'Chance of a lifetime,' I said. 'King of the chicken flicks.'
'He mustn't be allowed to continue,' Susan said. 'Soon,' I said. 'April will show up soon.'
'I cannot wait too much longer,' she said. 'I cannot permit this to go on.'
'The end of the week,' I said. 'If she doesn't show up by then we'll blow the whistle on Poitras and I'll look elsewhere for April.'
Susan agreed and I hung up and went to bed.
Tuesday morning I was back out on Beacon Street and Tuesday afternoon there came April Kyle. She was wearing a man's army field jacket with a first cavalry patch on it and she looked sort of bedraggled, as if she'd been sleeping in subways and eating light. She slouched along Beacon Street from the direction of Kenmore Square, reading the numbers on the buildings until she reached Poitras's. She stopped for a minute and stared at it, then she went up and rang the bell. The door opened and she went in. I stayed put. Maybe she was just passing through. Maybe just a visit and then back home to Park Street Under. Some cocoa and a Twinkie, a little talk of boys and sock hops, thumb through the yearbook, giggle, maybe a stroll down to the malt shop, or maybe not. Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang. April didn't come out again. Poitras waddled home at his usual time and let himself in with his key. Still no one came out. I walked three blocks up to Boylston Street and found a public phone and called Susan.
'April's in with Amy and Poitras,' I said. 'What do you think?'
'Stay there. I'll come in. We'll talk to her together.'
'No,' I said. 'I don't want you involved. This deal is tied into some really bad folks, and I don't want them to know your name.'
'I have as much right to be frightened as you do,' Susan said.
'Suze,' I said. 'There've been threats made. By people who can back them up.'
'I have the right to be threatened too,' Susan said. 'I'm coming in.'
'No.
'Yes. You have no right to protect me against my will. I have the right to my own pride and my own self- respect. This is the ugliest piece of business I've ever seen. I'm involved. I got you involved and I want to be part of ending it.'
'Jesus Christ,' I said.
'And if April has to go wee wee again,' Susan said, 'I can go with her.'
'Corner of Fairfield and Beacon,' I said. 'I'll look for you in about twenty minutes. Bitch.'
'Gracefully,' Susan said. 'You give in so gracefully.'
I hung up. It was dark and wet as I walked back down Fairfield. A mixture of rain and snow slopped down, making the street glisten in the streetlights and causing the top of the Prudential and Hancock buildings to disappear in the haze and swirl of it. The commuter traffic had largely drained out of the Back Bay by now -it was twenty of seven, and few people were about on foot. There was a spectral quality to the city. The mist that hovered forty stories up reflected the city lights back in a muted glow, and everything looked a little moonie.
At about quarter past seven I saw Susan walking up Beacon toward me. She had on a poplin trench coat and a large felt hat. The heels of her boots made a clear firm sound in the hushed pale evening. The street seemed somehow to organize around her. Wherever she was she was the focal point, or maybe it just seemed that way because she was my focal point. No way to decide that. If a tree falls in the forest with no one to hear it, does it make a sound? She crossed Fairfield and stopped beside me.
'Has anyone ever told you,' I said, 'that you coalesce reality?'
'No. They only say that I'm good in the sack.'
'They are accurate but limited,' I said. 'And if you give me their names I'll kill them.'
'Is April still in there?'
I nodded. 'Unless she slipped out while I was calling you, and why should she?'
'Do we just go knock on the door?'
'Sure,' I said. 'They've got plenty to hide, but they don't know we know it.'
We mounted Poitras's three steps and rang his doorbell. The porch light went on. Amy opened the door. I was wearing a pair of thick-soled Herman survivor boots in deference to the weather and I slipped one of them quietly across the threshold.
Susan said, 'Hello, Amy, remember me?'
Amy looked out closely at Susan and then at me. She remembered me too. 'Hello, Mrs. Silverman, I didn't recognize you at first,' Amy said.
'You know Mr. Spenser,' Susan said.
Amy nodded. She glanced once back over her shoulder.
'May we come in?' Susan said.
Amy looked back over her shoulder again. Then back at us. I smiled. Friendly. From the house behind Amy a voice said, 'Who is it, Amy?'
It was a deep, harsh voice, a growl almost. Poitras appeared in the doorway behind Amy. 'What do you need,' he said in his ferocious voice. His bulk filled the doorway, and I realized he was one of those fat guys who had gotten confused about size as opposed to strength, the way he held himself, the self-consciousness of his looming posture in the doorway. He had gotten a lot of mileage out of bullying people with his size.
