I picked up a spare rib and worked on it carefully for a time. I had never succeeded in keeping the sauce off my shirtfront in the years I'd been coming here. On the other hand, I had never spilled any on my gun.
'How's Frank?' Susan said.
I shrugged. 'He doesn't say much. But it's eating him up. He could barely talk when I saw him.'
'No word on Lisa?'
'No.'
'You think she left him?'
'He says she wouldn't go without telling him, but…'
'But people do things under stress that you'd never expect,' Susan said.
I nodded. I worked on my ribs for a bit. The room smelled of wood smoke. The beer was cold. There was a bottle of hot sauce on the table. Susan poured some on her tuna.
'Good God,' I said. 'Are you suicidal?'
She ate some.
'Hot,' she said.
'They use that stuff to force confessions,' I said.
'I like it.'
I ate some corn bread and drank some beer. The restaurant had been built in what was probably once a variety store. Outside the plate-glass windows in front, the early spring evening was settling over Inman Square. Car lights were just beginning to impact on the darkening ether around them.
'I've seen Frank walk into a dark building where people were shooting. And you'd have thought he was going in to buy a Table Talk Junior Pie.'
'How'd it hit you when I left?'
'Hard to remember. It was awhile, you know?'
'Un huh. What was I wearing when you first met me?'
'Black silk blouse with big sleeves, white slacks. Blouse open at the neck. Silver chain around the neck. Silver bracelet. Small, coiled silver earrings. I think you had a hint of blue eye shadow. And your hair was in sort of a page boy.'
'Un huh.'
We were quiet for a moment. I broke off another piece of corn bread and ate it.
'Okay, Miss Shrink. I remember every detail of when we met, and not much of anything about when we split.'
'Un huh.'
'Surely this is fraught with meaning. And if you say `un huh' one more time I won't let you watch when I shower.'
'Heavens,' Susan said.
'So what are you getting at?'
'Men like Frank Belson, like Quirk, like you, are what they are in part because they are contained. They can control their feelings, they can control themselves, because they let nothing in. They don't talk a great deal. They don't show a great deal.'
'Except to the woman,' I said.
'Have you ever noticed,' Susan said, 'how little affection you have for small talk in general, and how freely you talk with me?'
'At times it approaches prattle,' I said.
'I think it is superior to prattle. But aside from me, to whom are you closest?'
'Paul Giacomin and Hawk.'
'There's a parley. Do you and Paul prattle?'
'No.'
'Do you prattle with Hawk?'
'Christ no,' I said.
'Or Belson, or Quirk, or Henry Cimoli, or your friend the gunfighter?'
'Vinnie Morris?'
'Yes, Vinnie. Do they prattle?'
'Probably to the woman,' I said. 'Except Hawk. I don't think Hawk ever prattles.'
'About Hawk, I remain agnostic,' Susan said. 'Being male is a complicated thing. Being a black male is infinitely more complicated.'
The blonde waitress came by and gave me another bottle of Rolling Rock without being asked. I knew she was taken, and so was I. But adoption might still be possible.
