'So what do you want from me?'
'I want you to look out for them, Cord and Pud too, while I figure out what's going on.'
'And how long do you expect that to take?' Sapp said.
'Given my track record,' I said, 'about twenty more years.'
'Becker will work with you,' Sapp said. 'If you get him something he can take to court.'
'That's my plan,' I said.
'Glad to hear you got one. What are you going to do about Delroy?'
'I'm hoping to bust his chops,' I said.
'You figure he's the one?' Sapp said.
'He's at least one of the ones,' I said.
'Delroy's a jerk,' Sapp said. 'But he's a mean dangerous jerk.'
'The perfect combination,' I said.
Sapp reached under the table and came out with a Colt.45 semiautomatic pistol, and put it on the table.
'On the other hand,' Sapp said, 'you and me ain't a couple of йclairs either.'
'A valid point,' I said. 'Can you sit on things here while I go up to Saratoga?'
'Saratoga?'
'Yep. I want to see Penny.'
'So, I'll bunk all the Clive castoffs here,' Sapp said.
'And feed and clothe them, and watch out for them, supply bath towels, and clean sheets, and shoot it out with Security South as needed. And you'll go up to Saratoga.'
'Yeah.'
'That's your plan?'
'You got a better one?'
'I don't need a better one,' Sapp said. 'I can just walk away from it.'
'You going to?'
'No.'
'Then what are we talking about?' I said.
'It was a grand day for me,' Sapp said, 'when you wandered in here.'
'Shows I'm not homophobic.'
'Too bad,' Sapp said. 'Can any of these people shoot?'
'You got a shotgun?' I said.
'Sure.'
'Almost anyone can use a shotgun,' I said.
'If they will.'
'Ay, there's the rub.'
FORTY-NINE
THE BAD NEWS about Saratoga was that it's about a thousand miles from Atlanta and I was driving. The good news about Saratoga was that it isn't so far from Massachusetts, and with a fifty-mile detour I could stop in Boston and pick up Susan. Practicing psychotherapy in Cambridge is a license to steal, and Susan, after a good year, had bought herself a little silver Mercedes sport coupe with red and black leather interior and a hard top that went up and down at the push of a button.
'We'll take it to Saratoga,' she said.
'That car fits me like the gloves fit O. J.,' I said.
'I'll drive,' she said.
'I'm not sure I want to get there that fast.'
'It'll be fun. I can buy a big hat.'
'That's mostly why we're going,' I said. 'What about Pearl?'
'I already called Lee Farrell,' she said. 'He'll come and stay with her.'
Which is how we got to be zipping along the Mass Pike, well above the speed limit, toward New York State, with the top down and Susan's big hat stashed safely in the small trunk space that was left after the top folded into it. Periodically we changed lanes for no reason that I could see.
'Tell me everything about the case,' she said. 'Since San Francisco and the dreadful Sherry Lark.'
