Robert Parker - Rough Weather

“You right,” Hawk said. “She done that with me, too.”

Then, glowing with health, both of us breathing normally again, clean, sober, and looking good, we had a drink.

“Table been set already,” Hawk said.

“She probably did it last night,” I said.

“Plan ahead,” Hawk said.

“Looks nice,” I said. “Tablecloth, crystal, flowers in the middle. Linen napkins.”

“I eat dinner at your house,” Hawk said, “we stand at the counter and eat pizza from the box.”

“I’m an informal guy,” I said.

“She doing this ’cause I’m here?” Hawk said.

“Whenever we eat together,” I said, “just she and I, she does this.”

“She like to do things right,” Hawk said.

“Yes.”

“Me, too,” Hawk said.

“Different things,” I said.

“True,” Hawk said, “but you gonna do it some way, might as well be right.”

Susan came in through the front door. Pearl dashed around. Beep, beep. Susan kissed her, and Hawk, and me.

“I don’t mind you kissing the dog before me,” I said. “But Hawk?”

“He was closer,” Susan said.

“And better,” Hawk said.

“Want a drink?” I said.

“Will you make me a martini while I change?”

“Up with lots of olives,” I said.

“Two minutes,” she said, and went into the bedroom.

I got up and mixed the martini in the shaker and put the olives in her glass. I didn’t add ice to the shaker.

“She like it warm?” Hawk said.

“No, but I don’t want the ice to melt and ruin the martini.”

“She say two minutes.”

“She thinks it will be two minutes. When she comes out, she’ll think it was two minutes.”

“But it won’t be,” Hawk said.

“Be about twenty,” I said.

In fact, it was twenty-five. When she emerged from the bedroom in jeans and a sleeveless top, I put ice in the shaker and finished the martini.

Susan took her drink to the couch and sat down beside Pearl and tucked her legs up under her. In the sleeveless top, her arms showed muscle definition.

“Met a guy in western Mass,” I said, “named Weiss. Says you’re very beautiful.”

“Weiss,” she said. “Is he a therapist?”

“Yeah, in Ashfield.”

“ Springfield, really,” Susan said. “I remember him. He lives in Ashfield and sees patients in his home a couple of days a week.”

“So you know him.”

“I’ve met him. I never knew he thought I was beautiful,” she said.

“He competent?”

“Who cares?” Susan said. “He thinks I’m beautiful.”

“He tells me that Adelaide Van Meer was probably molested sexually as a child.”

“Does she say so?”

“No,” I said. “But she tried to commit suicide, and when he talked with her in the hospital he formed an intuitive opinion.”

Susan nodded. Pearl shifted so that her head hung off the couch and her feet stuck up in the air resting against the back of the couch. Susan rubbed Pearl ’s stomach.

“I don’t know him well,” Susan said. “Met him at a couple of conferences. I have no reason to question his competence.”

“What do you think about intuitive opinions,” I said.

“Probably what you do,” Susan said. “I prefer tangible support, but sometimes if it is unavailable, intuition may have to do.”

“And intuition ain’t licking it off a stone,” Hawk said. “It what you know. What you’ve seen and heard and smelled. People you’ve known who are like this person.”

Susan smiled.

“Experience,” Susan said.

“The very word,” Hawk said.

“He thinks it’s someone close to the family,” I said.

“It usually is,” Susan said.

“Talk to me about symptoms,” I said.

“Of childhood sexual abuse?” Susan said. “Low self-esteem, dependency, promiscuity, and at the same time trouble with intimacy, a kind of frantic aimlessness, fear of the unknown. Some or any of these, or none, or other symptoms, depending on the person.”

“Do people get over it?”

“You mean without help?” Susan said.

“Yeah.”

“If they do,” Susan said, “we never see them and thus don’t know. I would guess that it would be unusual.”

“Her mother came and took her home as soon as she could leave the hospital. Weiss recommended therapy,” I said. “Any way to know if she’s seen a shrink around here?”

“Other than asking her, or her mother,” Susan said, “none that I can think of.”

“Family doctor, maybe,” I said.

“If the shrink went to her,” Hawk said, “be a security log on him.”

I stared at him for a moment.

“The Tashtego patrol,” I said.

“Uh-huh.”

“Security log,” I said. “And all this time I thought you were just another ugly face.”

Hawk ignored me.

“What’s for supper,” he said to Susan.

“We begin with a wedge of iceberg lettuce with ranch dressing. Then a recipe I saw in the Times . Noodles with ground lamb, pistachio nuts, oregano, and a béchamel sauce.”

Hawk said, “Wow!”

“It will be delicious,” Susan said.

“You think?” Hawk said.

“I will stake my reputation on it,” Susan said.

“As a cook?” Hawk said.

“Absolutely.”

“Susan,” Hawk said. “You ain’t got no reputation as a cook.”

“I will,” she said, “after you wrap your chops around this meal.”

“That good,” I said.

“That good,” Susan said. “Maybe better.”

And incredibly, it was.

Hawk and I were in Providence in the offices of Absolute Security, talking to Artie Fonseca.

“Security logs?” Fonseca said.

“You saying you didn’t keep any?”

“Well, sure,” he said, “we kept them. But they are for our internal use only. I couldn’t release them to you without explicit instructions from Mrs. Bradshaw.”

“How many of your people got killed,” I said, “when the wedding thing went down?”

“Four,” Fonseca said. “You know that.”

“And what did you say to me about that?”

“Sure, I know. I said anything I could do to help… but the cops already got the whole wedding list. What good will the daily logs do you, going back five years?”

“I want to see if there’s a shrink that was treating Adelaide.”

“The daughter? Why?”

“If there is one,” I said, “I’d like to talk to him.”

“Man,” Fonseca said. “I can’t…”

I looked at Hawk.

“Four of his people,” I said to Hawk. “Killed without a chance. Didn’t even get the holsters unsnapped.”

“Man don’t seem to care,” Hawk said.

“There’s a confidentiality clause in the contract,” Fonseca said. “I violate it, we lose the account. I gotta think of the guys working for me now. They’d be out of work.”

“No,” I said. “You violate it, and they find out , you might lose the account.”

“And you won’t tell them.”

“No.”

“How about him?” Fonseca said, nodding at Hawk.

“Hawk? He doesn’t tell anybody anything,” I said. “Even when he should.”

Hawk smiled happily.

“Jesus, Spenser,” Fonseca said. “You got me in a bind.”

“Simple business,” I said. “Either you let somebody gun down four of your people like vermin and walk away from it, or you do what you can to even it up.”

Fonseca stood and walked across the room. He got a bottle of water out of a small refrigerator.

“You guys want any water?” he said.

Hawk and I shook our heads. Fonseca walked back to his desk and sat down. He unscrewed the top on the bottle of water and drank some.

“Gotta stay hydrated,” he said.