Woody nodded.
'Good. Don't say another word.'
I let him go and headed back to the hotel where I could wash my hands.
Chapter 23
Susan was standing in front of the full-length mirror in the hotel room wearing black-and-white striped silk underwear. She had a short black skirt with a long black jacket held up in front of her, and was standing on her toes to simulate high heels as she smoothed the skirt down over her thighs.
'L'Orangerie is dressy,' she said.
'Yes.'
She turned a little, watching how the jacket fell over the skirt, and then went back to the closet and got a pale gray pants suit and took it to the mirror.
'When we get to the restaurant,' I said, 'won't it be hard to eat holding your clothes in front of you like that?'
Susan's powers of concentration could set driftwood on fire. She ignored me, and in fact, may not even have heard me.
I got out my address book and thumbed through it and found a number in Los Angeles that I hadn't used in four years. I dialed it.
A voice said, 'Hello?' I said,
'Bobby Horse?'
'Who's calling?'
'Your hero, Spenser, from Boston.'
Bobby Horse said, 'What the fuck do you want?'
'The usual adulation,' I said.
'And?'
'And to talk to Mr. del Rio.'
'Hold on,' Bobby Horse said. In a moment del Rio came on the line.
'Spenser?' he said. He always said my name as if it amused him.
'I need a favor,' I said.
'I'll bet you do,' del Rio said. 'Why should I do you a favor?'
'We were okay on the Jill Joyce thing five years ago.'
'Si.'
Del Rio did a movie Mexican accent when it pleased him to, though he spoke English without any accent at all. Hawk did some of the same thing. Amos and Andy one minute, Alistair Cooke the next.
'I'm looking for a guy's wife. Anglo woman. She might have disappeared into an Hispanic ghetto in a city north of Boston called Proctor. She might be with a bad guy.'
'Si.'
'I need somebody speaks Spanish, doesn't mind bad guys.'
'And I'm supposed to yell `Ceesco, le's ride'?'
'Not you,' I said. 'I want to borrow Chollo.'
'Ahhhh! '
We were both quiet for a moment.
'Why should Chollo do that?'
'Because you'll tell him to.'
'Even I don't tell Chollo to do things, Senor.'
Again del Rio paused.
'But I can ask him.'
'Do that,' I said.
There was silence on the line for a while. Del Rio came back on the line.
'Chollo says he's never been to Boston and would like to see it.'
'Like that?' I said.
'Si. Have you seen Jill Joyce?'
'No,' I said. 'How is your daughter?'
'Amanda is at the Sorbonne,' del Rio said. 'She speaks fluent French.'
