'I don't know why.'
'If we're right,' I said, 'Marty's trying to run the whole mob scene in Boston. You don't have to know why we think so, just remember the part about how he has to kill you too.'
'That's not news,' Bibi said.
'He'd have killed me anyway, one way or another. In some ways he already has.'
I nodded.
'I don't know if I can ever love anybody again. I don't know if I can ever be with a man again.'
'That can be fixed,' I said.
'First though we got to fix this.'
'I'm going to get my money back before Anthony loses it,' Bibi said.
'It's mine, and, in God's truth, I got nothing else to care about.'
'Care about yourself,' I said.
'Getting my money back is the best I can do,' Bibi said.
'How you going to get the money?' Hawk said.
'If there's any left.'
'Whatever he has left, I want,' Bibi said.
'However I can get it.
He took everything I ever had.'
'Like your style,' Hawk said as if he were thinking out loud.
'Want some help?' I said.
'I don't want any help from any men,' she said.
'Even you. I know you're a good man. Both of you are good men. But I have to stay clear of men for a while.'
'Help is help,' I said.
'Regardless of the source.'
'I never met a man that cared about me. I know you do, but I can't react to it, you know? Not now anyway. And even you are trying to use me to nab Anthony.'
'I want to make sense out of Shirley Ventura's murder and I want to see to it that you don't get hurt,' I said.
'When you went to Portland, how'd you get there?'
'Train.'
'How'd you pay for the ticket.'
'I had mon…' She paused as she remembered.
'Okay, you gave me money and I ran away on you. I know. But you need to understand. I've been exploited all my life by men. I'm not able to trust you. I have to do what I can do by myself. I got a right.'
'Affirmative action,' Hawk murmured.
'I never been on my own before. I married Marty when I was seventeen to get out of the house. Didn't work out. Fifteen years later I took up with Anthony to get away from Marty. That didn't work out, either. I been looking for men to take care of me all my life, and I don't want to do it anymore.'
'Why were you in such a hurry to get out of the house?'
'My old man was an asshole.'
'And so were his replacements,' I said.
Bibi stared at me for a moment.
'Well, that's over,' she said finally.
'No more assholes.'
'So much for us,' Hawk murmured.
'Must be kind of scary,' I said.
'On your own all at once.'
'Yeah, it is, but no scarier than my life has been. I know you want to help me, and as much as I can, I appreciate it. I'm grateful. I am. But damnit I can't depend on a man, even you.'
'It's a good thing to change,' I said.
'But it's kind of hard to do alone. And it's kind of hard to do all at once.'
'This is the first step. Don't you get it? I can't turn to you. I want to. For God's sake I'm scared to death Marty will find me. But I simply cannot.'
