'Yes,' Cord said. 'I'll see you there.'
He left us while Pud finished his coffee, and walked out of the coffee shop, neat and trim and walking erectly, struggling in parlous times to keep his dignity.
'He's not a bad little guy,' Pud said. 'They were pretty rough with him when they threw us out. He's scared, and he's lonely, and he doesn't know what to do. He's trying to be brave. I feel like his father.'
'It could get a little quick out at the old homestead,' I said. 'If they don't want us to come in.'
'Ah hell,' Pud said. 'I'm with you, tough guy.'
As I had when I'd first come there and met Penny, I parked on the street, and we walked up the long curving drive with sprinkler mist on either side of us. It was hotter this time and the air was perfectly still, the stillness made deeper by the faint sound of the sprinkler system and the occasional odd sound that might have been grasshoppers calling for their mates. The sky was high and entirely blue, and at the far corner of the house I saw Dutch loafing along toward the backyard.
I felt like I had just wandered into a Johnny Mercer lyric. Beside me Pud was quiet. He looked tight around the eyes and mouth.
On the veranda, with his uniform shirt unbuttoned and his gun belt adjusted for comfort, a Security South guard was sitting in a rocking chair, tipped back, with one foot pushing against a pillar, rocking in brief intervals. While the boss was up in Saratoga, the subordinates apparently let down a little. He looked up when I came onto the veranda. He frowned. Maybe he had been thinking of things that he liked to think about, and I had interrupted him.
'How you doin'?' he said.
He was lean and hard-looking, his hair trimmed short. He looked like he might have been an FBI agent once. I doubted it. I suspected he'd been hired because he looked like he might have been an FBI agent once.
'The ladies of the house at home?' I said.
He let the rocker come forward and let the momentum bring him to his feet.
'Sorry, sir.' He was a little slow with the 'sir.' 'They aren't receiving visitors.'
I walked toward the front door. Pud was about a half-step behind me.
'The ladies don't live,' I said, 'that wouldn't receive a couple of studs like us.'
The guard had a microphone clipped to his epaulet, with a cord that ran to the radio on his belt. He pressed the talk button on the radio and spoke into the mike.
'Front porch, we got some trouble.'
The guard had his hand on his gun as he stood in front of me.
'Nobody goes in,' he said.
'First you get sloppy with the 'sir,' then you don't say it at all,' I said, and hit him hard up under the sternum with my left hand. He gasped a little and fumbled the gun from his holster. I got hold of his wrist with my left hand and came around with a right hook and he went down, except for his right arm, which I had hold of. I half turned and twisted the gun out of his hand and let it fall with the rest of him. I stuck his gun in my jacket pocket, stepped over him, and tried the front door. It was locked. I backed away from it and kicked it hard at the level of the handle. The door rattled but held.
'Lemme,' Pud said, and ran at the door, hitting it with his right shoulder. The door gave and Pud stumbled into the hall with me behind him. It took us both a minute to adjust to the interior dimness. All the curtains seemed to have been drawn. Outside I could hear footsteps running, and then someone said, 'Jesus.' Then I heard him on the radio.
'This is Brill,' he said. 'Shoney's down, and there's someone in the house.'
Pud was moving through the house. 'SueSue,' he yelled.
I took out my gun and stepped out of the front door and onto the veranda. The second guard, whose name must have been Brill, was there with his gun out, bending over Shoney, who was lying on his side only moving a little. Brill looked up and saw my gun and our eyes met. His gun was hanging at his side. Mine was level with his forehead. I didn't say anything. Brill didn't say anything; then slowly, quite carefully, he put his gun on the ground and stood up and stepped away from it. I walked over and picked it up and put it in my other coat pocket.
'Hands on the pillar,' I said, 'then back away and spread your legs.'
He did as I told him and I patted him down. I had his only gun. I went over and patted Shoney, who was in some sort of twilight state. He had no other weapon either.
'Okay, sit there,' I said to Brill, 'and wait for reinforcements. If a head appears in that door, I will shoot it.'
Then I turned and went back inside. The house was entirely still, as humming with quiet as the dead summer day outside. I looked around, remembering the layout from my last time. It was still dark with all the shades drawn. Then I heard Pud at the top of the stairs.
'Spenser,' he said, and his voice was oddly quiet. 'Get up here.'
I went up the stairs fast. We didn't have much time before the arrival of more Security South guards than I could punch. The upper floor was as dark and still and cool as the first floor. The only sound was Pud's breathing and the subliminal rush of the air-conditioning. Pud was standing stiffly at the head of the stairs. Down the dark corridor, in the far end, were two dim figures huddled together, ghostly in white clothes. I found a light switch on the wall and flipped it. Squinting in the sudden brightness, the two white figures at the end of the hall seemed to shrink in upon each other in the light.
'My God,' Pud said. 'SueSue.'
It was SueSue, and with her was Stonie. They were both wearing white pajamas, and they had backed tight into the corner at the far end of the hallway. Their hair was cut short. They wore no makeup. The distinguishing golden tan of the Clive girls had faded and they looked nearly as pale as their pajamas.
