She was genuinely interested, but there was that sound in her voice that doctors get which says, in effect, “If I haven’t heard of it, it’s probably wrong.”
“No one is willing to incur the vast outrage that would ensue,” Susan said.
“It’s your experience,” Hawk said.
“One ought not to have such an experience,” Susan said. “And if one were stupid enough to have it, one should surely not talk about it.”
“Shrinks, too,” I said.
“Hard to believe,” Hawk said.
“We’ve all known people who were married,” Susan said, “and left the marriage for a same-sex lover. Why is it so impossible to imagine it happening the other way?”
“But who would be gay, if they could choose?” Estelle said.
“That is, of course, the existing prejudice,” Susan said. “But it also implies that those who led straight lives could have chosen not to before they did.”
Estelle didn’t look too pleased about existing prejudice, but she didn’t remark on it.
“I guess, as I think of it, that if a gay person entered into a straight relationship I’d assume it was only a cover-up.”
“As if gay is permanent but straight is tenuous,” Susan said.
“I hadn’t thought of it quite that way before,” Estelle said.
Susan nodded. “It’s a hard question,” she said.
“Kid making any progress?” Hawk said.
Susan smiled without pleasure.
“Yes. But it wasn’t the direction he’d come to me looking for.”
“He was discovering that maybe he wasn’t going to change?” I said.
“Yes.”
“You did what you could,” Estelle said.
“I wonder if he’d have been better off without my help,” Susan said.
“The rescue business is chancy,” I said.
Susan smiled at me slowly, and patted my forearm.
“It is, isn’t it,” she said.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Hawk was standing at the window of my office looking down at the green Chevy idling in front of Houghton Mifflin.
“Ain’t it about time you and me pulled the plug on the followers?” Hawk said.
“Nope.”
“How ‘bout we go out to the Soldiers Field Development Corporation and shake up their boss?”
“Whom you believe to be Felton Shawcross,” I said.
“Whom else?” Hawk said.
“CEO doesn’t always know what his employees are doing,” I said.
“True,” Hawk said. “You and me for instance.”
“My point exactly,” I said.
“We could yank one of the followers out of his car and hit him until he tell us why he’s following you.”
“He may not know,” I said.
“‘Cause he a employee,” Hawk said.
“Yes.”
“We could ask whom employs him.”
“We can always do that. Just like we can always call on Felton Shawcross,” I said. “Right now I figure if they wanted to make a run at me they would have by now.”
“Probably.”
“So they’re just trying to keep tabs on me.”
“Probably why they following you around,” Hawk said.
“Because they want to know if I’m getting closer.”
“Which they’ll decide based on who you see.”
