'How did it go in New York?' Susan said.
'Stapleton's parents lied to me,' I said.
'Was it a lie that helps you?'
'Not yet. Except that I know that they're lying.'
'Find out anything else?'
'They are white,' I said. 'The kid's adopted. His father said if they were going to adopt anyway they may as well save a little black baby from a life of depravity.'
'Oh, dear,' Susan said.
'Yeah,' I said, 'me too.'
'Anything else?'
'The Gray Man made a run at me,' I said.
Susan nodded.
'Tell me about it,' she said.
It seemed a shame that she had to know. It was bound to make her anxious. It certainly made me anxious. But a long time ago we'd agreed that neither of us would decide what the other one should know. I told her about it.
She was silent for a moment looking at me, breathing quietly, then she said, 'He would not have expected you to charge him like that.'
'I don't think he expected to miss,' I said.
'But he did, and you charged him, and now he knows a little more about you than he did.'
'And vice versa,' I said.
'What do you know about him,' she said.
'He's not caught up in macho games,' I said. 'He took a shot at me and it didn't work out so he walked away from it. There'll be another time, he'll look for it. He's not interested in who's tougher. He's interested in who's dead.'
'What if you hadn't seen the reflection off the scope?' Susan said. 'Or thought it was just a birdwatcher?'
'Well, I know somebody's out to kill me. I see a flash and dive for cover and it turns out to be some guy looking at a red-shafted flicker, the worst that happens is I'm embarrassed. If it's a guy with a gun and I don't dive for cover, I'm dead.'
'Can you go through life diving for cover every time you see a light reflection?'
'Depends on how long it takes to get this guy.'
Susan nodded slowly as I spoke. She picked up her glass and drank some Merlot, and put the glass back down slowly. Then she smiled slowly, although there didn't seem much pleasure in the smile.
'You are a piece of work,' she said.
'Comely in every aspect,' I said.
'The Gray Man thinks he's chasing you'-she shook her head once, briefly-'and you think you're chasing him.'
'I am chasing him,' I said. 'What I don't want is for him to know it.'
Susan drank again. For her this was close to guzzling.
'Perhaps you should be the one they're guarding 'round the clock,' she said.
I shook my head.
'No. He's using the implied threat against you to distract me. As long as I've got you covered, that won't work for him. I take it away from you and I will worry about you all the time, and he'll have won that round.'
'Are you sure it's not a macho thing with you?'
'No. But until he's disposed of, I can't do what I do and we can't live the life we want to lead.'
'Yes.'
'I'm sorry that what I do has spilled out all over you like this.'
'I have always known what you do,' she said. 'I'm a consenting adult.'
'I could walk away from it,' I said. 'I drop the Ellis Alves thing and all this goes away.'
She shook her head at once.
'No,' she said. 'You can't walk away from it. You are exactly suited by talent, by temperament, hell, by size, to do this odd thing that you do. You can't do something else.'
'I can sing nearly all the love songs of the swing era,' I said.
'Only to me,' Susan said.
'You're the only one I want to sing them to.'
