“No, I haven’t. Nice to meet you, Mr. Spenser.”
“Nice to meet you, Ms. Smith,” I said. Rachel would like the
“Spenser is looking after me on the tour,” Rachel said.
“Yes, I know. John told me.” She glanced at me in the rearview mirror. “I don’t think I’ve ever met a bodyguard before.”
“We’re just regular folks,” I said. “If you cut us, do we not bleed?”
“Literary, too,” Linda Smith said.
“When are we supposed to be in Belmont?”
“Ten o’clock,” Linda said. “Belmont Public Library.”
“What for?” I said.
“Ms. Wallace is speaking there. They have a Friends of the Library series.”
“Nice liberal town you picked.”
“Never mind, Spenser,” Rachel Wallace said. Her voice was brusque. “I told them I’d speak wherever I could and to whom I could. I have a message to deliver, and I’m not interested in persuading those who already agree with me.”
I nodded.
“If there’s trouble, all right. That’s what you’re being paid for.”
I nodded.
We got to the Belmont Library at a quarter to ten. There were ten men and women walking up and down in front of the library with placards on poles made of strapping.
A Belmont Police cruiser was parked across the street, two cops sitting in it quietly.
“Park behind the cops,” I said.
Linda swung in behind the cruiser, and I got out. “Stay in the car a second,” I said.
“I will not cower in here in front of a few pickets.”
“Then look menacing while you sit there. This is what I’m paid for. I just want to talk to the cops.”
I walked over to the cruiser. The cop at the wheel had a young wise-guy face. He looked like he’d tell you to stick it, at the first chance he got. And laugh. He was chewing a toothpick, the kind they put through a club sandwich. It still had the little cellophane frill on the end he wasn’t chewing.
I bent down and said through the open window, “I’m escorting this morning’s library speaker. Am I likely to have any trouble from the pickets?”
He looked at me for ten or twelve seconds, worrying the toothpick with his tongue.
“You do, and we’ll take care of it,” he said. “You think we’re down here waiting to pick up a copy of
“I figured you more for picture books,” I said.
He laughed. “How about that, Benny?” he said to his partner. “A hot shit. Haven’t had one today.” His partner was slouched in the seat with his hat tipped over his eyes. He didn’t say anything or move. “Who’s the speaker you’re escorting?”
“Rachel Wallace,” I said.
“Never heard of her.”
“I’ll try to keep that from her,” I said. “I’m going to take her in now.”
“Good show,” he said. “Shouldn’t be any trouble for a hot shit like you.”
I went back to the car and opened the door for Rachel Wallace.
“What did you do?” she said as she got out.
“Annoyed another cop,” I said. “That’s three hundred sixty-one this year, and October’s not over yet.”
“Did they say who the pickets were?”
I shook my head. We started across the street, Linda Smith on one side of Rachel and me on the other. Linda Smith’s face looked tight and colorless; Rachel’s was expressionless.
Someone among the pickets said, “There she is.” They all turned and closed together more tightly as we walked toward them. Linda looked at me, then back at the cops. We kept walking.
“We don’t want you here!” a woman shouted at us.
Someone else yelled, “Dyke!”
I said, “Is he talking to me?”
Rachel Wallace said, “No.”
A heavy-featured woman with shoulder-length gray hair was carrying a placard that said, A Gay America is a Communist Goal. A stylish woman in a tailored suit carried a sign that read, Gays Can’t Reproduce. They Have to Convert.
