Роберт Паркер - Sixkill

“I separated them by semicolons,” Susan said.

Sitting between us, as was her wont, Pearl was staring intently at a squirrel across the street. The yard was fenced and the gate was closed, so there wasn’t much else she could do, but she was giving it a hell of a stare. We sipped our drinks. People passed. Several smiled at the three of us. Susan spoke to some of them.

“Would you ever put your underpants on backward?” I said.

“Is this a trick question?” Susan said.

“No,” I said. “Dawn Lopata’s underpants were on backward when they took her to the hospital.”

Susan shook her head.

“No one would make that mistake,” she said.

“Unless it was a man and he was rushed,” I said.

“Unless that,” Susan said.

“Also,” I said, “she had rather large breasts but no bra.”

“How large?”

“I never saw her in person,” I said, “but in pictures she seems in the D-cup range.”

“Did she seem to be braless in the pictures?” Susan said.

“No.”

“It’s not a dilemma I’ve ever faced,” Susan said. “But most women would not want to go braless with breasts that big.”

“My thought exactly.”

“And you are wondering if maybe someone else dressed her?” Susan said. “And getting the bra on was too much work?”

“I am.”

“Would that mean that Jumbo did it?”

“Nope. But it means somebody wanted to, ah, clean up the scene a little.”

“Z?” Susan said.

“Probably.”

“Have you consulted Quirk about this?” Susan said.

“No.”

“Don’t you think you ought to?” Susan said.

“No.”

“Why not?” she said. “Why not take advantage of what he might have learned already?”

“We decided not to consult,” I said.

“Why not?”

“We both think the best thing is for me to start from scratch,” I said. “And reach a conclusion and compare it with Quirk’s.”

“He said that?”

“No.”

“So...?”

“I mentioned it, and he agreed. There’s stuff you know,” I said, “without saying much.”

“Oh,” Susan said. “I’m blundering into that male thing again.”

“No matter where you go,” I said, “you don’t blunder.”

“Thank you,” Susan said. “But talk to me about the, ah, male thing, a little more.”

“Quirk wants to know if Jumbo’s guilty. He doesn’t care if he can prove it. But he wants to know. If I go through the exercise and conclude that Jumbo is guilty, and Quirk’s conclusion is the same, then he can relax and let them railroad Jumbo, even if there’s no proof.”

“And that’s justice?” Susan said.

“Enough justice for Quirk,” I said. “As long as he’s sure Jumbo is guilty.”

“But he’s never said all this.”

“Mostly not,” I said.

“But you know it,” Susan said.

“I do.”

“Because that would be enough justice for you,” she said.

“It would,” I said.

The squirrel had vanished, and Pearl was now staring thoughtfully into the middle distance.

“And if you conclude that Jumbo didn’t do it, or at least didn’t do it with intent...?”

“I’ll report it to Quirk, and he’ll have to decide.”

“If he decides to fight it?” Susan said.

“I’ll help him.”

“If he decides to let Jumbo be railroaded?” Susan said.

“He won’t,” I said.

All three of us sat for a bit, looking into the middle distance.

Then I said, “May I mix us up some fresh drinks?”

“Yes,” Susan said. “You may.”

So I did.

Zebulon Sixkill VI

“A bouncer?” Lucy said. “I can’t be with a bouncer, for God’s sake.”

“Gotta make a living,” Zebulon said.

“How much living can a bouncer make?” Lucy said.

“Don’t know.”

“You didn’t even ask?”

“No.”

“What’s wrong with you?” she said.

“Don’t know,” Zebulon said.

“You’re not going to play football anymore?”

“Guess not.”

Lucy stared at him silently, and as she stared, he could almost see her withdraw into the perfect gloss of herself.

“Thank God we didn’t get married,” she said.

“Why?”

“It would have been so much harder to leave you,” she said.

“Leave?”

“My family disapproves of divorce,” she said.

“You’re going to leave?”

“One minute I’m living in a nice condo with the campus God, the man who’s going to be a famous professional player and make millions of dollars.”

Zebulon shrugged.

“Next minute I’m living in some dump with an Indian from Montana who works as a bouncer?”

“I guess,” Zebulon said.

“I wasn’t brought up for that, Z. I can’t be that.”

“Maybe I can get back in shape,” Zebulon said. “Transfer. Take care of business.”

“Maybe,” Lucy said. “Maybe. Maybe. I can’t wait for that, Z. The girls in my sorority used to call me Sister Squaw. They were jealous. Now they won’t call me that. But they’ll laugh behind my back. Last year’s homecoming queen. This year’s joke.”

“You don’t love me,” Zebulon said.

Lucy looked at him silently for a moment. She seemed as if she might cry. But she didn’t.

Instead, she said, “Not enough.”

I was with Z. We were confronting the heavy bag in Henry Cimoli’s boxing room. Both of us wore light speed-bag gloves.

“You’re hitting it with your arms,” I said.

He was stripped to the waist, the sweat glistening on his body.

“You get your power from your legs,” I said, “and from your stomach and waist. Watch me... You keep him off you with a left jab, say.”

I demonstrated.

“Then, I’m exaggerating the movement and slowing it down so you can see it... In a crouch, like so, feet solid under you, and you lead with your right hip a little, that twists your body a little at the waist, and you torque the right cross around behind the hip, as your body unwinds, and all of you, once you got it mastered, explodes into the punch.”

I hit the bag, very hard. Z nodded.

“If I can remember,” he said.

“You don’t remember,” I said. “You do it until it becomes muscle memory. Like riding a bicycle.”

“Crees don’t ride bicycles,” he said, and went into his boxing stance. He put a sharp jab on the bag that made it jump, then led a bit too much with his right hip and delivered a right cross, hard into the heavy bag.

“Good,” I said. “Coupla thousand more reps, it’ll be as natural as breathing.”

“Almost there,” Z said, and hit the bag again.

“Gimme ten more,” I said.

Which he did. When he stopped, he was puffing but not a lot. I nodded at the stool near the ring, and Z went and sat.

“You doing your intervals?” I said.

“Four times a week,” he said.

“How’s that going?”

“I’m up to fifteen intervals,” he said.

“We can do some intervals on the heavy bag, too,” I said.

“Hit it fast and slow?” Z said.

“There’s a couple of approaches,” I said. “You been spending time with Henry?”

“Yeah.”

“Can’t hurt,” I said.

“Not drinking much, either,” Z said.

“No harm to that,” I said.

Dawn’s friend Christine gave me the names of several men who had dated Dawn. The first two I talked with said they’d been out with her only once. One of them said she was too needy. The other one said she was kind of boring. Neither seemed eager to be associated with a murder inquiry. The third dater’s name was Marc Perry. I met him on a construction site, where he was working as a carpenter. He had dated her in high school, and he was more interesting.