Robert Parker - Family Honor

“Every minute,” I said.

Snap.

“I’ve been waiting for three hours.”

The leash snapped. Did he want to snap it around my neck? No. Richie would never hurt me.

“I have the right,” I said, in the dignified way that you can achieve only if you’re drunk, “to be with my friends when I want to be.”

“And I have the right to have you come home when you’re expected and not make me think about whether it’s time to call the cops or not.”

“Oh, don’t be so silly,” I said.

“To worry about you is silly?”

“I can take care of myself.”

“To want you with me is silly?”

“No. But if you do it too much it’s...” I couldn’t think of a word... then it came... “suffocating.”

Richie stretched the leash as tight as he could, as if he were trying to pull it apart.

“Suffocating? Loving you and wanting you with me is suffocating?”

Had I been sober, maybe I would have modified it. It wasn’t quite what I meant. But it never is in fights like that. And I wasn’t sober.

“Yes!”

Richie shook his head like a horse beset by flies.

“ All I ask is that I may love you and you love me back. ”

“And you define love, and you judge the terms in which I love you back? And if I don’t love you in the same way you think you love me, I get yelled at?”

“I’m talking about the way I feel,” Richie said.

“And I’m talking about the way I feel. Why do we have to feel exactly alike? Why can’t you feel your way, and I feel my way?”

“All I want is to be loved the way I love,” Richie said. He was snapping the leash again.

“Well, maybe you can’t have that.”

“That’s what marriage is,” he said.

“ Maybe you married the wrong woman, then .”

“Yeah,” Richie said, “maybe I did.”

Still holding the leash he walked away from me down the driveway and disappeared into the dark. When he came back I was in bed, and I pretended to be asleep.

Beside me, Rosie spotted another dog on the other side of the lagoon, and jumped down barking and snarling and gargling, just as if she would really attack it if I let her, which she wouldn’t. But it was a dazzling display, and several pedestrians stepped hurriedly out of her way as she strained on the leash.

“At least I know you don’t want to strangle me with it,” I said, and got up and steered her back toward Boylston Street.

Richie and Spike had never been easy with each other. The only thing they had in common was me. So it was a little strained around Spike’s kitchen table a little after midnight. Millicent was in the den watching television. Rosie was on the floor between me and Richie, with her head resting on my left foot. There was fruit and cheese and some crackers and some wine on the table.

“You keep some tough hours, Sunny,” Richie said.

He put a small wedge of blue cheese on each of two crackers, fed one to Rosie and ate the other.

“It’s the only time I could get us all together,” I said.

“Why do you want to?” Spike said.

“Because I need help.”

“What’ve you been getting?” Spike said. “We’ve gone to the mattresses in my house, we’re baby-sitting your client.”

“I know. I’m grateful.”

“Good,” Spike said.

“What do you need?” Richie said.

“There’s a man named Cathal Kragan,” I said. “You know about him.”

They both nodded.

“There’s a man named Albert Antonioni. Do you know about him?”

“Not the Italian director,” Spike said.

“No.”

“From Providence?” Richie said.

“Yes.”

“We know him.”

“What’s that,” Spike said, “the royal we? ”

Almost everybody who meets Richie is intimidated by him. It isn’t size, though he’s big enough; it’s something in his eyes, and his voice, and how still he is when there’s no reason to move. But Richie didn’t intimidate Spike. As far as I knew nothing intimidated Spike, including things that should have.

“ We always means his father and his uncle,” I said.

Richie grinned. “Thank you for interpreting,” he said. “Tell me about Antonioni.”

I did. When I was through Richie and Spike were both silent for a time. Richie poured a little wine into my glass, and a little into his own. He started to put the wine bottle down when Spike said, “Hey.”

Richie grinned and poured some into Spike’s glass. Spike nodded and raised the glass half an inch in Richie’s direction and drank some wine.

“You’re right,” Spike said to me when he put the glass down. “You need help.”

“And I don’t know if I have the right to ask for it,” I said.

“Because?”

“Well, how much can you ask a friend to do?” I said.

“You and I are more than friends,” Richie said.

“I know, that’s an even bigger problem. How can I ask you to help me, when we’re... when I’m not...”

Richie glanced briefly at Spike, and then took in a little air.

“Sunny,” he said. “There’s nothing about rights here. You need something from me, you get it, whether you’re sleeping with me or not.”

My eyes stung. Horror of horrors, was I going to cry? I breathed slowly.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Richie said.

A slow smile developed as he looked at me.

“Of course, afterwards,” he said, “if you were grateful...”

I sighed and looked at Spike.

“I’ll help, too,” he said, “and you won’t have to sleep with me either.”

“Easy for you...” Richie murmured.

Spike grinned.

“Just going along with the program,” he said.

Richie cut a wedge from a Granny Smith apple and ate it and drank some wine.

“First off,” Richie said, “what’s your goal?”

“I’ve been sort of making it up as I went along,” I said. “I’m not sure I’ve set a goal.”

“Well, let’s set one,” Richie said.

“Saving Millicent,” I said.

“From?”

“From Kragan, from Antonioni, if he’s part of it, from her parents, from herself.”

“The full bore, all out, hundred and ten percent save,” Spike said. “Save her from everything.”

“If I can.”

“Would the first step be to take out the people who are trying to kill her?”

“Yes,” I said, “and maybe, find out along the way if her parents are as bad as they seem.”

“You assume they want to kill her because Kragan knows she overheard him and her mother planning to kill a guy.”

“Yes.”

“And because it would lead, if she talked, maybe to implicating Kragan and Antonioni and their participation in her father’s gubernatorial ambitions,” Richie said.

“Yes.”

“So if we remove the motive, we remove the threat to the kid,” Spike said.

“What would you like to do, Sunny?”

“I’d like to blow the whole thing out of the water,” I said. “The sex, the murder, Patton’s run for governor, Antonioni, Kragan, all of it. Boom!”

Richie nodded slowly. He looked at Spike.

“How good are you,” he said.

Spike grinned at him. “About as good as you,” he said.

“That’s very good,” Richie said.

“I know.”

Richie looked at him some more.

“You want him in?” Richie said to me, staring at Spike.

“I trust him like I trust you,” I said.

“Well,” Richie said, “he’s got the build for it.”