'You can tell?' Susan said. She cut her tomato wedge in half and ate one of the halves.
'Yeah, I think so.'
'Even small-town caps?'
'Yeah, cops are cops. This is a small town, but if it's cocaine central then it's a pretty tough town and the cops straight or crooked are going to be more like city cops. These guys were shit kickers. They weren't tough, they were mean. Cops are confident, or if they're not, they make you think they are. They're used to confrontation. They're not uncomfortable with it.'
'And your, ah, assailants weren't comfortable with it?'
I shook my head. 'And they didn't know what to do with the gunshot wound,' I said.
'They should have if they were cops.'
Gert brought my chicken potpie and Susan's shrimp.
'You through with your salad?' she said.
Susan said, 'No, I'll keep it, thanks.'
'You want me to bring the shrimp back later,' Gert said.
'No, I'll eat them both,' Susan said.
'You want another beer,' Gert said.
I shook my head.
'Three's about right,' I said.
Gert shrugged and went away.
I consulted my chicken potpie.
'What a disappointment,' I said to Susan.
'Canned?' Susan said.
'No, I was hoping for canned. I think they made this themselves.'
'Will you be able to finish?' Susan said.
'I think so,' I said.
'So, if they weren't cops who were they,' Susan said.
'Don't know. Maybe friends of cops, maybe non-Colombian coke workers, maybe guys hired to do the nasty stuff while the cops blocked off the highway.'
'Or maybe somebody that you don't know anything about,' Susan said.
'That would be consistent,' I said.
'In that you're trying to operate in a circumstance you don't understand.'
'Yes.'
'That is consistent with everyone's experience. You're just more aware of it,' Susan said.
'Was that philosophical?' I said.
'I think so,' Susan said.
Chapter 11
I drove Susan back to Boston Sunday night and kept her car.
'I'll rent one,' she said. 'You can pay for it.'
'The Argus can pay for it,' I said.
Then it was Monday morning and Susan was gone and I was back to hanging around Wheaton looking for a clue. I felt like an ugly guy at a dating bar. I went into the Friendly restaurant and sat at the counter and had an English muffin and a cup of coffee.
'I heard there was some kind of excitement out on the Quabbin Road the other night,' I said. The young woman behind the counter looked at me blankly.
'Really?' she said. 'What kind of excitement?'
'I'm not sure,' I said. I turned to the guy next to me, who was wearing a gray satin sweatsuit and black loafers. 'You hear about it?' I said.
He was dipping a corner of his toast into the yellow of a fried egg. He finished doing that and looked up and shrugged.
'Nope,' he said. He had a two-day growth of beard and while his hair was brown, the beard was mostly gray.
'What'd you hear, mister?' The girl behind the counter was maybe nineteen and already was starting to look haggard.
'Oh, some kind of accident, out there, guy got shot or something.'
