"To show you a good time," I said.
"How sweet," she said. "Is that the only reason?"
"Almost," I said. "I also have to do some recruiting."
"Locally?"
"Some."
"Out of town?"
"Some."
"May I join you?"
"It would be my pleasure," I said.
"I know," Susan said.
She rolled over and put her arms around me vice versa, and we lay still for a few moments.
"What about your patients?" I said.
"It's August," she said. "Shrinks are closed in August."
"Of course," I said.
"But Pearl could be a problem," she said.
"Lee Farrell will take care of her," I said.
"Will he stay with her at home?"
"Yes."
"Will he try on my clothes while we're gone?"
"He might."
"Are we getting up now?" I said.
"Yes," Susan said.
"Here I go." We lay still.
"I'm hungry," Susan said.
"Me too."
"Lucky we're at your house, not mine," she said.
"Unless we were dying for a bowl of Cheerios," I said.
"I think there's Romaine lettuce, too," Susan said.
Neither of us moved. Susan rubbed her cheek against my chest. Pearl made a grumbling kind of sigh. She might have been snoring. There were no lights on in the room, and the lavender light had faded to black in the evening sky so that it was hard to see Susan. I propped myself up a little with the arm I had around her and turned on the bedside light and looked her.
"Are you staring at my nude bod?" Susan said.
"I certainly am," I said.
"Jewesses, no matter how seductive and comely, do not like to be seen naked in a bright light."
"I'll squint," I said.
We were quiet for a minute.
"How's it looking?" she said.
"I could tell you better if I weren't squinting."
"Well, just to answer my question, open wide."
I studied her for a moment.
"It appears to be everything a body should be," I said. "Including naked."
Susan looked a little embarrassed, as if even the word naked discomfited her.
"I'm cold," she said, and yanked the sheet up over herself. "What's for eats?"
"I could make pasta with clam sauce if I use canned clams," I said.
"That sounds nice."
"I could add peas, if I use frozen ones."
"I'll get up if you will," she said.
I took in a deep breath and slid my arm out from under her shoulders and swung my legs off the bed and stood up. Susan looked at me with only her eyes and forehead showing above the sheet. Then she giggled and pulled the sheet away and flashed me.
"Something to think about,", she said, "while you're cooking."
Chapter 17
I BEGAN WITH Hawk.
The Harbor Health Club began as a boxer's gym on the waterfront, before the waterfront went upscale. It was owned by Henry Cimoli who had once been a lightweight fighter. Hawk and I used to work out there a long time ago when we were fighters, before we too went upscale. There had been a ring with spit buckets, and heavy bags, and speed bags and an assortment of those little skeeter bags, which I had trouble hitting, and on which Hawk could play Ravel's Bolero.
Now the waterfront was chic and the Harbor Health Club was even chic-er. Henry strolled around in white satin sweats, with Henry embroidered in gold above the pocket, and asked people if they were having a good workout. The clientele had every imaginable piece of workout gear. Designer sweatbands, wristbands, fingerless leather gloves, brilliant leotards and the absolute latest in high-tech sneakers. Most of the people who came in were so fashionable that they didn't sweat. All the exercise equipment was gleaming with chrome and flashing lights. Ergonomically engineered.
But as a nod, perhaps to his youth, and maybe Hawk's and mine, Henry, in a small side room with a window on the harbor, kept one heavy bag, one speed bag, and one skeeter bag. No ring, no spit buckets.
Hawk wasn't in the boxing room. He was doing dips in the main part of the gym. People looked at him covertly. Hawk would notice this. He noticed everything. But he didn't show that he noticed. He never showed anything, except maybe a slightly pleasant menace.
"I got us a gig out west in the desert," I said.
"That usually means I get no money," Hawk said. "And somebody shoots at me, but I got to travel a long way."
He did the dips very strictly, going way down and back up to full extension slowly. The muscles moved ominously under his dark skin.
"Not this one," I said. "I have a big budget and I'm paying handsomely."
"But somebody is still likely to shoot at me," Hawk said.
The dips seemed effortless. His voice showed no strain. But there was a glisten of sweat on his face and arms.
"Well, yeah," I said.
"So what we got to do?"
"Find out who killed a guy. Rescue the town from a big gang of mountain trash."
Henry Cimoli wandered by. He seemed to be bursting, in a small way, out of his form-fitting white health-club suit.
"You guys want to go into the back room," Henry said. "You're scaring my clients."
"Clients?" I said.
"Gyms have customers," Henry said. "Health clubs have clients."
"Health clubs run by little guys dressed like Liberace?" Hawk said, moving his body up and down on the bars.
"I try to maintain a certain image," Henry said.
"You too little to have an image," Hawk said.
"You keep ragging on me," Henry said, "and I'll up your membership fees."
"Henry," I said. "We come here free."
"Well if the Deadly Night Shade here don't watch his mouth it'll be twice that."
"Racial invective," Hawk said.
"Whatever the fuck that is," Henry said.
A middle-aged woman sitting at a chest press machine in pink knit sweats called to Henry. He hustled over.
"Yes, m'am," he said, all smiles. "How can we help you?"
"Is this too much weight?" the woman said. Henry checked the air-pressure dial.
"How many reps can you do at this resistance?" Henry said.
"Oh, I can do a lot, but I don't want to get big and muscley."
Henry let his glance slide over at us for a moment. "That weight is fine, ma'am. Most women don't bulk up. They don't have the biology for it."
"Really?"
Henry nodded thoughtfully.
"Yes, m' am. Testosterone and all that."
"Really."
"You can use that weight, maybe even add some."
"Thank you," the woman said and began pumping the iron. Henry strolled back over to us.
"How much weight she have on there?" Hawk said.
"Ten pounds," Henry said.
His face remained perfectly blank. Behind us the woman did five reps and stopped and drank from her water bottle and toweled off the machine and moved on.
"Five reps," I said, "with ten pounds. You charge her for this."
"Does her no harm," Henry said.
The woman seemed to be confused by the lat pull setup and Henry hustled over to help her.
"This gang of mountain trash," Hawk said. "How big we talking?"
"Maybe thirty or forty?"
"Well at least be a fair fight," Hawk said. "You invite anybody else?"
"Not yet."
"Good to be first," Hawk said.
Chapter 18
GINO FISH DID business out of a storefront located in the basement of an old brownstone on Tremont Street in the South End, a couple of blocks from the ballet. The door was down three steps and next to a plateglass window on which was written in black letters DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATES OF BOSTON.
I went in.
The walls were antique brick, unadorned. At a desk, with dark curly hair and wearing an earring, was a very good-looking young man. He was talking on the phone as I came in. Behind him a maroon velvet curtain separated the back room from the front.
I said, "Hello Stan."
When he looked up and saw me, he put his hand over the mouthpiece and spoke to me.
"Spenser, what a treat, you decide to jump the fence at last?"
"If I was going to, I'd jump it with you, cutie. Is Gino in?"