Cold Service

49

SUSAN AND I were at a table by the window in the bar at the Ritz, looking across Arlington Street at the Public Gardens where spring was unfurling delicately.

"I think it was the English writer," Susan said, "E. M. Forster, who said that if he had to choose between betraying his country and betraying his friend, he hoped he'd have the courage to betray his country."

"The analogy is imperfect," I said.

"All analogies are," Susan said. "But it's suggestive."

"If I didn't help Hawk," I said, "I'm not sure he would consider it betrayal."

Susan nodded. It was 5:10. There was a lot of traffic on Arlington Street. People going home to supper and their families. Some probably happy about it. Some probably not.

"What would you consider it?" Susan said.

I poured a little beer from the bottle into the glass, straight in so it would foam. Beer tasted better with a head on it.

"Betrayal," I said.

She nodded again.

"But if you join him in wiping out Boots Podolak, you'll also be betraying something, won't you?"

A string of giggly young people entered the crosswalk at Newbury Street and froze traffic back to Beacon Street. The kids seemed to enjoy it as they ambled across.

"Me, I guess."

"I guess," Susan said.

With the cars still backed up, a shabby, long-haired man stumbled along between them, asking for money. He was wearing a red Nike muscle shirt, and his thin, white arms were thick with blue tattooing. Most people ignored him.

"You have any solutions?" I said.

"No," Susan said. "But I know what you are going to do."

I drank some beer and watched a black stretch limo discharge passengers into the solicitous keeping of a doorman.

"I can't back off," I said. "I have to stay with him."

"I know," Susan said.

"So why am I talking about it," I said.

"Because it's you and me," Susan said. "We talk about everything."

"What would you do?" I said.

"In the unlikely event that I were you?" Susan said.

I nodded.

"I'd stay with Hawk," she said.

"And you a Harvard girl," I said.

"And it would bother me," she said. "And I'd face the fact that I was doing something I thought was wrong rather than betray my friend, which"-she smiled at me-"would therefore make it sort of right."

"Jesus," I said. "You shrinks are really convolute."

"Whatever we are," Susan said, "we have talked enough to people who are in big messes to know that whatever you do may make you feel bad, but mostly, in time, if you're tough and don't indulge yourself, it'll pass and you'll forgive yourself."

"Cynical, too," I said.

"I think that's hopeful, that unless you're obsessive you'll forgive yourself," Susan said. "It's also the truth."

"The truth will set you free?" I said.

Susan nodded.

"And make you cynical," she said.

The traffic had thinned on Arlington Street. Most of the people heading home from work were on Storrow Drive by now. Or the pike. Or the expressway. Or the tunnels. Or the Zakim Bridge. Some were home by now, having their first drink before dinner. Maybe looking at the paper. Probably none of them were planning to shoot it out with a bunch of Ukrainian sociopaths. Susan turned her wineglass slowly on the tabletop in front of her. I put my hands out, and she let go of the glass and took them.

"Thanks," I said.

"You're welcome," she said. "Now I want to vent, briefly."

"Fair's fair," I said.

"If you let yourself get killed, I will want to die, too," she said.

I nodded. It felt as if I needed more air in my chest. The waiter brought us new drinks. Outside the window, a doorman put two fingers in his mouth and whistled down a cab. I had always wished I could do that whistle, but I never could. I inhaled a lot of air as quietly as I could. I didn't want to be caught sighing.

"So far, so good," I said.

Susan smiled.

"Yes," she said. "So far, very good."