Niceville

very foxy-looking young daughters at a graveside, with a caption underneath—
    A tableau of mourning as Cherokee Clan Chief Morgan Littlebasket stands with his daughters Twyla and Bluebell Littlebasket at the grave of his wife, Lucy Bluebell Littlebasket (
neé
Tallpony).
    Bock could feel his blood rising as he looked at the two pretty young women in their mourning dresses, holding fresh-cut flowers, so solemn and sad and brave at the funeral of their sainted mother, and here was the All-Seeing Eye of Tony Bock looking down upon them and knowing pretty much all there was to know about what was under those tight black dresses.
    But the
shots
.
    The
proof
.
    He had shredded his own.
    They were gone forever.
    And he had no reason to believe that the twisted old pervert would still have his spy camera hidden in that trunk, even if Bock could talk his way back into the house, which would be a damned stupid thing to do in the first place.
    But Bock
needed
those shots.
    Would they still be on that pervo voyeur website? Maybe in some sort of National Pervo Library of Sexual Congress?
    Possibly
.
    He held his fingers over the keyboard, hesitating, like a boy selecting a chocolate from a gift box, his mouth open and his thick lips wet. The fact that he was, in effect, about to commit a kind of suicide was not clear to him at the time.

Beau Norlett Meets Brandy Gule
    Nick took the unmarked navy blue Crown Vic. He let Beau Norlett drive because otherwise, with nothing to occupy him, Beau tended to chatter and Nick wanted to have some time to think about being turned down for a re-up by Dale himself, a personal no from a good friend and therefore deeply cutting.
    Dale Sievewright and Nick Kavanaugh went back a long way, long before Yemen, all the way back to Benning and Fort Campbell. Dale’s saying no to Nick’s reenlistment when the whole Army was being bled white and even the motor pool pogues and the weekend wannabe warriors were pulling multiple redeployments—it just really shook him up.
    He came out of his complicated thoughts vaguely aware that Beau was humming to himself, some sort of gospel number—he and May were Pentecostals—they were on Lower Powder Springs going cross-town towards the probation offices in Tin Town, and Niceville was ticking along in its own sweet way, the haphazard tangle of streets and avenues shaded with oaks and pines and beeches, Spanish moss hanging down, the streets and sidewalks packed with people and traffic, everybody coming and going in the steady gray rain, their figures blurred through the windshield glass, the Crown Vic’s tires hissing on the road, fog drifting over it all.
    “Beau, you have your blues, don’t you?”
    Beau looked over at him, back out to the road.
    “Well, you know, sometimes I get a bit down, you know, I mean the job don’t—”
    “Dress blues, Beau. Dress blues.”
    Beau ducked his head, a smile lighting him up.
    “Oh, man, Nick, I thought you was asking—”
    “Tig wants us to go down to Cap City on Friday. Represent the unit. That’s a full-dress thing.”
    Norlett looked worried.
    “Ahh, look, the catch is, Nick, I kinda gained some weight since I bought them. Don’t know if I could get—”
    Here realization dawned upon him.
    “You mean Tig wants us
both
to go. Me going with
you
? You and me? For the unit?”
    “That’s the plan. How much weight?”
    “I … maybe fifteen, twenty pounds. Doubt I could button up the tunic.”
    “You’ve got four days. Get Gabriel to let it out for you. Wear a corset if you have to. Gabriel has them in the stockroom. Don’t be ashamed. Dress blues are a bitch to wear well. A lot of guys use a corset to get trim. Do it if you have to. I want you looking strack. This means a lot to Tig.”
    Beau’s face knotted up.
    “Strack?”
    “It’s an Army term. Strictly According to Regulations. Strack.”
    Beau didn’t get it. Nick sighed and left him with the problem. In a minute Beau had forgotten it, his expression opening up again, delighted, his happy face as shiny as a banister.
    “I will, Nick—I mean, I’m honored to be asked—”
    “Here it is,” said Nick, cutting in.
    They were rolling up to a low strip mall on the edge of Tin Town, Niceville’s version of a dangerous slum, a run-down neighborhood that had grown up along the muddy banks of the Tulip River a mile north of Tulip Bend, which was the beginning of the club and tourist districts.
    Tin Town was everything Americans have come to