roof, which looked a little forlorn as it pulled up through the dark winter night. When she got out and walked toward me through the headlights of her car, she was wearing gray boots, and jeans, and a silver fox fur coat. Her hair was in perfect place and her makeup was elegant. I had always suspected that were she routed out of bed at 3:00 A.M. by the secret police she'd find a way to do her hair and put on her makeup before they hauled her away. I climbed down from the cab and put my arms out and she leaned in against my chest and put her arms around me and kissed me. I had the feeling I always had, every time, the feeling of breathing deep and clear, and a lot of the sleepless tension in my back and shoulders eased.
'I may someday faint from contentment,' I said with my face against her hair.
'Um hum,' she said.
'Will you give me mouth-to-mouth,' I said.
'I'm doing that now,' she said, and kissed me again. 'Preventive medicine,' she said with her mouth still against mine. 'Now what's up?'
Standing as we were, arms around each other, I told her.
'Three hundred kilos of cocaine?' she said when I was through. 'We're rich!'
'Even if we keep a little for your nose,' I said. 'Current street price in Boston is a hundred dollars a gram, a hundred and twenty if it hasn't been stepped on too heavy.'
'That's enough for a new car,' Susan said.
'Un huh.'
'What are we going to do with it?'
'I don't know exactly,' I said.
'Are we going to turn it over to the police?'
'Not right now,' I said.
'Why not?'
'I think we're going to hold it hostage,' I said.
'Is that law-abiding?'
'No.'
Susan moved her head against my chin. 'I thought it wasn't,' she said.
We unloaded the bags of cocaine from the truck and put them in the trunk of the Mustang.
'It would make a nice headline,' Susan said. 'Cambridge therapist collared in drug bust.'
'Claim you were my love slave,' I said. 'Any jury would buy it.'
Susan closed the trunk. 'What about the truck?' she said.
'We'll leave it, eventually someone will wonder what it's doing here, quite soon if the weather warms.'
We got in the Mustang, Susan on the driver's side.
'Will they trace it to the owner?' she said.
'I doubt it,' I said. 'I suspect they'll find that the registration is a fake.'
Susan slipped the Mustang in gear and drove out of the parking lot and onto Route 128 very quickly.
'It would not be good to get busted for speeding with a trunkload of coke,' I said.
'I'm only doing sixty-eight,' Susan said.
'Yeah, I know. But I'm worried about when you get out of second.'
I could see her smile as she eased up on the gas and brought the car down to the speed limit. I put my head back against the front seat headrest.
'Your place or mine,' she said.
'Mine,' I said.
'Tired?' Susan said.
'And hungry and in the throes of caffeine withdrawal, and sexually unrequited for six days,' I said.
'There are remedies to all those problems,' Susan said. 'Trust me, I have a Ph.D.'
'From Harvard too,' I said.
'Veritas, ' Susan said.
I closed my eyes and didn't exactly sleep while we drove down Route 1 and over the Mystic Bridge. But I didn't exactly not sleep either and when we pulled up and parked in my parking space in the alley in back of my place on Marlborough Street, Susan had to say, 'We're here.'
I fumbled the keys out and we went in the front door and up to the second floor and I unlocked the door to my apartment and we went in. I stopped in the living room and took off my jacket. Susan went into the bedroom. I dropped my jacket on the couch and followed her. She had turned the bed back. I took my gun off of my hip and put it on the bureau. Then I undressed and got into bed.
'Aren't you going to read me a story,' I said.
'Not tonight,' Susan said. 'You need to sleep. But God knows what may happen in the morning.'
