Robert Parker - Family Honor

He looked at his watch.

“That donut was enough,” he said, “or can you eat some lunch?”

“I could eat some lunch,” I said.

“Good.”

Spike was dressed for work when I got home. Millicent was on the couch in Spike’s living room watching a talk show on television. Rosie rushed out of the living room when I opened the front door and chased her tail for a time before I picked her up and we exchanged kisses.

“I made her linguine with white clam sauce for lunch,” Spike said. “She hated it.”

“She’s just not an educated eater,” I said. “What did she have instead.”

“Crackers and peanut butter.”

Spike’s disgust was palpable.

“She’ll learn,” I said.

Spike took the big Army .45 from his hip pocket and handed it to me, butt first.

“Put that in my desk drawer,” he said.

I took the gun and Spike went out the front door and closed it behind him. I put the gun away and went into the living room. On television two fat women wearing a lot of makeup were screaming at each other. Between them sat a skinny guy with a sparse beard and long hair. He looked pleased. I shut it off.

“I was listening,” Millicent said.

“What are they fighting about,” I said.

“He’s married to one of them and cheating on her with the other one.”

“He got two women to sleep with him?” I said.

“I guess so.”

“You should never sleep with someone who can’t grow a beard,” I said.

“Why not?”

“Just sort of an anti-PC joke,” I said.

“What’s PC?”

“Politically correct,” I said.

“What’s that mean?”

I sat down and looked at her. Rosie jumped up and squeezed in beside me on the chair.

“I guess you could say it’s a set of humorless rules about speech and behavior articulated publicly and privately meaningless.”

“Sure,” Millicent said. “You ever have sex with somebody that had a bad beard?”

I laughed.

“Not that I can recall.”

“You have sex a lot?” Millicent said.

She was looking blankly at the inanimate television screen.

“Define ‘a lot,’” I said.

“You know, do you screw a lot of guys?”

“If I like a man I am happy to sleep with him,” I said. “But I don’t meet that many men that I like.”

“You have to like them?”

“Yep.”

“Why have sex at all?”

I thought about that for a minute. It wasn’t a question anyone had asked me in a while.

“Well, it feels nice,” I said.

Millicent wrinkled her nose.

“And it is a kind of intimacy that is otherwise not possible.”

“I never liked it,” Millicent said.

“Well, the stuff when you were hooking doesn’t count.”

“Why not?”

“I assume there were no emotions involved. Nobody liked anybody. Just fucking. Just a commercial transaction. How about before that?”

“Couple of times with kids at school.”

“Any special kid?”

“No, once with Chuck Sanders and Tommy Lee, and once with a guy named Roy.”

“Chuck and Tommy at the same time?”

“Yeah, first one, then the other, in Tommy’s car.”

“Did you like them both?”

She shrugged.

“How about Roy, did you like him?”

“He was nice. Tommy and Chuck kind of hurt. Roy didn’t so much.”

“I think you need to suspend judgment on sex,” I said. “Your experience is with fucking, not with love-making.”

“What’s the difference?”

“It’s the difference between pleasure and pain,” I said.

Millicent shrugged again. We were quiet. Rosie had rolled over on her back so I could rub her stomach.

“What do you like to do besides watch television?” I said.

“Nothing.”

I could have given that answer for her.

“What do you think you know the most about?”

“I know a lot about getting by on the street,” she said.

“Yes,” I said. “You do. Anything else?”

She thought about it, but not for long. When she had stopped thinking, she shrugged.

“Street-smart is good,” I said. “I find use for it myself. But if there were more than being street-smart, life would be more fun.”

“Fun?”

“Yes. A foreign concept, I know. But one of the things that it is good to do in life is have fun.”

“Like what?”

“Like being with people you love.”

“Oh sure, like you?”

“I’m not,” I said. “But I don’t doubt its charm. It’s also fun to love a dog, and look at art, and listen to music, and follow baseball, and go to the movies, and eat well, and read some books, and work out... stuff like that.”

“That doesn’t sound like fun to me.”

“What’s fun to you?” I said.

Millicent didn’t say anything.

“You like Rosie?” I said.

“She’s okay.”

“God, don’t let her hear you say that she’s okay,” I said. “She thinks she’s the queen of cute.”

Millicent smiled slightly. I was on a hot streak. We sat some more. The blank gray screen of Spike’s television sat silently before us. Waiting.

“Let’s make supper together,” I said.

“I don’t know how,” Millicent said.

“Me either,” I said. “We can get through it together.”

Julie and I were having tea at a little place called LouLou’s in Harvard Square near where Julie had her office.

“How awful for that girl,” Julie said. “Can’t you just turn it over to the police?”

“I’m working with a police detective on the men who came to my place. Brian says he can leave Millicent out of it for now. But I haven’t told him about Millicent’s mother.”

Outside of LouLou’s the pedestrians and motorists were having their ongoing stare down where Brattle Street wound down from the Square.

“Because?” Julie said.

“Because I have to know more about what’s going on, before I put her in the position of testifying against her own mother.”

“Brian’s the police detective?”

“Un huh.”

“Brian?”

“Yes.”

“He cute?” Julie said.

“Quite.”

“And?”

“And we had lunch the other day and I enjoyed it,” I said.

“And?”

“And we’ll see.”

“Can Richie help you with this?” Julie said.

“With Brian?”

“No, not with Brian. Can he help you find out who sent those men to your loft.”

“I’m already asking him to baby-sit,” I said. “Divorce means going it on your own, I think.”

“Being a professional means using the resources you have,” Julie said.

“And Richie’s a resource?”

“A good one. You know that.”

“Yes. I do know that.”

We were sharing a pot of Japanese sour cherry-flavored green tea. I poured some through the strainer for Julie and some for me.

“Is the girl a basket case?” Julie said.

“She doesn’t have enough affect to be a basket case.”

“She’s withdrawn?”

“I don’t know the therapy term for it. She doesn’t know anything. No one seems to have taken any time to tell her anything. She has no interests. Love, sex, affection puzzle her. She doesn’t like dogs.”

“You can forgive her that?” Julie said.

“The dogs?” I said. “I’m trying to get past that.”

“What does she do all day?”

“Watch television.”

“Anything that’s on?” Julie said.

“Anything.”

“She’s shut down,” Julie said. “She can’t handle the world she faces, so she effectively withdraws from it. Does she do drugs?”

“She had some pot with her when I grabbed her,” I said. “But she smoked that. Since she’s been with me she hasn’t bought any.”