“Yeah, I suppose so. He’s been there. He’ll be there again. He’s not that bad a guy.”
“Well, I think he’s pretty bad,” she said. “He broke into my house, manhandled me, tried to kidnap my son. I think he is very bad.”
“Yeah, I suppose you would. But that’s because you don’t know any people who are in fact very bad.”
“And you do?”
“Oh, my, yes,” I said.
“Well, I’m glad I don’t I hope Paul didn’t see this.”
“Oh, he saw it,” I said. I nodded at the stairs. In the shadows of the upper hall, three stairs up from the living room, Paul was standing looking down.
“Paul,” she said. “How long have you been there?”
He didn’t say anything.
I said, “Since Buddy and Harold came in.”
“Don’t be scared, Paul,” she said. “It’s okay, Mr. Spenser has made them go away. He won’t let them bother us.”
Paul came down the stairs and stood on the middle step.
“How come you didn’t shoot them?” he said.
“I didn’t need to,” I said.
“Were you scared to?”
Patty Giacomin said, “Paul.”
“Were you?”
“No.”
“The guy said that there was something wrong with you. That you weren’t a shooter.”
“True.”
“What’d he mean?”
Patty said, “Paul, that’s enough. I mean it. You’re being very rude.”
I shook my head. “No. This all revolves around him. He has a right to ask questions.”
“What did he mean?” Paul said.
“He meant that if I was quicker to kill people, my threat would work better.”
“Would it?”
“Probably.”
“Why don’t you?”
“Something to do with the sanctity of life. That kind of stuff.”
“Have you ever killed someone?”
Patty said, “Paul!”
“Yes.”
“So?”
“I had to. I don’t if I don’t have to. Nothing’s absolute.”
“What do you mean?” He stepped down to the living room level into the light.
“I mean you make rules for yourself and know that you’ll have to break them because they won’t always work.”
Patty said, “I don’t know what either one of you is talking about, but I want you to stop. I don’t want any more talking about killing and I don’t want to talk about either of those men again. I mean it I want it stopped.” She clapped her hands when she said the last sentence. Paul looked at her as if she were a cockroach and turned and went back up to his room.
“I think I need a drink,” Patty said. “Could you put one together for me?”
“Sure,” I said. “What’ll it be?”
CHAPTER 12
The next time they tried, it was meaner. Patty Giacomin was food shopping when I went to pick up Paul at school. When I came back into the house with Paul, the phone was ringing. Paul answered and then handed it to me.
“It’s for you,” he said.
I took the phone and Paul lingered in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room to see who it was. It was a voice I didn’t know.
It said, “Spenser?”
