Hush Money

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

I stopped for coffee and a couple of donuts, and then went straight to Susan’s house and let myself into her living space. I submitted to five minutes or so of lapping and jumping about from Pearl before I got her quieted down enough so I could take off my clothes and lie on the bed in my shorts. Always game for a nap, Pearl jumped up on the bed, turned around several times, and got ready to lie down beside me. I was asleep before she did. When I woke up Pearl was gone. I looked at my watch. It was 6:20 in the evening. I got up and walked around the house. I noticed that Susan’s purse was on the front hall table, and Pearl’s leash was gone. I went back into the bedroom and took a long shower and shaved in the shower and put on clean clothes from the wardrobe stash I kept at Susan’s place, and was pouring two ounces of Dewar’s over a lot of ice in a tall glass when Pearl and Susan came back from their walk. Pearl bounded about the way she does when she knows supper is imminent, and Susan, more restrained, came over and gave me a kiss on the mouth.

“Good to see you up and about,” Susan said. “When I came up from the office and found you I thought you might be dead.”

I poured club soda over the ice in my tall glass, getting it as close to the top as I could, without it being so full I couldn’t pick it up without spilling.

“Did you have a plan for how to deal with that?” I said.

“If you were still dead when I came back from walking the baby,” Susan said, “I was going to call someone.”

I got a bag of Kibbles ‘N Bits dog food out of the cupboard and put a cup and a half’s worth into Pearl’s bowl. I knew it was Pearl’s bowl because it said Pearl in violet script on the outside.

Susan said, “She likes it with cheese, remember.”

I got some shredded cheese out of the refrigerator and sprinkled some over the food and put it down on the floor. Pearl did like it with cheese. She also liked it without cheese, or with sawdust. Susan went into her bedroom, and I sat at the counter and sipped my scotch and soda. Susan came out in a while barefooted, in a dark blue tank top and white shorts, with her hair combed, and wearing fresh lip gloss.

“Got any snacks?” I said. “I appear to have slept through lunch.”

Susan got an elegant wine goblet sort of the color of sea mist from another cabinet and poured some Merlot into it, and took a small sip.

“I have some rice cakes,” Susan said. “And some broccoli sprouts, and…” She got up and opened her refrigerator door and gazed in. “… half a bagel.”

“Gee, a cornucopia,” I said.

Susan had great glassware and wonderful china and beautiful silverware and no food.

“And some shredded cheese, but that’s for the baby…” She closed the refrigerator and opened the cupboard. “… and some bite-sized shredded wheat.”

She turned and looked at me optimistically, as if I might like shredded wheat and broccoli sprouts with my scotch and soda.

“That’s okay,” I said. “We can order out.”

“Chinese?” Susan said.

“Yes, a bunch of everything, and tell them to hurry. In a little while it will be a medical emergency.”

Susan called and ordered a bunch of everything including some broccoli, sauce on the side, and steamed rice. Then she came back and sat across the counter from me and took a sip of her wine.

“What I don’t get,” I said, “is this creep beats her up and rapes her and she won’t tell the cops.”

“But she admitted it to you.”

“Yes.”

“Well, that aside, consider it from her perspective,” Susan said.

She was leaning her elbows on the counter holding her sea mist wine goblet in both hands, looking at me over the top of it. I had a fresh drink.

“Okay,” I said, “she leaves her husband for the man of her dreams and the man of her dreams turns out to be an abusive rapist.”

“Bad mistake,” Susan said. “But to report him to the police is to certify that mistake.”

“So?”

“So maybe it means her husband wins and she loses,” Susan said.

“And she’d rather shield her rapist than lose to her husband?”

“It’s not just that she loses, it’s that he has the triumphant gratification of seeing her be humiliated for her own folly. It might be worse for her than rape.”

“So why does she tell me?”

“Because she has to tell someone. Because she needs you to protect her. Because she somehow has learned already that you won’t judge her. Because you may have replaced, what’s his name?”

“Louis Vincent.”

“You may have replaced Louis Vincent as the man of her new dreams.”

“Well,” I said. “You would certainly know what that’s like.”

Susan paid no attention. When she was thinking she was filled completely by the subject of her thoughts.

“And,” Susan said and smiled slightly, “because you knew anyway. And she’d cozy up to you by making you the only one she’d tell.”

The doorbell rang. Pearl went ballistic as she always does when the doorbell rings. I went downstairs and paid for the Chinese food and brought it back up. The smell of fresh delivered Chinese food almost defines anticipation. Pearl barked once at me when I came into the living room before she realized I wasn’t a bell-ringing intruder, then got a whiff of the food and became very focused. I put it on the counter prepared to eat it from the cartons, but of course Susan had set the counter and put out place mats and silverware and a pair of ivory chopsticks for herself. She liked to eat with chopsticks. I did not. Susan served.

“If she won’t tell the cops, of course, this becomes my problem.”

“Oh really,” Susan said.

“What do you mean ‘oh really’?”

“Given what we know about her, and the letter you showed me,” Susan said, “isn’t that exactly what she would want?”

I thought about it.

“Yes,” I said. “But she couldn’t have contrived the rape.”

“No, I’m sure she didn’t. But she has exploited it, consciously or not, to serve what she thinks is her best interest.”

“Which is me.”

“Yes.”

“Because I’m so debonair?”

“Because KC is a cliche. For whatever reasons, she needs a knight to gallop in and save her, and if it’s a debonair one, so much the better.”

“My strength is as the strength of ten…”

“I know,” Susan said. “What did you promise her.”

“What makes you think I promised her anything?”

“Because I have been with you for a very long time, Sir Percival. What did you promise her.”

“That I’d make sure he left her alone.”

“Perfect,” Susan said. “What are you going to do?”

“I spoke with him once,” I said.

“And it didn’t take,” Susan said. “How vigorous are you prepared to be?”

“I gave my word,” I said.

“Perhaps Hawk,” Susan said.

“No. Hawk didn’t give his word. I gave mine. I can’t ask him to do something because I don’t want to do it.”

“No,” Susan said, “I know you can’t.”

We were silent. Pearl put both front paws on the edge of the counter and gazed at the food. I gave her an egg roll and she dropped down and dashed to the couch to eat it.

“Vincent must be in the grip of his own pathologies,” Susan said. “You are able to frighten most people off.”

“I know.”

“You won’t kill him,” Susan said.

It wasn’t a question.

“No.”

“Perhaps you and Hawk could broach the subject to him together.”

I nodded.

“Many white men are more afraid of black men than they are of other whites,” I said. “If he’s one of them we could exploit his racism.”

“My thought exactly,” Susan said.

“Can you do anything to help KC?”

“You mean professionally?”

“Whatever. She sure as hell needs something.”

“I can’t be her shrink,” Susan said. “I’ve known her too long, and I am not, ah, above the fray.”

“You’re not?”

“You may recall a few phrases from the lovely little mash note she stuck in your mailbox: Such as: ‘when you were with me, you might learn things that Susan can’t teach you.’”

“That means nothing to me,” I said.

“It means something to me,” Susan said.

“Are we feeling a little unprofessional jealousy?” I said.

“We are feeling a little unprofessional desire to kick her fat little ass,” Susan said.

I was drinking scotch and soda and eating chicken with cashews and the girl of my dreams was jealous. I smiled happily.