Chance (22 page)

Susan and I were sitting with Pearl the Wonder Dog between us on the couch in front of a fire in the kitchen of the nearly finished house we'd been working on in Concord. We had been sitting side by side, on the couch, with the potential for necking, but Pearl had weaseled herself in between us and the necking remained potential.

"The DNA match between Marty and the sperm he left in Shirley sort of settled it for him," I said.

"Were the police grateful?" Susan said.

"For cops," I said.

"Romero let Bibi walk without a word."

"How about Anthony Meeker."

"The little bastard," I said.

"He caused the whole damned mess in the first place. Starting with when he married Shirley to get at Julius's money."

"But they haven't got a crime they can convict him of?"

Pearl leaned heavily against me, and gave me a wide rough wet lap on my cheek.

"She loves her daddy," Susan said.

"She also loves where the gravel scrape is healing," I said.

"No.

He hasn't done anything they can catch him for. But Romero said they could hold him a few days as a material witness before they turned him loose. And I took the liberty of letting Julius know where he is."

Susan sat back a little and looked at me.

"God, sometimes even I forget how hard a man you are."

"He married an emotional cripple and exploited her and got her killed," I said.

"He left Bibi broke in Vegas and took off with the money that was supposed to be their start-over cash."

Pearl gave me another lap.

"Besides," I said, "I like dogs."

"So did Hitler," Susan said.

I eased Pearl away from me and got up. Pearl immediately transferred her weight to Susan. I put a couple more logs in the fireplace and went to the stove and opened the oven. There were yellow eye beans baking in an old-fashioned brown and tan pot. I put a pan of corn bread batter in to bake beside them. Then I got some Iron Horse champagne out of the refrigerator and two glasses and brought them back to the couch.

"What about the mob takeover business in Boston?" Susan said.

"Don't know," I said.

"Read that Tarone Jessup got killed, and a couple weeks later I read that two Russian immigrants from New York got dumped on Blue Hill Ave. Probably means that Tony Marcus has got to risk a tougher caretaker until he gets out."

"Do you think the Russians can do it?"

"They've got to form an alliance," I said, "with Julius, or Gino, or Fast Eddie Lee. After the fiasco with Marty, I don't think it's going to happen."

"What's going to happen to Marty?"

"Once they get wind of his connection with the Russians, I think platoons of feds will head for Nevada to see what kind of deal they can make with him to help them with the Russians."

"Would it be bad if the Russians succeeded? If they, what?

Took over organized crime in Boston."

I shrugged.

"Too big an issue for me," I said.

"I work on a smaller scale."

"Who killed Shirley Ventura," Susan said.

"Yeah."

"How to save Bibi Anaheim."

"She's gone back to using her maiden name," I said.

"Costa."

"Have you ever thought about what would have happened if you and Hawk had failed."

"Yeah."

"She was right," Susan said.

"You did use her."

"I know."

"Even though it was in her best interest."

"I know."

"You should have found another way."

"I know."

"If you had it to do over again you'd do the same thing," Susan said.

"Wouldn't you?"

"Yeah."

Susan smiled at me and drank some of her champagne. Incredibly, Pearl had found a way to lie down and stretch out fully on the couch between us. This left us less room than one would have hoped for, at opposite ends of the couch. The fire had fully involved the new logs I'd put on, and the flicker of it on the dark windows made the room seem nearly antic. I tasted my champagne. It was very cold, as it should be, and the bite of it was clean on the back of my mouth.

"You don't always do the right thing," Susan said.

"True," I said.

"But you get as close as you can," she said.

The fireplace hissed as sap boiled out one end of a log. The log settled a little deeper into the flames.

"What are we having with the beans and corn bread?"

"I got four venison chops," I said.

"They've been marinating in red wine and rosemary."

"Dessert?"

"Bread pudding with whisky sauce."

"God," Susan said.

"I won't be able to walk."

"How about other activity."

"Anything prone is fine," Susan said.

"My feelings exactly."

"Good," Susan said.

"What happened to Bibi."

"She said she was going back to Fairhaven," I said.

"With her old name," Susan said.

"Starting over."

"Who was it who said there are no second acts in American life," I said.

"I don't know," Susan said.

"But he or she was wrong. You might recall that we're in act two ourselves."

"I remember."

"She's been abused. She needs help," Susan said.

"I suggested that. She said she wasn't interested. I gave her your phone number anyway, and said you might be useful."

"If she calls, I can get her a referral down there," Susan said.

"I'm too tied to you to help her myself."

"Good to know," I said.

"She may not call," Susan said.

I shrugged.

"She isn't able to know yet," Susan said, "how much you helped her. She's got too much history weighing on her, and all she remembers is you used her to get Marty."

"I know," I said.

"She may know some day," Susan said.

"Doesn't matter," I said.

Susan got up and walked around the couch. Pearl immediately expanded into the vacant area. Susan sat on the arm of the couch and put her arm around my shoulder and laid her cheek at the top of my head.

"Yes, it does," she said.

Robert B. Parker was born in 1932 and has a PhD from Boston University. He has been Professor of English at Northeastern University, Massachusetts, teaching courses in American literature, and has written several textbooks.

He has written many bestsellers, including All Our Yesterdays and his recent Spenser novels Walking Shadow and Thin Air.

The End