“I don’t believe in much,” Hawk said.
“And I do?” I said.
“You a bear for symbols and shit,” Hawk said. “You think about what stuff means.”
“And getting married means something.”
“It do,” Hawk said.
I walked past him out into the hall again and looked up the stairs at Chollo, and then out the front-door window at Vinnie. I turned and looked at Hawk and nodded my head slowly.
“Yeah,” I said. “It do.”
Then I went back in the spare room and stood near the door and waited.
42.
A fter approximately eighteen months, 11:40 rolled around and Susan’s office door opened. Alderson stepped into the hall and turned and shook Susan’s hand, as he had when he’d come in.
“Susan,” he said. “Thank you so much. This has been one of the most remarkable hours I’ve ever spent.”
Susan shook his hand and nodded.
“Next Tuesday,” she said.
“Same time, same place,” Alderson said.
He turned for a moment and looked at me and smiled and turned back and went out the front door. Susan continued to stand in her office doorway. I went to the front window and watched him go down the steps and along the front walk and turn right and head back up Linnaean Street the way he had come.
We gathered in the spare room. Hawk and I on straight chairs. Vinnie on the couch with his iPod. Vinnie didn’t care if Alderson was unusual. If he needed to be shot, Vinnie would shoot him. Otherwise Vinnie liked listening to his iPod. Chollo sat beside Vinnie on the couch. It was hard to tell what interested Chollo, but he always seemed to pay attention. Susan rested her good-looking butt on the edge of the conference table.
“He’s a very unusual man,” Susan said.
“You have a moment to share your thoughts?” I said.
“I have all day,” Susan said. “I didn’t know how it would go, so I cleared my calendar after his visit.”
“Didn’t want no patients around, case we had to kill him,”
Hawk said.
“Yes,” Susan said.
Chollo smiled and nodded at her.
“Thoughtful,” he said. “For a gringette.”
“Is that a female gringo?” Susan said.
“It is what we always said in my village.”
“Village?” I said. “What village is that?”
“Bel Air,” Chollo said. “Bobby Horse and me, we live in Bel Air with Mr. Del Rio.”
“A hardscrabble life,” I said.
We were quiet, everybody but Vinnie looking at Susan, waiting for her to tell us what she could. We knew she had allsorts of arcane shrink considerations hemming her in, so we didn’t know quite what to ask her.
“Did you give him your disclaimer?” I said. “About me?”
“Yes.”
“How did that sit with him?”
“He simply nodded,” Susan said.
“No comment?”
“None. Beyond the nod, it was as if I had not mentioned it,” she said. “He never referred to you in our conversation.”
“He gave me one smile, when he was leaving,” I said.
“Why do you suppose he did that?” Susan said.
“To show that he saw me there, and I didn’t matter,” I said. She nodded.
“What do you think?” I said.
“First,” she said, “I am quite sure he’s fraudulent.”
“There’s nothing wrong with him?” Hawk said.
“Oh, there’s a great deal wrong with him, I’m sure,” Susan said. “But he’s not here seeking help with it.”
