Quirk shrugged. “We’ll see,” he said.
“Also, somebody made what looked like a professional try at her a couple nights ago.”
“Good how promptly you reported it to the authorities,” Quirk said.
“I’m doing that now,” I said. “Listen.”
He listened.
I told him about the two-car incident on the Lynnway. I told him about the pickets in Belmont and the pie- throwers in Cambridge. I told him about the recent unpleasantness in the First Mutual cafeteria.
“Don’t you freelance types have an exciting time of it?” Quirk said.
“It makes the time pass,” I said.
“The business on the Lynnway is the only thing that sounds serious,” Quirk said. “Gimme the license numbers.”
I did.
“Course they could be merely harassing you like the others.”
“They seemed to know their way around.”
“Shit, everybody knows his way around. They watch
“Yeah,” I said. “Could be. Could even be a pattern.”
“Conspiracy?” Quirk raised both eyebrows.
“Possible.”
“But likely?”
I shrugged. “There are stranger things in this world than in all your philosophies, Horatio.”
“The only other guy I ever met as intellectual as you,” Quirk said, “was a child molester we put away in the late summer of 1967.”
“Smart doesn’t mean good,” I said.
“I’ve noted that,” Quirk said. “Anyway, I’m not ready to buy a conspiracy without more.”
“Me either,” I said. “Can you do anything about keeping an eye on her?”
“I’ll call Callahan over at the Ritz again. Tell him you’re off the thing, and he should be a little carefuller.”
“That’s it?”
“Yeah,” Quirk said, “that’s it. I need more people than I’ve got now. I can’t put a guard on her. If she makes a public appearance somewhere, maybe I can arrange to beef up her security a little. But we both know the score—I can’t protect her and neither can you, unless she wants us to. And even then”—he shrugged—“depends on how bad somebody wants her.”
“But after someone does her in, you’ll swing into action. Then you’ll be able to spare a dozen men.”
“Take a walk,” Quirk said. The lines from his nose to the corners of his mouth were deep. “I don’t need to get lectured about police work. I’m still here—I didn’t quit.”
I stood up. “I apologize,” I said. “I feel very sour about things now. I’m blaming you.”
Quirk nodded. “I get anything on those numbers, you want to know?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.”
I left.
Susan and I were at the raw bar in the middle of Quincy Market eating oysters and drinking beer, and arguing. Sort of.
“So why didn’t you keep out of it?” Susan said. “Rachel had asked you to.”
“And stand there and let them drag her out?”
“Yes.” Susan slurped an oyster off the shell. They don’t offer forks at the raw bar. They just serve oysters or clams or shrimp, with beer in paper cups. There are bowls of oyster crackers and squeeze bottles of cocktail sauce. They named the place the Walrus and the Carpenter, but I like it anyway.
“I couldn’t do that,” I said. Under the vaulted ceiling of the market, people swirled up and down the main aisle. A bearded man wearing a ski cap and a green turtleneck sweater eyed Susan and whispered something to the man with him. The man with him looked at Susan and nodded.
They both smiled, and then they both caught me looking at them and looked away and moved on. I ordered another beer. Susan sipped a little of hers.
“Why couldn’t you do that?” Susan said.
“It violates something.”
“What?”
