And for a while that silence stands -- long enough to let the sounds of creaking machinery, of footsteps on wood (or what passes for it), of gulls, of people talking.

"I haven't talked about it," Charlie says. It's abrupt. "I don't know. It's pretty new. I mean, the thing itself wasn't new but being out, that's new. And it was big enough that it was on the national news, because even I got to admit that a cop doing that -- a cop -- that's news. My lawyer, she's the -- I talk to her. Or she makes me. She asks. And I try not to lie. I mean, as a general rule, because that's bad and it only hurts me, but Connie -- that's Constance, her name's Constance -- I bet you'd feel like you owe her too. If she did for you what she did for me. She knows.

"But that's the thing. National news. Nobody knows who I am. Here. They don't know. Nobody will know."