I nodded. “And the Dodge would have blasted us.”
“Actually would he not have blasted you? I was on the floor, and you were much closer anyway.”
I shrugged. “It wouldn’t have mattered. If you survived the crash they’d have waited and blasted you.”
“You seem, so, so at ease with all of this.”
“I’m not. It scares me.”
“Perhaps. It scares me, too. But you seem to expect it. There’s no moral outrage. You’re not appalled. Or offended. Or … aghast. I don’t know. You make this seem so commonplace.”
“
We went past the dog track and around Bell Circle. There was no one noticeable in the rearview mirror.
“Then you do what you do in part from moral outrage.”
I looked at her and shook my head. “I do what I do because I’m comfortable doing it.”
“My God,” she said, “you’re a stubborn man.”
“Some consider it a virtue in my work,” I said.
She looked at the gun lying on the seat.
“Oughtn’t you to put that away?”
“I think I’ll leave it there till we get to the Ritz.”
“I’ve never touched a gun in my life.”
“They’re a well-made apparatus,” I said. “If they’re good. Very precise.”
“Is this good?”
“Yes. It’s a very nice gun.”
“No gun is nice,” she said.
“If those gentlemen from the Lynnway return,” I said, “you may come to like it better.”
She shook her head. “It’s come to that. Sometimes I feel sick thinking about it.”
“What?”
“In this country—the land of the free and all that shit—I need a man with a gun to protect me simply because I am what I am.”
“That’s fairly sickening,” I said.
I picked Rachel Wallace up at her door at eight thirty the next morning, and we went down to breakfast in the Ritz Cafe. I was wearing my bodyguard outfit—jeans, T-shirt, corduroy Levi jacket, and a daring new pair of Pumas: royal-blue suede with a bold gold stripe. Smith and Wesson .38 Police Special in a shoulder holster.
Rachel Wallace said, “Well, we are somewhat less formal this morning, aren’t we? If you’re dressed that way tonight, they won’t let you in the dining room.”
“Work clothes,” I said. “I can move well in them.”
She nodded and ate an egg. She wore a quiet gray dress with a paisley scarf at her throat. “You expect to have to move?”
“Probably not,” I said. “But like they say at the Pentagon, you have to plan for the enemy’s capacity, not his intentions.”
She signed the check. “Come along,” she said. She picked up her briefcase from under the table, and we walked out through the lobby. She got her coat from the check room, a pale tan trenchcoat. It had cost money. I made no effort to hold it for her. She ignored me while she put it on. I looked at the lobby. There were people, but they looked like they belonged there. No one had a Gatling gun. At least no one had one visible. In fact I’d have been the only one I would have been suspicious of if I hadn’t known me so well, and so fondly.
A young woman in a green tweed suit and a brown beret came toward us from the Arlington Street entrance.
“Ms. Wallace. Hi. I’ve got a car waiting.”
“Do you know her?” I said.
“Yes,” Rachel said. “Linda Smith.”
“I mean by sight,” I said. “Not just by hearing of her or getting mail from her.”
“Yes, we’ve met several times before.”
“Okay.”
We went out onto Arlington Street. I went first. The street was normal nine AM busy. There was a tan Volvo sedan parked at the yellow curb with the motor running and the doorman standing with his hand on the passenger door. When he saw Linda Smith, he opened the passenger door. I looked inside the car and then stepped aside. Rachel Wallace got in; the doorman closed the door. I got in the back, and Linda Smith got in the driver’s seat.
As we pulled into traffic Rachel said, “Have you met Mr. Spenser, Linda?”
