'I thought we was going to cooperate on this thing,' Vinnie said.
'I don't remember anything about not asking Gerry questions.'
'Kid's a loose cannon, Spenser. You know that. Look what almost happened.'
'That's why I badgered him,' I said. 'I know he's excitable, I thought something might pop out.'
'Two barrels full of size-four shot were about to pop out in your face,'
Vinnie said.
'If he got the shot off,' I said.
'Sure, sure,' Vinnie said. 'I know you're good.' He nodded toward Hawk.
'And I know he's good. But scattering fucking protoplasm around Rocco's isn't going to do anything for any of us.'
I shrugged. 'I probably wouldn't push him so hard if I had it to do over,' I said.
Vinnie nodded. 'You got to stay away from Gerry,' he said. 'Joe insists on it.'
'Can't promise anything, Vinnie. Except that I won't harass him for fun.'
'I insist too,' Vinnie said.
'I know.'
'This is about you too, Hawk,' Vinnie said.
'I sort of guessed that, Vinnie.'
'We still got some room here,' Vinnie said. 'But not very much. Joe's going to want to talk with you.
'Sure,' I said. 'How about Monday morning?'
'Come to the office about ten. Joe don't get in as early as he used to.'
'Fine,' I said and put the coffee cup down on the bar.
'I'll walk out with you,' Vinnie said. 'You never know about Gerry.'
CHAPTER 17
LENOX is two hours west from Boston on the Mass Pike. Paul and I rode out in the afternoon with Pearl leaning against the backseat, staring out the side window, alert as always for any sign of the elusive Burger King. It doesn't take long on the Mass Pike to get away from the city and into what Massachusetts probably looked like in Squanto's day. Subtract a few houses here and there that back up to the turnpike west of Framingham, cancel out an occasional Roy Rogers or food fuel stops, and the landscape is mostly low hills and woods, punctuated often enough by bodies of water that looked very brisk under the blue autumn sky. The hilliness allowed for some variety to the trip, allowing as it did for mild scenic vistas as the highway crested one low rise and you could see it curving gently up another hill a mile and a half ahead. It wasn't Arcadia, but it wasn't the New Jersey Turnpike either.
'She probably never should have had a kid,' Paul said to me near Grafton.
'Ever?' I said.
He shrugged. 'Who knows ever?' he said. 'But she wasn't ready for one when
I was born.'
'How old was she?'
'Twenty. She got pregnant when she was nineteen and she married my father to have me. She was going to enter her junior year in college.'
'But she didn't,' I said. 'Because she had to stay home with the baby.'
'Yeah. She went down to Furman, my father played football there.'
'I know,' I said.
'And they lived in-what did they call them then? The on-campus housing?'
'Probably still called them Vets Apartments then,' I said.
'Yes,' Paul said. 'That's right. When I was a little kid I used to think it meant vet as in veterinarian, and I couldn't figure out why they called it that.'
In the backseat Pearl made a loud sigh and turned around once and resettled at the opposite window. I put my hand back and she gave it a lick.
'I was always afraid she'd leave me,' Paul said. 'As long ago as I can remember, I was afraid she'd just run away and leave me and I'd have to go to the home for little wanderers.'
'Your father?' I said.
'He barely counts,' Paul said. 'It's like he wasn't there. My childhood memories are almost empty of him.'
'What are they full of?' I said.
There wasn't much travel midday, midweek, going west. I was doing seventy in the right-hand lane on the theory that cops always look for speeders in the passing lane. A trucker going eastbound flashed his headlights at me and I slowed as I crested the next hill. There was a two-tone blue state police cruiser parked sideways on the median strip with a radar gun. I cruised serenely past him at about fifty-seven.
