I nodded, concentrating on negotiating the traffic.After a minute of silence, Callie prompted,. I thought she was cool. Her only mistake was firing my buddy for no good reason. One day, I was in my office when I saw Alan walk past me with his head down. I stopped working and went to him. Alan was not a happy camper. Seriously. He’d been fired. I couldn’t understand why. He was a damn good worker! He was also the nicest guy I knew. Why would anyone fire him? The guy always gave one hundred and ten percent. Always. That’s what he did. He was okay. I didn’t know what to tell him. He’d been. E.D.She had a problem with intimacy? Why was this a surprise, it went alongwith her problem with authority, her problem with food, her problem withsobriety, her problem with people who clubbed baby seals to death so theycould wear them as fur coats, and a whole bunch of other miscellaneousproblems far too numerous to mention.Speaking of Aidan, her most recent former boyfriend. She'd provided himwith her new track phone number. A mistake, apparently. Before shestopped counting, Aidan had sent. I knew it began when he returned to the states and ended two years ago when Marsha shot him, but that was all.The first two men he killed were the State Representative and Jerry Stinner, the man who broke up his marriage. And John Baker was the last one."Joe, I have a question for you. I told you I had fucked four of my wife's best friends. They were Laura, Melanie, Doris, and Terri. You know about Laura, your ex, but why haven't you asked about the other three?" I was asked to find out about.