'We'll keep somebody with you while you're here,' Quirk said. 'Hawk will be around a lot, and Vinnie Morris, and some of our people. I'm transferring Belson and Farrell to this detail.'
'The cops and the robbers,' I said.
'Changes places and handy dandy,' Quirk said.
'Well,' I said. 'You literate son of a bitch.'
'I heard you say it once. I got no idea what it means.'
'As long as the Gray Man thinks I'm dead, and he has no reason not to, Susan's safe. This is a guy doesn't waste time killing people for nothing.'
'That's what Hawk and I thought, but we also figured he might watch her for a while just to be sure. So when you woke up, we had the Cambridge cops pick her up and take her in as if for questioning. Then we smuggled her over here.'
'And no one followed her?' I said.
'Hawk brought her,' Quirk said.
'I withdraw the question,' I said.
I might have said something else, but I'm not sure, and then I was back in dreamland listening to the music of the spheres.
Chapter 36
I LEFT IN a wheelchair. Hospital rules required it anyway, but even if they hadn't, I still had very little use of my left leg. Susan and Hawk and Dr. Marinaro and I went down in a freight elevator and into a basement garage with Dr. Marinaro pushing the wheelchair.
'Morgue's over there,' Marinaro said, nodding toward a pair of double doors. He grinned. 'Our mistakes go out this way,' he said.
'How cheery,' I said.
Quirk and Belson were leaning on the front fender of a black Ford Explorer near the overhead doors. Pearl the Wonder Dog was in the backseat, looking out the window. The rest of the garage was empty. We wheeled over to them. Belson opened the front door of the Explorer.
'I can stand,' I said, 'and walk a little. I'll need a little help getting in.'
Hawk came around and picked me up and put me in the front seat. Pearl began to lap the back of my neck. There was luggage in the storage space in back.
'I didn't need that much help,' I said.
'He ain't heavy,' Hawk said. 'He's my brother.'
'And he's lost thirty pounds,' Susan said.
'Can you shoot left handed?' he said.
'Some.'
He handed me a short-barreled Colt Detective Special and I stuck it into my left-hand jacket pocket.
'Guy will have to be pretty close for me to hit him left handed with this,' I said.
'He'll be close,' Hawk said, ''cause he'll have gotten by me.'
'Unlikely,' I said.
'Very,' Hawk said.
'Where'd you get the car,' I said to Susan.
'Hawk arranged it,' she said.
I looked at Hawk. He smiled.
'Oh, never mind,' I said.
Marinaro said, 'You've got my number. Call me if you need to.'
I said, 'Thank you.'
He gave a small thumbs-up gesture, like the RAF pilots used to do when they were climbing into their Spitfires. Susan went around and got in the driver's side. Hawk got in back with Pearl. Belson closed the front door and stepped away. Susan started the car. Marinaro pressed a button and the garage door went up. It was dark outside. Quirk and Belson went outside and stood at each side of the doorway looking into the darkness. Quirk waved us forward and Susan drove the Explorer out of the garage. Quirk and Belson went back inside. The garage door closed. Susan drove down an alley and turned out onto a side street and then onto Cambridge Street heading toward Storrow Drive with the river on our right, looking as hostile as I remembered. I patted Pearl over my shoulder with my left hand. There was ice on the river now, and the Esplanade was snowy. Across the river the lights around Kendall Square looked cheerful.
'Where we going,' I said.
'Santa Barbara,' Susan said.
'California?'
'Yes.'
'We're driving.'
