No one spoke while the driver changed the tire. I could feel Russell’s breathing, steady as we pressed together. And the pulse in his neck was fast against my forearm.
The driver finished.
I said to Hawk, “Check the lugs.”
Holding the lug wrench in one hand, and keeping the gun leveled with the other, Hawk squatted on his haunches and tested each of the lugs.
“They tight,” he said.
“Okay,” I said to Russell, “down, hands behind the head. Like the guards.”
“No,” he said. “I won’t lie down for you.”
He was wearing a gun tucked back of his right hipbone. I could feel it as I pressed against him. I moved my left arm from under his chin and reached around and unsnapped the holster and took the gun. It was a .32 Smith & Wesson Chiefs Special. With my gun still screwed in his ear, I pitched the .32 backhand into the darkness behind me.
“Susan, get in the van.”
She didn’t move.
“Suze,” I said.
She went to the van. And got in.
“Okay,” I said. “I’m going to drive, and Hawk’s going to lean out the side door and stare at you with one of the Uzis and if you move while we’re in sight he’ll kill you.”
I stepped away from Russell. And got into the driver’s seat of the van. Russell stared at me and I looked back and our eyes locked. And held. It was a look of hatred and knowledge and it held unwavering while Hawk got in the backseat and picked up an Uzi. He held it level out the door while I put the van in drive by feel, still with my eyes locked on Russell, and took the emergency brake off and the van began to roll. And then I tromped on the accelerator and the van surged back up onto the pavement and we were gone.
The silence as we drove east on Route 44 was as strange as I can remember. Hawk and Susan were in back and I drove. Hawk seemed to be resting, his head back, his eyes closed, his arms folded over his chest. Susan sat erect, her hands in her lap, looking straight ahead.
At Avon I turned north on Route 202 toward Springfield and at the intersection of Route 309 in a town called Simsbury I pulled over to the side. It was three fifteen in the morning. Routes 202 and 309 are the kind that are marked with very thin lines on the road map. Simsbury was rural Connecticut, close enough to Hartford for commuters, but far enough out for horses if you wished.
I glanced back at Susan. She was leaning forward with her face in her hands. She rocked very slightly. I looked back at the road and then adjusted the rearview mirror so I could see her. In the mirror I saw Hawk lean forward and put his hands on each of Susan’s shoulders and pull her up and over toward him.
“You all right,” he said. “You be all right in a while.”
She put her face, still pressed into her hands, against Hawk’s chest and didn’t move. Hawk put his left arm around her and patted her shoulder with his left hand.
“Be all right,” he said. “Be all right.”
My hands on the wheel were wet with sweat.
CHAPTER 38
FOR SOMEONE WHO HADN’T SLEPT ALL NIGHT, Susan looked good. Her hair was tangled and she had no makeup on. But her eyes were clear and her skin looked smooth and healthy. She broke the end off her croissant and ate it.
“Whole wheat,” I said. “You can get them at the Bread and Circus in Cambridge.”
“I’ll bet you fit right in, shopping there.”
“Like a moose at a butterfly convention,” I said. “But the Shamrock Tavern in Southie doesn’t carry them.”
Susan nodded and broke off another small piece. “Not many people your size in Bread and Circus, I suppose.”
“Only one,” I said, “and she’s nowhere near as cute.”
I poured more coffee from the percolator into my cup and a little more into Susan’s. It was early and the light coming in the window was still tinged with the color of sunrise. Hawk was asleep. Susan and I sat at the table in the safe house in Charlestown feeling the strangeness and the uncertainty, wary of pain, slowly circling the conversation.
“You got my letter,” Susan said. She was holding the coffee cup with both hands and looking over the rim of it at me.
“About Hawk? Yes.”
“And you got him out of jail.”
“Un huh.”
“And you both came looking for me.”
“Un huh.”
“I knew that security intensified. Russ always traveled with bodyguards, but a little while after I wrote you, everything got much more serious. ”
