“You understand why?” I said.
“Partly,” Susan said. She walked to the door of the bedroom. “Breakfast,” she said to Hawk. He appeared in the door minus his Walkman.
“Could y’all put it on a tray, missy, and bring it in to me?” he said.
Susan smiled with all her warmth and force. “No,” she said.
CHAPTER 41
RACHEL WALLACE ARRIVED BY CAB AT TEN twenty in the morning carrying a big briefcase. She put her arms around Susan and kissed her on the cheek.
“It is lovely to see you again,” she said. Susan nodded.
“How are you,” Rachel Wallace said.
“Better than I was,” Susan said.
Rachel Wallace turned to me and said, “I have spent the entire summer studying Jerry Costigan. I suspect there is no one anywhere, including Mrs. Costigan, who knows him as I do.”
“It’s for damn sure you’re ahead of our crack government intelligence team,” I said.
“Government intelligence is an oxymoron,” Rachel Wallace said. “Have you coffee?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll need several cups, black. Quite strong.” She patted Susan’s arm. “It is good to see you here.”
Susan smiled and nodded again. Rachel Wallace turned to Hawk and gave him both her hands.
“You too,” she said. “It is good to see you here.” She gave him a sisterly kiss on the mouth.
Hawk grinned. “You holding back,” he said.
The phone rang and Hawk answered. I was pouring coffee into the filter.
Hawk said, “Un huh?”
Then said, “You got a place we can call back?”
I stopped measuring out coffee and turned toward him.
“Okay,” he said. “You call back in ten minutes. Got to talk with my man here.”
Rachel and Susan turned to look at him and we all stood in that suspended way that people do waiting for someone to get off the phone.
Hawk said, “Un huh,” again and hung up the phone.
“So much for the safe house,” Hawk said. I waited.
“Man say if we want to know something real important about finding Jerry Costigan we should meet with him,” Hawk said.
“Have to talk with Ives about the security of his operation,” I said. “Where we supposed to meet him?”
“Man didn’t say. Says he’ll call back in ten minutes,” Hawk said.
I walked to the window and looked out. Without saying anything Susan got up and finished making the coffee. Below me Charlestown was going on undifferentiated.
“There’s no reason anyone should think we would care about where Jerry Costigan is,” I said.
“Less Ives’s people let it out,” Hawk said.
“Must have,” I said. “Guy knew we were here, had the phone number, knew we were looking for Costigan. Had to be from Ives’s people.”
“They could fuck up a beach party,” Hawk said. He looked at Rachel Wallace and made a slight apologetic head motion. She smiled and shook her head, it-doesn’t-matter.
“It’s a trap,” Susan said from the kitchen.
“Probably,” I said.
“Question is,” Hawk said, “who going to trap whom?”
“Whom?” I said.
“Whom,” Hawk said.
“We’ll meet him,” I said.
“Is that wise,” Rachel Wallace said.
“Might as well get it over with,” I said. “We’re compromised here. And the people setting the trap, assuming it’s a trap, might still be able to tell us something really important about finding Jerry Costigan.”
“If they don’t kill you,” Susan said. She was putting coffee cups, fresh from the dishwasher, onto a tray.
“Always with that caveat,” I said. “But they haven’t yet, and good people have tried.”
“I know,” Susan said. “But in this case it would be my fault.”
