At nine fifteen we were on the Mass. Pike to Newton. We got off at West Newton and headed west on Washington to Commonwealth Ave. and west on Commonwealth to Madelaine's condo.
"I still say it would have been shorter," Susan was saying, "to go straight out to 128 and come back in."
"No hurry," I said. It was seventy-three degrees and sunny, an atypical late March day in Boston.
"Easy for you to say."
Hawk's jag was parked in the apartment lot across the street from Madelaine's. I pulled in beside it and Hawk got out of his car and climbed in my back seat.
"They there," he said. "Deegan came out and took the paper off the front stoop about half hour ago."
"How are you, cutie," Susan said.
"Formidable," Hawk said.
Susan leaned back over the front seat, and Hawk leaned forward, and they kissed.
"The basketball star coming?" Hawk said.
"His girlfriend says she'll have him here at ten," I said.
"And when he get here, what is it we going to do, again?"
"We're going to bring him in and observe his interaction with Madelaine Roth and Bobby Deegan," I said.
"Interaction," Hawk said.
"They must be the people Dwayne's loyal to," Susan said. "Maybe we can get some sense of how or why."
"Besides, I can't think of anything else to do," I said.
"Could put them both in the river," Hawk said.
"Come on," I said. "Up here the river's almost swimmable again. Aren't you opposed to pollution?"
"We've done it before," Hawk said.
"The reasons were better," I said, "than any we've got now."
Hawk shrugged and leaned back against the seat.
"There need to be some reasons, Hawk," Susan said.
"Worried about reasons all my life, I be a long time dead by now," Hawk said.
"Yes," Susan said, "that's probably true." Hawk grinned in the back seat.
"Don't make much difference to me, sweet potato," he said. "Kill them, interact with them, tell them about God. Whatever works. Or make you happy."
"How sweet," Susan said.
"There's Dwayne and Chantel," I said. Across the street a bright red Trans Am slowed in front of Madelaine's condo and then swung into the lot in front and into an empty parking space. Susan and Hawk and I got out of the car and crossed Commonwealth and joined them. Chantel was in the driver's seat.
Dwayne, looking a bit cramped, was in the passenger seat.
The car windows were down. Dwayne looked out at me and turned toward his girlfriend. "What's he doing here, Chantel?"
"He's going to help us," she said.
"I don't want to have nothing to do with him," Dwayne said. "Let's get out of here." Chantel shook her head and took the keys and stepped out of the car.
"Goddamn it, Chantel," Dwayne said. "Get your ass in here and drive this thing away."
"He's going to help us," Chantel said.
"That honkie motherfucker?" Dwayne said. "He the one got me benched."
"Honkie motherfucker," Hawk said. "He does know you."
"He'll help us," Chantel said.
"He'll help shit. Dwayne say get in here and drive, you fucking well better listen to Dwayne."
Chantel threw the keys into the car. "You want to go. You drive it away. This man going to help us, if you'd just let him, dope."
Dwayne's shoulders hunched, and his head sank. He seemed to shrink in on himself so that he looked like a huge black Richard Nixon, looking out under his eyebrows.
Chantel stepped around the car to the open window. "Okay," she said. "Okay." She patted Dwayne's face. "Okay. I'm not mad. I love you, and I want you to be helped."
Dwayne's head was hanging. He stared at the floorboards.
"You're not a dope, Dwayne. I just mad when I said that."
Dwayne nodded without looking up. "Let these people help us," Chantel said. "I trust them."
Dwayne nodded a little and slowly got out of the car and straightened up. He didn't say anything, but he looked at me with a blank implacable gaze that didn't seem to mean anything, though it was clearly not friendly.
"Wait here," I said to Chantel and Dwayne and Susan. Then I started for the front door and Hawk came with me.
He stood to one side of the door, and I stood to the other. Hawk's .44 Magnum was out, the long barrel resting lazily on his shoulder. I took the Browning off my hip. It looked sort of embarrassing next to the Mag.
"Is that a siege weapon?" I said. Then I rang the bell. Nothing happened. I rang it again. Then I could hear footsteps and a female voice say something that was probably, "I'm coming." The door opened and there was Madelaine in a blue-and-white striped tank top and white shorts and leather sandals. I put the barrel of the Browning up under Madelaine's chin and said softly, "Where's Deegan?"
Madelaine's face stiffened and she said very slowly, "What?"
I pushed her backward and Hawk came behind me.
"Where's Deegan," I said again, softly.
"Patio," Madelaine said. And looked toward the back of the house.
The hallway went straight back along the right wall of the condo. The rooms all opened off to the left and a stairway rose halfway down the hall.
Hawk and I moved Madelaine down the hall ahead of us, and when we had about reached the staircase she seemed to come out of shock. She hollered, "Bobby." Hawk held her arm and I reached the door at about the time it opened. Deegan came in frowning in a lavender polo shirt and acid-washed jeans with a section of the Globe in his hand, his forefinger keeping the place.
"Bobby," I said, "how's it going?"
The muzzle of the Browning was right in front of his left eye as it adjusted to the interior light.
"What's this?" Deegan said and then as he looked at me, "Spenser? What's with the gun?" He looked past me at Hawk, who was still with Madelaine. A slow recognition moved across his face. "Shit," he said.
Hawk smiled at him in a friendly way.
"Let's all go in the living room," I said. "There's folks I want you to talk with."
"So," Deegan said, "knock on the fucking door, you know? How come you got to bust in here waving a piece and scaring the shit out of Mad?"
"Just being safe," I said. "You did hire some people to ace me."
"Hey," Deegan said, and shrugged a New York shrug.
We went into the big white-painted living room. There was a fireplace at an angle across one corner, and some Scandinavian modern furniture in white pebbly material, and a big teak entertainment cabinet with TV and stereo and CD, and VCR, and maybe a hot tub.
Hawk stepped to the front door, and in a moment Susan and Chantel and Dwayne filed in. Madelaine said, "Dwayne?"
Deegan said nothing at all, but he looked at Dwayne. Susan leaned against the wall to the right of the door. Hawk leaned on the left door jamb, in the door. The Mag was back under his coat. I had put the Browning back on my hip. The only place Deegan could be carrying a piece would be in an ankle holster and Hawk or I would probably be able to spot him bending over and unlimbering. I went and leaned against the mantel of the fireplace.
"These are my friends Susan and Hawk," I said. "Hawk is the taller of the two."
"Better dancer, too," Hawk said.
Susan had already begun to concentrate. When she did, other things no longer impinged. She was watching Dwayne. Dwayne was looking at Deegan.
"I didn't know you was going to be here, Bobby," Dwayne said.
"No problem, Dwayne," Deegan said. "No problem."
I said, "Why, you are doubtless wondering, did I call this meeting."
No one said anything. Dwayne continued to watch Deegan.
I felt like Philo Vance.
"We are the components of a vexing problem," I said.
Peripherally I saw Hawk grin and say the word vexing silently.