She shook her head.
'Yes,' I said. 'You are the yenta in this thing. You knew Dwayne was a good prospect. He couldn't read. He needed money. He trusted you.'
'I can read stuff,' Dwayne said.
'You knew Bobby had money from knocking over that OTB parlor. You knew he was looking to do something with it, put it somewhere would give him a nice return, account for his affluence.'
'I had nothing to do with that holdup,' Madelaine said.
'But you knew it took place,' I said.
'I . . .' She looked around the room and her eyes rested on Susan. 'Can't you make him leave me alone?' she said.
'I can't make him do anything,' Susan said. 'It would be easiest if you told him.'
'Genie's out of the bottle now, Mad,' I said. 'No corking it up. Sooner or later it's all going to get said.'
She shook her head.
'You in this with Bobby, ain't you, Dr. Roth?' Dwayne said.
She kept shaking her head.
'Get out,' she said. 'Get out of my house.'
I looked at Dwayne.
'You ready to tell me about it?'
He looked at Chantel and then at Madelaine. His eyes moved to Hawk and to Susan.
'I got to think,' he said.
I started to speak. Out of Dwayne's view Susan shook her head. I stopped and then started again.
'Okay, Dwayne,' I said.
Dwayne looked around the room again. Then he put his hand out and Chantel took it, and they left, walking past a motionless Hawk at the door.
Hawk looked at me. I nodded and he trailed behind them. If Deegan had been a danger before, he'd be a lot worse now.
'Are you going to leave?' Madelaine said. Her voice came out in a breathy rush. 'Are you going to get out?'
I looked at her for maybe seven seconds. 'Sure,' I said, and we left.
In the car I said to Susan, 'Time to let Dwayne rest a little?'
'Yes,' she said. 'He'll come around. But he's giving up a male authority figure and it's hard for him. He needs a little time to find a new one.'
'Be better if he didn't need one,' I said.
'He's what,' Susan said, 'twenty-one, twenty-two?'
'Okay,' I said.
'I watched him as all that went on,' Susan said. 'He looked at Deegan or you all the time we were there. One or the other of you. He was continuously aware of both of you and of the way either of you reacted to anything.'
We were headed down Commonwealth Ave., past the Marriott and the canoe rental landing toward 128 and the Mass. Pike interchange.
'Deegan made a mistake when he threatened Chantel,' I said.
'Yes,' Susan said, 'he did. And that's an encouraging sign. That his need for the young woman is strong enough to offset his need far the male authority figure.'
'Might be something a little more than need,' I said.
Susan turned her startling Technicolor smile on me.
'Love?'
'Maybe,' I said.
'If love is more than need,' Susan said, 'or obsession or other pathological manifestations.'
'You babes are such flighty romantics,' I said.
I was looping around the complicated cloverleaf at the junction of Routes 30, 128, and 90. 'Is it love that made you go this way?' Susan said. 'Because I think it's shorter?'
'No. This is stubbornness. I wish to prove to you that it's longer.'
I dropped thirty-five cents into the automatic toll hopper and headed in the turnpike extension toward Boston.
'Love is what makes me care whether you know which way is shorter,' I said.
She put her hand lightly on my thigh. I dropped my right hand on top of it and drove with my left.
