38
"WHY DON'T THEYjust shoot you?" Susan said. "Soon as
you became an annoyance?"
She was preparing
Pearl's supper, which was mercifully the extent of her cooking,
except on rare and vaporish occasions when she decided to make us a
meal.
"Not sure," I
said.
Susan spooned some
boiled hamburger with broth over the Kibbles 'n Bits in Pearl's
bowl. Pearl sat perfectly still, and watched her
intently.
"How much do they
know about you?" Susan said.
"I don't
know."
"If they knew about
you, they'd know that a lot of people would expend a lot of effort
to find who did it."
"Including
you?"
"Led by me," Susan
said.
She put Pearl's food
down on the floor and patted Pearl on the shoulder as Pearl began
to eat.
"Certainly," she
said, "Quirk and Belson would give it special attention. Healy, the
FBI person."
"Epstein," I
said.
"And when Hawk came
back from central Asia, he'd put together his own posse, don't you
think?"
"Might," I
said.
"He'd get Vinnie
Morris, the Mexican man from Los Angeles."
"Chollo," I
said.
"Who might bring
Bobby Horse."
"Probably would," I
said.
"I'm sure Tedy Sapp
would come up. And maybe even that black gangster, you know, the
one with the huge bodyguard," Susan said.
"Tony Marcus." I
said. "The huge bodyguard is Junior, the jittery little doped-out
shooter is Ty-Bop. How come you can't remember people like Tony
Marcus, and you remember Bobby Horse like he grew up with
you."
"I don't know,"
Susan said.
Pearl had cleaned up
her supper, and was sitting again, staring at Susan.
"How can you not
know?" I said. "You have a Ph.D. from Harvard?"
"Well, I did read
somewhere that by adulthood, we are so full of accumulated data
that our brain has trouble sorting it."
"Oh," I
said.
Susan reached into a
polished chrome canister on her kitchen counter and came out with
an odd-looking item, which she handed to Pearl. Pearl ate
it.
"What was that?" I
said.
"Duck and sweet
potato," she said.
"Part of our
supper?" I said.
"No," Susan said.
"Our supper is being prepared as we speak by the lovely folks at
Upper Crust Pizza. It will arrive at seven."
"Large?"
"Yes."
"Not broccoli or
brussels sprouts on it."
"No, I've put health
aside this one time," Susan said. "What do you think of my theory
about why they haven't shot you?"
"They may know a
lot. They may not," I said. "But what they do know is that the
murder of someone connected to the Jumbo Nelson case would fully
engage the local cops."
"So they'll kill you
only if it is less dangerous than letting you live," Susan
said.
"Probably," I said.
"But their success is not a foregone conclusion, you
know."
"I know," Susan
said. "In fact, I can only bear the possibility if I am certain
they'll fail."
"Everybody has so
far," I said. "Besides, if I can believe Alice DeLauria, my
immediate danger is only a savage beating."
"That's consoling,"
Susan said.
"I was hoping it
would be," I said.
"And you're not
afraid," Susan said.
"I am afraid," I
said. "It's overhead, sort of. The price of doing
business."
"And you're able to
push past it."
"Yes," I said.
"Otherwise I couldn't do what I do."
"And you do what you
do because?"
I
shrugged.
"I'm better at it
than I am at anything else?"
Susan
nodded.
"And you read
Le Morte d'Arthur too early in life,"
she said.
"Yeah, that too, I
guess."
"And, I suspect, if
you didn't do what you do, you'd be someone else," Susan
said.
"Maybe," I
said.
"And you won't let
fear make you into someone else."
"What if I said to
you, 'I love what I do but I'm too scared to do it'?"
"I know," Susan
said. "I know."
"Yes," I said. "You
do."
"I wish Hawk were
here," Susan said.
"He'll be back," I
said.
"Unless he got
killed over there," Susan said.
"Hawk doesn't get
killed," I said.
"Oh," Susan said.
"Like you."
"Exactly like me," I
said.
Susan made me a big
scotch and soda, and herself an unusually large
martini.
"Will Z be all
right?" she said.
"Yes," I said. "He
might be quite good."
"And if he's not?"
Susan said.
"At least he won't
be quite bad," I said.
"Have you noticed,"
Susan said, "that he's beginning to talk like you?"
"Who better?" I
said.
We drank our drinks
on the couch. Pearl was too late to get in between us, so she sat
on the other side of Susan. Susan finished her drink, which was
unusual, and put the empty glass down on the coffee table. She put
her head against my shoulder. We sat like that for a time, until
she turned farther toward me and buried her face in my chest. I put
my arm around her, until the pizza came.