'You gonna wire-transfer it to an account I'll give you. When the transfer is done and the money in the account, you free as a buzzard.'
'I don't know how to do that,' Boots said. 'My accountant does that.'
'Where you accountant?' Hawk said.
'State Street.'
'In town here?' Hawk said.
'Yes.'
'Well, then he probably still alive.'
Without taking the gun from Boots's head, Hawk leaned forward and took the cordless phone from my desk and handed it to Boots.
'I don't know what to tell him,' Boots said.
'Give him the paper from Rita,' Hawk said.
I did.
'Routing number, account number, all that stuff,' I said.
Boots was afraid to move his head with the cocked gun at his temple. He raised the paper so he could see it. Then he took in some air and dialed the number.
53
'IT IS ALL over the news,' Susan said. 'Says the whole town of Marshport erupted. Police came from as far away as Worcester. Governor put the National Guard on alert. Something like ten people killed; the number keeps going up and down. A fire at City Hall. The mayor is missing. The city is being run by the deputy mayor, somebody named McKean.'
'The Kodiak Kid,' I said.
'Who?'
I shook my head.
'I assume you know something about this,' Susan said.
'Yes.'
'I won't ask for details, but I need to know something.'
'I'll tell you anything you want to know,' I said.
'How many dead?'
'Since the beginning?'
'Yes. Since they shot Hawk.'
'Counting Luther and his family, and the people did the shooting, and the Marshport numbers, maybe twenty.'
'How many are you responsible for?'
'Depends,' I said. 'I helped Hawk set this up.'
'Helped him, or watched his back while he did it?' Susan said.
I shrugged.
'Mostly the latter,' I said.
'How many people did you shoot?' Susan said.
'None,' I said.
'Good,' she said.
It was evening. We were sitting on her front steps with Pearl, watching the action on Linnaean Street, at which Pearl was poised to bark, if there was any, which there wasn't.
'Responsibility is complicated,' I said.
'Not if you shot them,' Susan said. 'Then it would be simple.'
'So maybe sometimes complicated is better,' I said.
'I think so,' she said. 'How do you feel?'
'Uneasy about it all,' I said.
'But?'
'But I did the best I could with it.'
'Yes,' Susan said, 'you did.'
A squirrel leaped with no apparent anxiety from a high branch to a low one. Pearl's large ears pricked forward, and her shoulders tensed. The squirrel jumped from the tree to a fence, and ran along the top of it. Pearl watched closely until it disappeared and, ever hopeful, for a time afterward.
