Sixkill

'Are you?' Susan said.

'Training him so he'll tell me stuff?'

'Yes.'

'I'm training him for several reasons,' I said.

'Is information one of them?' Susan said.

'It is,' I said.

Susan smiled and patted my thigh.

'You wouldn't be you if it weren't,' she said.

'We wouldn't want that,' I said.

'No, we wouldn't,' Susan said. 'But you also want to help him.'

'You think?' I said.

'Does anyone know you like I do?'

'I hope not,' I said.

'He wants to be a tough guy,' Susan said. 'He's come to the right place.'

'I can't teach him how to be a tough guy,' I said. 'I can teach him how to fight. But he'll have to be tough on his own.'

'I know,' Susan said.

'You're as tough as I am,' I said.

'I know that, too,' Susan said.

'But you wouldn't win many fistfights,' I said.

'Depends who I was fighting,' Susan said.

'Yes,' I said. 'I guess it would.'

'And you would win a lot of fistfights,' she said.

'Depends who I was fighting,' I said.

Susan smiled and nibbled on a fragment of her sandwich. Mine had long ago disappeared. I was drinking coffee from a large paper cup.

'Winning fistfights means being good at fistfighting,' Susan said. 'Being tough means looking straight at something ugly, and saying, 'That's ugly; I'll have to find a way to deal with it.' And doing so.'

'By that definition, most people in their lives have a chance to be tough,' I said.

'And aren't,' Susan said.

'And we are,' I said.

'It's sort of how we make our living,' Susan said. 'Each in our own way.'

'Shouldn't that be 'each in his own way'?' I said.

'Not when we're talking about me,' Susan said.

'If you say so, Ms. Harvard Ph.D.,' I said.

Susan smiled again. I would be quite happy to sit around and watch her smile, for nearly ever.

'Couple of tough guys,' I said.

Susan's smile widened.

'Are we a pair?' she said.

17

I WENT TO THE LOBBY of the Inn on the Wharf and sat down in a designer armchair, and waited. If I sat there long enough, someone from security would come over and ask me if I was a guest at the hotel. It took a bit more than an hour of sitting before a slightly stocky blonde woman in a dark blue pantsuit came over. She wore a small earpiece, like they do.

'Excuse me, sir,' she said. 'Are you a guest of the hotel?'

'No, ma'am,' I said. 'I want to talk to someone in security, but I don't know who is or isn't, you know?'

'So you came here and sat and assumed after a while someone from security would present themselves,' she said.

'Exactly,' I said.

'Why didn't you ask at the desk?' she said.

'Been told by a lawyer,' I said, 'that I'm not supposed to talk with you.'

'Really? What lawyer?'