'Chuckie,' he said. 'He's okay. Didn't hit the bone.'
'Who recruited them?' I said.
'Esteva. Chuckie and his brother both done a little time. Used to do low-level stuff like that for Esteva.'
'I'm low-level stuff?'
'We thought so,' Conway said.
'Anything else you can tell us,' I said.
'No, I'm outa here,' he said. 'I should be gone now.'
'Thank you,' Susan said.
'Yeah,' I said. Hawk nodded. For Hawk that was bathetic gratitude.
'Samuelson,' Conway said. 'I'll remember.'
'Luck,' I said.
'You too,' Conway said, and turned and walked away.
'What do we do,' Susan said.
'I think maybe we get you back home,' Hawk said.
'No,' she said. 'I came out here to help and I will.'
I nodded. Hawk grinned. 'Spenser ain't the only one stubborn,' he said.
'But it doesn't mean I wish to sit here and be arrested,' Susan said.
'No,' I said. 'Let's repair to the Jaguar and cruise around and think.'
'Two things at the same time,' Hawk said. He put a twenty on the bar and we walked out.
Chapter 30
In the parking lot Hawk took a .12-gauge shotgun out of the trunk and a box of ammunition. He fed four shells into the magazine and handed me the gun and the extra ammo. I got in the backseat with the shotgun. Hawk and Susan got in front. Hawk drove.
'We can't leave Caroline,' Susan said. 'For whatever reason she seems to have fixed on Spenser as her salvation. Her husband and son have, in a manner of speaking, abandoned her. If Spenser does as well it might very well kill her.'
'We stay here,' Hawk said, 'we gonna have to shoot up a mess of Wheaton cops.'
'I know,' Susan said.
'There ain't but maybe fifty of them,' Hawk said.
'But then all the other cops in the world will be on our case,' I said.
'We may run out of ammunition,' Hawk said.
'She's suicidal?' I said.
'Yes,' Susan said. 'She's suicidal and she's got this fixed notion that somehow if you stick by her she may not have to die.'
Hawk shook his head. We were cruising away from Wheaton out toward the reservoir. He said, 'A fine mess you got us into this time, Ollie.'
Susan was half turned in the front seat so she could talk to both Hawk and me. Her arm rested along the back of the seat. I had the shotgun leaning against my left thigh, the butt on the floor. Susan turned her head fully toward me.
'She feels guilty about her husband,' Susan said. She wasn't quite looking at me. She wasn't quite looking at anything. She had her head tilted slightly downward the way she did when she was thinking. I waited. The headlights on the jag made an empty tunnel into the darkness ahead of us.
'Could she have killed him?' I said.
'Yes, she could have. I don't think so, but it's possible.'
Snow was spitting again, just hard enough for Hawk to turn on the wipers. He set them at INTERVAL and their periodic pass across the windshield seemed arrhythmic in its spacing.
'But she's feeling guilty about his death?' I said.
'About her husband,' Susan said. 'Whether about his death, I don't know.'
The wipers made one sweep and the empty tunnel ahead was a little clearer. There was more snow spit. The windshield beaded slowly, some of the flakes melted and formed little lines of trickle. Then the wiper blades made another pass and the emptiness was clear again.
'Maybe this isn't about cocaine,' I said.
'Maybe some of it is,' Hawk said.
'Yeah. But maybe all of it isn't,' I said.
'You thinking hearts full of passion, jealousy, and hate?' Hawk said.
'Maybe,' I said.
