“Or kill me himself,” I said.
Susan looked at her hands folded in her lap. “Maybe… no. I won’t believe that. He’s dangerous. He’s violent. Never with me. But… he wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t.”
“We’ll see,” I said.
Susan put her arms around me and rested her head against my chest.
“Time to go,” I said.
She nodded, her head still against my chest. Then she stepped away.
Hawk handed me the .357 in a shoulder holster and helped me as I slipped into the harness. I hiked up the right leg of my jeans and Hawk taped a sheathed hunting knife to my calf. I shook the pants leg down over it. I was wearing gray Nike running shoes, and a black T-shirt. I put the black and gray Windbreaker top to a jogging suit on over the T-shirt and shoulder holster. I put the government blackjack in my right hip pocket. The jacket had a zippered pocket across the front and I put a handful of shells in and zipped it up. I turned and walked three steps toward the other side of the hotel room. The shells jingled like change in the pocket. I shook my head and Hawk said, “No,” at the same time. I took the shells out, and Hawk went to the bathroom and returned with adhesive tape. I pulled up the jacket and T-shirt and Hawk taped a dozen .357 shells across my stomach. I dropped the T- shirt over the ammo, letting it hang out over my belt so I could get at the shells quicker. I walked across the room again. Quiet.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll see you here afterwards.”
“I wish you weren’t alone,” Susan said.
“Me too,” I said. “But it’s his rules.” Susan nodded. I looked at Hawk.
“You got to kill him,” Hawk said, “kill him. Don’t die ‘cause you think you promised her.”
I nodded.
“She don’t want that,” Hawk said. I nodded.
“Do you?” Hawk said to Susan.
She shook her head. “No,” she said. “God, no, I… no. No promises. You do what you must do to come back.” She was sitting on the bed, her hands rubbing both temples. “I want you to come back.”
I took in a big drag of air through my nose. I put my hands on either side of her face and tilted it up and kissed her gently on the mouth. She put her hands on top of mine for a moment and held her mouth against me. Then we stopped kissing and I straightened up and stepped away. Her look followed me, but she didn’t speak. I looked at Hawk. He nodded once, a short nod. I opened the door and went out.
Russell Costigan picked me up in a Jensen-Healey convertible with the top down. He had on a silver racing jacket and backless pigskin driving gloves and Porsche sunglasses. His longish hair was disarranged by the wind and I could see that he was balding. I was pleased.
“You pumped up?” he said. I didn’t say anything.
“You wonder why I’m doing this?” he said.
“No.”
He grinned. The, grin was wolfish, like a carnivore curling back its lips. “The hell you don’t,” he said.
We were heading north out of Boise, but on a different road. It was a little late in the year for a convertible and the air was cold. I sat and looked at Costigan, feeling tightness in the muscles along my spine and across my shoulders. Costigan glanced at me as he drove. He looked back at the road and then glanced again and then back at the road. He nodded his head slowly.
“Yeah,” he said, “I know. I know the feeling. You want to kill me. But you don’t. You hate my ass, but there’s this connection. Right? There’s this special connection.”
I nodded without speaking.
Russell drove with one hand on the wheel and one arm resting on the door. But there was nothing relaxed about him. He was all sharp edge and strung wire.
“Think you could kill me?” he said. He glanced at me, shifting his eyes more than his head. “You think you could?”
“Anybody can kill anybody,” I said.
He nodded to himself. “What’s she say about me,” he said.
I didn’t answer. He shook his head. “You’re right,” he said. “Question was out of line.” He shook his head again. “Bush,” he said. He tapped the door where his arm rested with his fingertips, as if he were listening to music I couldn’t hear.
We were quiet for maybe ten minutes until Russell pulled the Healey, too fast, into a left turn, tires squealing, and onto a dirt road that headed west through the grasslands. We followed that, too fast, so that the Healey bumped and rocked like a jackass, for nearly a mile. Behind a low hill, Russell slowed up, braked, and parked.
“We walk a ways,” he said.
He got out and started around the hill. I followed him. It was late afternoon, and the sun low in my face as we rounded the hill told me that we were heading west. There were small blue flowers on the grassland. Hills rolled away to the west, getting slightly higher in the distance as they mounted toward the Rockies. Russell was wearing lizard-skin cowboy boots, and the high heels made him pitch slightly side to side as he walked. They also made him about my height.
We went down the modest slope of the hill we’d parked behind, and up the modest slope of the next hill. At the top we looked down into a somewhat deeper valley. The valley wall across was scarred with rock outcroppings, and there was some scrub growth in among the rocks. We went down into that valley and maybe five yards up the opposite slope.
