“Probably,” Susan said.
“But if he’s going to try to leverage you,” I said, “it’s better that he do it here, where we can control the situation.”
“If your scenario is correct,” Susan said, “might he want to hold me hostage until he gets the tapes?”
“Yes.”
“So killing me is not at the moment in his best interest,” she said.
“No.”
“And you guys will prevent him from kidnapping me.”
“Yes.”
“So we’ll give it a try,” Susan said. “See what develops.”
I nodded. Susan looked around the room at the four of us, and smiled.
“Security arrangements seem impressive,” she said. Hawk said, “You ain’t seen nothing yet. Wait’ll Tuesday morning.”
Susan looked at her watch.
“I have a client,” she said.
“Who might not benefit therapeutically,” I said, “from fi nding you hanging out with gunsels and thugs.”
“This is true,” Susan said and turned back to her offi ce.
“Inextricable?” Chollo said to me when she was gone.
“Sí,” I said.
39.
Susan came from the shower into the bedroom, with a towel wrapped modestly around her. I was in bed. Pearl had settled expansively in next to me.
“Did you know I was a cheerleader at Swampscott High?” she said.
“I seem to remember that,” I said.
“Sis boom bah,” she said, and dropped the towel and jumped in the air, and said, “Rah, rah, rah.”
“They like that at Swampscott High?” I said.
“The football team did,” she said.
“The whole team?” I said.
“No, of course not,” Susan said. “Varsity only. No jayvees.”
Pearl was banished to the living room with a chew toy while Susan and I explored the matter of cheerleading. When she was eventually readmitted, she found a spot on the other side of Susan, and settled down to work on what was left of the chew toy.
“She used to squirm right in between us,” I said.
“She’s learned to respect our space,” Susan said.
“Our baby’s all grown up,” I said.
“Yes,” Susan said.
We lay quietly together in the stillness of the bedroom, listening to Pearl work on her chew toy.
“Aren’t there supposed to be strings playing softly in the background,” I said, “while we lie here together?”
“Pretend,” Susan said.
I nodded, and closed my eyes and was quiet.
After a while I said, “It’s not working. It sounds like Pearl gnawing on a bully stick.”
“Won’t that do?” Susan said.
“Yes,” I said. “It will.”
I had my arm around her shoulder. She had her head against my neck.
“Postcoital languor,” she said, “is almost as good as inducing it.”
“Almost,” I said.
We were quiet. Pearl chewed. I could feel Susan’s chest move as she breathed.
“I wonder if we should get married,” Susan said.
After a moment I said, “Didn’t we already try that?”
“No,” she said. “We tried living together. Which was something of a disappointment.”
“True,” I said.
“But we didn’t try marriage.”
“I gather you don’t see marriage as requiring cohabitation?”
I said.
“No.”
“It is often the case,” I said.
“I know.”
“So we’d continue to live as we do,” I said.
“I guess,” she said.
“But we’d be married,” I said.
“Yes.”
“And the advantage of that is . . . ?”
She rubbed her head a little against the place where my neck joined my shoulder.
“I’m not sure,” she said. “I thought we might discuss it, see what we thought.”
I was quiet. Pearl had finished her bully stick and was having a post-prandial nap. The room was very quiet.
“People of our generation,” I said, “who feel about each other the way we feel, usually get married.”
“Yes,” Susan said.
“Would it make you happier?” I said.
“No . . .”
“But?”
“I guess I would feel somehow more . . . complete,” she said.
“Maybe,” I said. “Maybe I would, too.”
We were quiet. My arm was around Susan. I rubbed her shoulder.
She said, “There are no rules, you know.”
“I know.”
“Regardless of how we arrange it,” Susan said, “we will love each other at least until we die.”
“I know.”
“So if we marry or if we don’t, it will not change who we are and what we feel.”
“I know.”
“But . . . ?”
“But there’s something or other ceremonial in marriage that somehow or other matters,” I said.
“I knew you’d get it,” she said.
“If we decide to do it,” I said, “there ought to be an interesting group at the reception.”
40.
Iwas in epstein’s office. I had brought a bag of donuts and he supplied some really awful coffee.
“You make the coffee?” I said.
“Shauna,” he said. “My assistant.”
“I hope she’s good at other things,” I said.
“Nearly everything else,” Epstein said. “These donuts kosher?”
“No,” I said.
Epstein nodded and took a bite.
“We looked into everywhere that Alderson was supposed to have worked his magic,” he said after he’d swallowed. “Nobody ever heard of him. No record of him at Kent State. No record of any affiliation with the Weathermen, or the SDS, Peter, Paul and Mary. Nobody. Nothing.”
“Maybe he’s not a hero of the revolution,” I said.
“If he’s really forty-eight,” Epstein said, “the revolution was over by the time he was old enough to be heroic.”
“Maybe he lied about his age,” I said.
“Why would he do that if he’s claiming to be a major fi gure in things that were mostly over by, what, 1975?”
“We were out of Vietnam by then,” I said.
“So if he’s going to insist he’s a hero of the era, why not claim the right age?”
“Vanity, maybe,” I said.
“He wants us to think he’s young?”
“Women,” I said. “He likes women, and he may be so used to lying about his age to women that he does it instinctively.”
“So,” Epstein said. “He’s either lying about his age or about his history.”
“Or both,” I said.
“And it appears that he has also killed two people, one of them an FBI agent,” Epstein said.
“And he’s working very hard to get that audiotape.”
“Which isn’t all that incriminating,” Epstein said. “I don’t think what’s on that tape could even get us an arrest warrant.”
“But it would cause you to investigate him,” I said.
“It has,” Epstein said. “And we got nothing.”
“Except that he’s not what he says he is,” I said. “Or maybe who he says he is.”
“Is that worth the risk of killing an FBI agent?” Epstein said.
“Apparently.”
Epstein nodded. We were quiet for a time.
“There’s something else,” Epstein said.
“There’s a lot else,” I said.
Epstein finished a donut and drank a little coffee and made a face.
“You’re right about the coffee,” he said. “I’m going to have to do something about it.”
“It’s nice to have a manageable problem,” I said.
“Yeah,” Epstein said, “gives me the illusion of competence.”
“So, where does a guy like Alderson get a hit man like the one who killed Jordan Richmond?” I said.
“Red?”
I shook my head.
“Red’s a lummox,” I said. “He’s big and strong and idolworships Alderson, or what he thinks Alderson is, but he’s not a guy to arrange some murders.”
“So who?”
“And why?”
We each took a second donut.
“We don’t know,” I said.