I'd like the full treatment if you're not too tired.'
'Certainly,' I said. 'It's a compelling story, which I tell elegantly.'
Hawk stood up from his chair. He seemed to do this without effort. In fact without movement. One moment he was sitting and then he was standing.
'I've already heard the story,' Hawk said. 'I think I'll go walk Pearl.
Gun's in the drawer. Round in the chamber.'
I opened the night-table drawer as he left and saw my gun. Hawk had reloaded it. I left the drawer open.
Susan looked at the gun and at me and didn't say anything.
'We found Patty,' I said. 'And Rich. And Gerry Broz found us.'
'How?'
'Patty told somebody,' I said.
'God, she must feel awful.'
'Maybe,' I said. 'I think she's so needy, and so desperate, that she can't feel anything but the need.'
Susan nodded. 'So what happened?'
I told her. She listened quietly. I always loved it when I had a story to tell her, because her attention was complete and felt like sunlight. Hawk came back just before the end.
'Pearl actually killed and ate a groundhog?' Susan said.
'Showed that soup bone no mercy, either,' Hawk said.
'Let's not spread this around Cambridge,' I said. 'The Vegetarian
Sisterhood will picket her.'
'And you let Gerry Broz go?' Susan said.
'Had to. I didn't know how long I was going to stay on my feet. If I passed out while he was there, he'd have shot me with my own gun.'
'Could have shot him,' Hawk said.
I shrugged.
'Could you do that?' Susan said. 'Just shoot him like that?'
I shrugged again.
'Gerry could,' Hawk said. 'Spenser keels over, Gerry shoots him while he's laying there.'
'Will he…' Susan stopped. 'I don't know how to say it. Will he be less dangerous to you because you let him go?'
'Pretty to think so,' Hawk said.
Susan looked at me. I shook my head.
'Hawk's right,' I said. 'Gerry will have to come for me. He can't stand to have been-the way he would think of it-humiliated in front of his people.
'Maybe then you should have shot him,' Susan said.
'As a practical matter,' I said.
'Yes,' Susan said.
'I love you when you're bloodthirsty,' I said.
'Don't patronize me,' Susan said. 'You know I'm not bloodthirsty, but I love you. I can be very practical about you if I must be, very bloodthirsty if you prefer.'
'I know,' I said. 'I take back bloodthirsty. But…' I spread my hands.
'Before all this happened I talked to Joe.'
'Joe Broz?'
'Yeah. Gerry's father. He's worried about the kid. It's his only kid and he's no good and Joe knows it.'
'He ought to know it,' Susan said. 'What chance did his son have being the child of a mobster?'
'Joe doesn't mind that he's a mobster too,' I said. 'Joe likes that. What kills Joe is that he's such a crapola mobster.'
'He feel sorry for Joe,' Hawk said.
We were all silent.
Finally Susan said, 'Would you have killed him, Hawk?'
'Absolutely,' Hawk said.
'He's dangerous still?'
'He gonna come for us,' Hawk said.
