Family Honor - Robert B Parker (25 page)

As he spoke, he snapped the dog's leash tight between
his hands and let it loose and snapped it tight.

"Out with my friends, " I said.

"You're supposed to be home here with me, " he said.

The leash snapped tight and loosened. I doubt that Richie
was even aware of what he was doing. He was ferociously contained and when
he was very angry it squee{ed out around his containment in odd ways.

"Every minute?" I said.

Snap.

"I've been waiting for three hours. "

The leash snapped. Did he want to snap it around my neck?
No. Richie would never hurt me.

"I have the right, " I said, in the dignified way that
you can achieve only if you're drunk, "to be with my friends when I want
to be."

"And I have the right to have you come home when you're
expected and not make me think about whether it's time to call the cops
or not.

"Oh, don't be so silly, " I said.

"To worry about you is silly?"

"I can take care of myself."

"To want you with me is silly?"

"No. But if you do it too much it's. .." I couldn't think
of a word ... then it came ... "suffocating."

Richie stretched the leash as tight as he could, as if
he were trying to pull it apart.

"Suffocating? Loving you and wanting you with me is suffocating."

Had I been sober, maybe I would have modified it. It wasn't
quite what I meant. But it never is in fights like that. And I wasn't sober.
"Yes!"

Richie shook his head like a horse beset by flies.

"All I ask is that I may love you and you love me back.
"
 
"And you define love, and you judge the terms in which
I love you back? And if I don't love you in the same way you think you
love me, I get yelled at?"

"I'm talking about the way I, feel," Richie said.

"And I'm talking about the way I feel. Why do we have
to feel exactly alike? Why can't you feel your way, and I feel my way?"

"All I want is to be loved the way I love," Richie said.
He was snapping the leash again.

"Well, maybe you can't have that."

"That's what marriage is, " he said.

"Maybe you married the wrong woman, then."

"Yeah," Richie said, "maybe I did. "

Still holding the leash he walked away from me down the
driveway and disappeared into the dark. When he came back I was in bed,
and I pretended to be asleep.

Beside me, Rosie spotted another dog on the other side
of the lagoon, and jumped down barking and snarling and gargling, just
as if she would really attack it if I let her, which she wouldn't. But
it was a dazzling display, and several pedestrians stepped hurriedly out
of her way as she strained on the leash.

"At least I know you don't want to strangle me with it,"
I said, and got up and steered her back toward Boylston Street.
 

"You keep some tough hours, Sunny," Richie said.

He put a small wedge of blue cheese on each of two crackers,
fed one to Rosie and ate the other.

"It's the only time I could get us all together," I said.

"Why do you want to?" Spike said.

"Because I need help."

"What've you been getting?" Spike said, "We've gone to
the mattresses in my house, we're baby-sitting your client."

"I know. I'm grateful."

"Good," Spike said.
 
"What do you need?" Richie said.

"There's a man named Cathal Kragan," I said. "You know
about him."

They both nodded.

"There's a man named Albert Antonioni. Do you know about
him?"

"Not the Italian director," Spike said.

"No."

"From Providence?" Richie said.

"Yes."

"We know him."

"What's that," Spike said, "the royal we?"

Almost everybody who meets Richie is intimidated by him.
It isn't size, though he's big enough; it's something in his eyes, and
his voice, and how still he is when there's no reason to move. But Richie
didn't intimidate Spike. As far as I knew nothing intimidated Spike, including
things that should have.

"We always means his father and his uncle," I said.

Richie grinned. "Thank you for interpreting," he said.
"Tell me about Antonioni."

I did. When I was through Richie and Spike were both silent
for a time. Richie poured a little wine into my glass, and a little into
his own. He started to put the wine bottle down when Spike said,

"Hey."

Richie grinned and poured some into Spike's glass. Spike
nodded and raised the glass half an inch in Richie's direction and drank
some wine.

"You're right," Spike said to me when he put the glass
down. "You need help."

"And I don't know if I have the right to ask for it,"
I said.

"Because?"

"Well, how much can you ask a friend to do?" I said.

"You and I are more than friends," Richie said.

"I know, that's an even bigger problem. How can I ask
you to help me, when we're ... when I'm not..."

Richie glanced briefly at Spike, and then took in a little
air. "Sunny," he said. "There's nothing about rights here. You need something
from me, you get it, whether you're sleeping with me or not."

My eyes stung. Horror of horrors, was I going to cry?
I breathed slowly.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome," Richie said.

A slow smile developed as he looked at me.

"Of course, afterwards," he said, "if you were grateful
..."

I sighed and looked at Spike.

"I'll help, too," he said, "and you won't have to sleep
with me either."

"Easy for you. . ." Richie murmured. Spike grinned.

"Just going along with the program," he said.

Richie cut a wedge from a Granny Smith apple and ate it
and drank some wine.

"First off," Richie said, "what's your goal?"

"I've been sort of making it up as I went along," I said.
"I'm not sure I've set a goal."

"Well, let's set one," Richie said.

"Saving Millicent," I said.
 
"From?"

"From Kragan, from Antonioni, if he's part of it, from
her parents, from herself."

"The full bore, all out, hundred and ten percent save,"
Spike said. "Save her from everything."

"If I can."

"Would the first step be to take out the people who are
trying to kill her?"

"Yes," I said, "and maybe, find out along the way if her
parents are as bad as they seem."

"You assume they want to kill her because Kragan knows
she overheard him and her mother planning to kill a guy."

"Yes."

"And because it would lead, if she talked, maybe to implicating
Kragan and Antonioni and their participation in her father's gubernatorial
ambitions," Richie said.

"Yes."

"So if we remove the motive, we remove the threat to the
kid," Spike said.

"What would you like to do, Sunny?"

"I'd like to blow the whole thing out of the water," I
said. "The sex, the murder, Patton's run for governor, Antonioni, Kragan,
all of it. Boom!"

Richie nodded slowly. He looked at Spike.

"How good are you," he said.

Spike grinned at him. "About as good as you," he said.

"That's very good," Richie said.

"I know."

Richie looked at him some more.

"You want him in?" Richie said to me, staring at Spike.

"I trust him like I trust you," I said.

"Well," Richie said, "he's got the build for it."

"How sweet of you to notice," Spike said.

"One rule," Richie said, and he started to grin sooner
than he wanted to. "There'll be no kissing."

Spike held his look for a minute and then he, too, began
to smile.

"Damn," Spike said.

Richie looked at me. Then at Spike. Than back at me. He
raised his glass. We raised ours.

"Boom!" he said.
 

"Why do I want to look at windmills and cows and people
dressed funny?" Millicent said.

"I don't know," I said.

"But I mean, why would you? Why would anyone?"

"I like to look at them," I said.

"Why? Look at this picture of this woman, why is that
better than a photograph?"

It was a painting by Vermeer.

"Sometimes I like to look at photographs, too," I said.

"You know what I mean."

"Yes," I said, "I do. For a minute there I was doing my
grownup shtick. Avoiding the question by sounding wise."

Millicent smiled. "You didn't sound so wise to me," she
said.

"But I was successfully avoiding the question."

"'Cause you don't know the answer?" I laughed.

"You know your grownups, don't you."

Millicent sensed an advantage and bored in. "So why do
you like this stuff," she said. "Because you're supposed to?"

"No, I'm past doing things because I'm supposed to. I
like it. I like the way the painting seems so luminescent. I like the tranquility,
I like the way the thing lays out, everything so balanced space and containment.
I like the expression on the woman's face, the details of the room."

"You could get that in a photograph."

"Well, not of this woman," I said. "It was done in the
seventeenth century; they didn't have photographs."

"So this would be the only kinds of pictures there were."

"That's right," I said. "The only way they had to fix
anything in time, so to speak."

"I don't even know what that means."

"Well, one of the reasons to look at stuff is to learn
what things mean."

"I don't have to like stuff I don't like."

"No," I said, "you don't. But it's probably better to
base your reaction on knowledge than on ignorance."

"What difference does it make? Whether I like it or not?"

"The more things you like, the more opportunities to be
happy."

By now we were sitting on a little bench, and so intent
on our conversation that we had stopped looking at the paintings.

"Okay," Millicent said, "that's what I asked you before.
Why should I like that picture?"

"There's no should here. I am pleased by how well Vermeer
did what he did. But if you're not, once you've looked at it thoughtfully,
then you're not."

"Well, you're a painter, so maybe it means more to you."

"Probably does. But I'm also pleased when I see old films
of Ray Robinson, or listen to Charlie Parker, or read Emily Dickinson."

"I don't know who any of those people are."

"Yet," I said, "but now you know who Vermeer is."

Millicent shrugged. We sat for another moment, looking
at the painting.

"You love Richie?" Millicent said.

"Jesus," I said, "what is this, your morning for impossible
questions?"

"Well, either you do or you don't," Millicent said. "What's
so hard about that?"

"I do," I said, "I guess."

"You act like you do," Millicent said. "You and him ever
have sex?"

"Since the divorce?"

"Yeah?"

"No."

"How come?" Millicent said.

"It sends the wrong message, I think."

"But you'd like to?" I could feel myself blushing.

"I don't know why, but this is embarrassing me," I said.
Millicent smiled happily.

"So you're not so perfect."

"Ain't that the truth," I said.

"You having sex with that cop?"

"Brian?" I said.

"Yeah, Brian whatsisname."

I felt myself blushing more. It was annoying. Why didn't
I want to talk about this?