'And if you didn't play the game, she wouldn't,' she said.
He couldn't speak. He nodded. They sat quietly together while he struggled with his breathing and his tears.
'Weakness,' she said, 'can be powerful, can't it?'
He nodded again.
'And frightening.'
'Yes,' he said. His voice sounded strangled. He wanted to tell her the other thing. The thing he never told. He opened his mouth. He could feel the thing close on him. He couldn't. He never had. He couldn't.
In seven days Quirk and Belson and I had gotten up a list of seven suspects. Everyone else was too female, or too old, the wrong color, or the wrong size.
We sat in my office on a lovely bright Saturday morning and drank coffee while Quirk listed the seven possibilities on the blackboard.
'Okay,' Quirk said, 'here's what we got.' His excommunication hadn't made a dent in his lieutenant-ness. 'In order we spotted them: The first guy Belson tailed is named Gordon Felton, lives in Charlestown, near Thompson Square. Works as a security guard for an outfit in Boston called Bullet Security Systems, Inc.'
Belson grinned. 'Probably got crossed Uzis on their calling cards,' he said.
'Makes him sort of a cop,' I said.
'Sort of,' Quirk said. 'Your man is Phil Iselin, instructor in Eastern studies at Harvard, lives where you found him on Putnam Street. Third one is Mark Charles, intern at Boston City Hospital, lives in the South End, West Newton Street. Number four is Lewis Larson, he's a cop, works out of station fifteen in a cruiser. Number five is a guy runs a gourmet food store in Wellesley, Edward Eisner lives next to the store.
Number six is Ted Sparks, teaches math at MIT, lives in Boston on Lime Street. Number seven is a French national named Emil Gagne, who's a graduate student in politics at the Kennedy School and lives in a condo on Mount Auburn Street.'
Quirk paused and looked at us. We looked back. So far Quirk was just getting his ducks in a row. There wasn't much cause for excitement. 'So one of these seven is probably the guy you chased,' Quirk said.
'Been a hell of a lot easier if you'd caught him,' Belson said, 'or at least got a good look.'
'Maybe we should line them up and have them race me,' I said. 'The ones I beat aren't it.'
'Nothing from Susan?' Quirk said.
'Nope. Hawk's been there all day every day with the upstairs door open.
There's been no trouble and Susan isn't reporting anything special.'
'Hawk enjoying himself?' Belson said.
'Like the birdman of Alcatraz,' I said.
Belson smiled. 'It's the closest Hawk's ever come to jail,' he said.
'Keeps him off the street,' Quirk said.
'Now that I've narrowed it for you to seven, do you suppose you could find out which one is Red Rose?' I said. 'While you're on sabbatical?'
'Are we not trained investigators?' Quirk said.
'Without getting us sued by the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute?' I said.
'Maybe we get fired,' Quirk said. 'We'll open our own firm. Quirk and Belson, Private Inquiries.'
'Always a lieutenant,' Belson said.
'Alphabetically it should be Belson and Quirk.'
'We find anything, we'll be in touch,' Quirk said to me.
'Check the security guard and the cop first,' I said.
'Yeah,' Quirk said.
'Everyone else is what you'd expect to find, even the cop, because of you steering them,' I said. 'But how many security guards are getting psychotherapy from a Cambridge shrink, do you think?'
'There must be some,' Belson said.
'Yeah, but everyone else but the cop fits the pattern, and we can sort of explain the cop job stress, Susan's reputation, word of mouth among the fuzz. The security guard is the atypical one. You got to start someplace.' Quirk nodded. 'I'll let you know what we find,' he said.
I had the answering machine on in my office while I baby sat Susan and waited for Quirk and Belson to come up with something. In one of the oddest pairings since Mutt and Jeff, Hawk was helping them, and I was alone with my books and my radio and my Colt Python up in Susan's living room with the door ajar.
I felt isolated and bored and useless and frustrated. My desire for the guy who'd left the rose and outrun me was tangible, like lust, and it tingled along my neck and shoulder muscles all the time I sat and waited and listened.
