”How long ago did you get divorced?“ I asked.
”Five years.“
”Was it bad?“
”Yes.“
”Is it bad now?“
”No. I don’t think about it too much now. I don’t feel bad about myself anymore. And I don’t miss him at all anymore. You have some part in all of that.“
”Mr. Fixit,“ I said. My drink was gone and I made another.
said.
”How does someone who ingests as much as you do get those muscle ridges in his stomach?“ Susan said.
”God chose to make me beautiful instead of good,“ I ”How many sit-ups do you do a week?“
”Around a zillion,“ I said. I stretched my legs out in front of me and slid lower in the chair. It had gotten dark outside and some fireflies showed in the evening. The kids out front had gone in, and all I could hear was the sound of the stream and very faintly the sound of traffic on 128.
”There is a knife blade in the grass,“ I said. ”And a tiger lies just outside the fire.“
”My God, Spenser, that’s bathetic. Either tell me about what hurts or don’t. But for crissake, don’t sit here and quote bad verse at me.“
”Oh damn,“ I said. ”I was just going to swing into Hamlet.“
”You do and I’ll call the cops.“
”Okay,“ I said. ”You’re right. But bathetic? That’s hard, Suze.“
She made herself another drink. We drank. There was no light on the porch, just that which spilled out from the kitchen.
”I killed two guys earlier this evening,“ I said.
”Have you ever done that before?“
”Yeah,“ I said. ”But I set these guys up.“
”You mean you murdered them?“
”No, not exactly. Or… I don’t know. Maybe.“
She was quiet. Her face a pale blur in the semidarkness. She was sitting on the edge of a chaise opposite me. Her knees crossed, her chin on her fist, her elbow on her knee. I drank more bourbon.
”Spenser,“ she said, ”I have known you for only a year or so. But I have known you very intensely. You are a good man. You are perhaps the best man I’ve ever known. If you killed two men, you did it because it had to be done. I know you. I believe that.“
I put my drink on the floor and got up from the chair and stood over her. She raised her face toward me and I put one hand on each side of it and bent over and looked at her close. She had a very strong face, dark and intelligent, full of kinetic suggestion, with faint laugh lines at the corners of her mouth. She was still wearing her glasses, and her big dark eyes looked bigger through the lenses.
”Jesus Christ,“ I said.
She put her hands over mine and we stayed that way for a long time.
Finally she said, ”Sit.“
I sat and she leaned back on the chaise and pulled me down beside her and put my head against her breast. ”Would you like to make love?“ she said.
I was breathing in big low inhales. ”No,“ I said. ”Not now, let’s just lie here and be still.“
Her right arm was around me and she reached up and patted my cheek with her left hand. The stream murmured and after a while I fell asleep.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
IT WAS A HOT, windy Tuesday when I finished breakfast with Susan and drove back into Boston. I stopped on the way to look at the papers. The Herald American had it, page one, below the fold: GANGLAND FIGURE GUNNED DOWN. Doerr and Wally Hogg had been found after midnight by two kids who’d slipped in there to neck. State and MDC police had no comment as yet.
Under the expressway, street grit was blowing about in the postcommuter lull as I pulled up and parked in front of Harbor Towers. I went through the routine with the houseman again and went up in the elevator. Bucky Maynard let me in. He was informal in a Boston Red Sox T-shirt stretched over his belly.
”What do you want, Spenser?“ Informal didn’t mean friendly. Lester leaned against the wall by the patio doors with his arms folded across his bare chest. He was wearing dark blue sweat pants and light blue track shoes with dark blue stripes. He blew a huge pink bubble and glared at me around it.
”It’s hard to look tough blowing bubbles, Lester,“ I said. ”You ever think about a pacifier?“
”Ah asked what you want, Spenser.“ Maynard still had his hand on the door.
I handed him the paper. ”Below the fold,“ I said, ”right side.“
He looked at it, read the lead paragraph, and handed it to Lester.
”So?“
”So, maybe your troubles are over.“
”Maybe they are,“ Maynard said.
”So are Marty Rabb’s troubles over too?“
”Troubles?“
”Yeah, maybe you’ll stop sucking on him now that Frank Doerr’s not going to suck on you anymore.“
”Spenser, y’all aren’t making any sense. Ah’m not doing anything to Marty Rabb. Ah don’t know, for a fact, what you are talking of.“
”You’re going to recoup your losses,“ I said. ”You mean, stupid sonovabitch.“
”No reason to stand there shaking your head, Spenser.
Ah’m the one should be offended.“
”Doerr bled Rabb through you, and you never got any blood. Now he’s dead, you want yours.“
”Ah think you ought to leave now, Spenser. You’re becoming abusive.“
Lester popped his bubble gum and tittered. There were newspapers on the coffee table, the Globe and the Herald American. They’d known before I got here, and Maynard had already figured out that he had the money machine now.
”Don’t you want to know why I think you’re stupid?“ I said.
”No, ah don’t.“
”Because you were off the hook, clean. And you won’t take the break.“
”Move out,“ Lester said. ”And just keep in mind, Spenser, if anybody was blackmailing Rabb, they could get him for throwing games just as much as for marrying a whore.“
”Never mind, Lester,“ Maynard said sharply. ”We don’t know anything about it and Spenser is on his way out.“
”I’d be glad to make him go faster, Buck.“
”He’s on his way, Lester. Aren’t you, Spenser?“
”Yeah, I am, but as they say in all the movies, Bucky, I’ll be back.“
”Ah wouldn’t if ah were you. Ah can’t restrain Lester too much more.“
”Well, do what you can,“ I said. ”I don’t want to kill him.“ Maynard opened the door. He’d never taken his hand off the knob.
”Hey, Spenser,“ Lester said, ”I got something you haven’t seen before.“ He put his hands behind his back and brought them back out front. In his right hand was a nickelplated automatic pistol. It looked like a Beretta. ”How’s that look to you, Mr. Pro?“
I said, ”Lester, if you point that thing at me again, I’ll take it away from you and shoot you with it.“ Then I stomped out. The door closed behind me and I headed for the street.
Outside, the wind was hotter and stronger. I drove home in such a funk that I didn’t even check the skirts on the girls, something I did normally as a matter of course, even on still days. Across the street from my apartment was a city car, and in it were Belson and the cop named Billy.
I walked over to the car. ”You guys want something or are you hiding from the watch commander?“
”Lieutenant wants you,“ Billy said.
”Maybe I don’t want him.“
Belson was slumped down in the passenger seat with his hand over his eyes. He said, ”Aw knock off the bullshit, Spenser. Get in the car. Quirk wants you and we both know you’re going to come.“
He was right, of course. The way I felt if someone said up I’d say down. I got in the back seat. In the two minutes it took us to drive to police headquarters no one said anything.
Quirk’s office had moved since last time. He was thirdfloor front now, facing out onto Berkeley Street. With a view of the secretaries from the insurance companies when they broke for lunch. On his door it said COMMANDER, HOMICIDE.