'The guy got shot.'
'Yeah. But Susan told me he'd gone to school on the GI Bill.
Which would mean he was a veteran.'
'Which would mean they'd have his prints in Washington.'
'Maybe Susan's wrong,' Hawk said.
'Maybe.'
'Maybe Sampson lied to her.'
'Maybe.'
Hawk grinned.
'Or maybe DeSpain lying to you.'
'Maybe,' I said.
'I figure I'll just keep still until I find out what the sides are up here.'
'Never got in no trouble keeping still,' Hawk said.
A nine-passenger van rolled by, its headlights on, its wipers working, splashing water from the gutter onto the sidewalk. In the van were nine Chinese men, waiters probably, going to work.
'Me either.'
Hawk was wearing something that looked like a black silk raincoat. The rain beaded up on it in translucent drops before it serpentined down the fabric. He wore no hat, and if he minded the rain on his skull, he didn't show it. On the other hand, except for amusement and not amusement, he never showed anything.
'What we going to do about the lovely Jocelyn?'
'You think she's being followed?'
'No.'
'I don't either,' I said.
'Why don't we believe her?'
'Instinct, babe. We been doing this kind of thing a long time.'
'What if we're wrong.'
'I'm not usually wrong.'
'That's because you're closer to the jungle than I am. But maybe we better be sure.'
Hawk shrugged.
'You want me to shadow her?'
'For a while.'
'I bet I be the only one,' Hawk said.
I shrugged.
'Besides,' Hawk said.
'They never had no jungles in Ireland.
Your ancestors just paint themselves blue and run around in the peat bogs.'
'Well, it was a damned nice blue,' I said.
CHAPTER 16
A cop I knew named Lee Farrell was working with me in Concord, and when we got the back stairwell down, and the rubble cleaned away, we noticed that the beams supporting the open perimeter of the now st airless well rested, at either end, on nothing at all. As far as we could tell, they were held up by the floor they were supposed to be supporting. This seemed to me an unsound architectural device, so Lee and I went down to Concord Lumber and bought a couple of ten-foot two-by-eights that were long enough to reach the cross members, and scabbed them onto the unsupported beams with ten-penny nails. Then I climbed down off the step ladder and we went out to have lunch with Susan on a picnic table she'd bought and had delivered, under one of the trees she'd pruned. It was October and bright blue, with a background of leaf color, and no wind. There were enough leaves underfoot to help with the autumnal feeling, but the weather was warm, and the sky was cloudless.
'Before you sit down,' Susan said, 'get me that blue tablecloth out of the car.'
I got the tablecloth and started to spread it on the picnic table, and Susan thought that I was not doing a good job and took it over.
She got the cloth situated on, and put a purple glass vase with wild flowers in it at one end of the table.
'Isn't that pretty?' Susan said.
'Lee found it in one of those closets you ripped out in the dining room.'
'Who picked the flowers?' I said.
'Lee,' Susan said.
