Mortal Stakes

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

IT WAS QUARTER TO SEVEN. I had the shotgun back in the duffel bag and the duffel bag back in the trunk of my car and my car on the overpass where the Fellsway meets Route 1. I drove north on 1 toward Smithfield. On the way I stopped and bought a quart of Wild Turkey bourbon. Turning off Route 1

toward Smithfield Center, I twisted the top off, took a mouthful, rinsed my mouth, spit out the window, and drank about four ounces from the bottle. My stomach jumped when the booze hit it, but then it steadied and held. I was coming back.

I drove past the old common, with its white church and meetinghouse, and turned left down Main Street. I’d been up here a year or so back on a case and since then had learned my way around the town pretty well. At least I knew the way to Susan Silverman’s house. She lived 100 yards up from the common in a small weathered shingle Cape with blue window boxes filled with red petunias. Her car was in the driveway.

She was home. It hadn’t occurred to me until now that she might not be.

I walked up the brick path to her front door. On either side of the path were strawberry plants, white blossoms, green fruit, and some occasional flashes of ripe red. A sprinkler arced slowly back and forth. The front door was open and I could hear music which sounded very much like Stan Kenton. ”Artistry in Rhythm.“ Goddamn.

I rang her bell and leaned against the doorjamb, holding my bottle of Wild Turkey by the neck and letting it hang against my thigh. I was very tired. She came to the door.

Every time I saw her I felt the same click in my solar plexus I’d felt the first time I saw her. This time was no different.

She had on faded Levi cutoffs and a dark blue ribbed halter top. She was wearing octagonal horn-rimmed glasses and carried a book in her right hand, her forefinger keeping the place.

I said, ”What are you reading?“

She said, ”Erikson’s biography of Gandhi.“

I said, ”I’ve always liked Leif’s work.“

She looked at the bourbon bottle, four ounces gone, and opened the door. I went in.

”You don’t look good,“ she said.

”You guidance types don’t miss a trick, do you?“

”Would it help if I kissed you?“

”Yeah, but not yet. I been throwing up. I need a shower. Then maybe we could sit down and talk and I’ll drink the Wild Turkey.“

”You know where,“ she said. I put the bourbon down on the coffee table in the living room and headed down the little hall to the bathroom. In the linen closet beside the bathroom was a shaving kit of mine with a toothbrush and other necessaries. I got it out and went into the bathroom. I brushed and showered and rinsed my mouth under the shower and soaped and scrubbed and shampooed and lathered and rinsed and washed for about a half an hour.

Out, out, damned spot.

When I got through, I toweled off and put on some tennis shorts I’d left there and went looking for Susan. The stereo was off, and she was on the back porch with my Wild Turkey, a bucket of ice, a glass, a sliced lemon, and a bottle of bitters.

I sat in a blue wicker armchair and took a long pull from the neck of the bottle.

”Were you bitten by a snake?“ Susan said.

I shook my head. Beyond the screen porch the land sloped down in rough terraces to a stream. On the terraces were shade plants. Coleus, patient Lucy, ajuga, and a lot of vincas. Beyond the stream were trees that thickened into woods.

”Would you like something to eat?“

I shook my head again. ”No,“ I said. ”Thank you.“

”Drinking bourbon instead of beer, and declining a snack. It’s bad, isn’t it?“

I nodded. ”I think so,“ I said.

”Would you like to talk about it?“

”Yeah,“ I said, ”but I don’t quite know what to say.“

I put some ice in the glass, added bitters and a squeeze of lemon, and filled the glass with bourbon. ”You better drink a little,“ I said. ”I’ll be easier to take if you’re a little drunk too.“

She nodded her head. ”Yes, I was thinking that,“ she said. ”I’ll get another glass.“ She did, and I made her a drink.

In front of the house some kids were playing street hockey and their voices drifted back faintly. Birds still sang here and there in the woods, but it was beginning to get dark and the songs were fewer.

”How long ago did you get divorced?“ I asked.

”Five years.“

”Was it bad?“

”Yes.“

”Is it bad now?“

”No. I don’t think about it too much now. I don’t feel bad about myself anymore. And I don’t miss him at all anymore. You have some part in all of that.“

”Mr. Fixit,“ I said. My drink was gone and I made another.

said.

”How does someone who ingests as much as you do get those muscle ridges in his stomach?“ Susan said.

”God chose to make me beautiful instead of good,“ I ”How many sit-ups do you do a week?“

”Around a zillion,“ I said. I stretched my legs out in front of me and slid lower in the chair. It had gotten dark outside and some fireflies showed in the evening. The kids out front had gone in, and all I could hear was the sound of the stream and very faintly the sound of traffic on 128.

”There is a knife blade in the grass,“ I said. ”And a tiger lies just outside the fire.“

”My God, Spenser, that’s bathetic. Either tell me about what hurts or don’t. But for crissake, don’t sit here and quote bad verse at me.“

”Oh damn,“ I said. ”I was just going to swing into Hamlet.“

”You do and I’ll call the cops.“

”Okay,“ I said. ”You’re right. But bathetic? That’s hard, Suze.“

She made herself another drink. We drank. There was no light on the porch, just that which spilled out from the kitchen.

”I killed two guys earlier this evening,“ I said.

”Have you ever done that before?“

”Yeah,“ I said. ”But I set these guys up.“

”You mean you murdered them?“

”No, not exactly. Or… I don’t know. Maybe.“

She was quiet. Her face a pale blur in the semidarkness. She was sitting on the edge of a chaise opposite me. Her knees crossed, her chin on her fist, her elbow on her knee. I drank more bourbon.

”Spenser,“ she said, ”I have known you for only a year or so. But I have known you very intensely. You are a good man. You are perhaps the best man I’ve ever known. If you killed two men, you did it because it had to be done. I know you. I believe that.“

I put my drink on the floor and got up from the chair and stood over her. She raised her face toward me and I put one hand on each side of it and bent over and looked at her close. She had a very strong face, dark and intelligent, full of kinetic suggestion, with faint laugh lines at the corners of her mouth. She was still wearing her glasses, and her big dark eyes looked bigger through the lenses.

”Jesus Christ,“ I said.

She put her hands over mine and we stayed that way for a long time.

Finally she said, ”Sit.“

I sat and she leaned back on the chaise and pulled me down beside her and put my head against her breast. ”Would you like to make love?“ she said.

I was breathing in big low inhales. ”No,“ I said. ”Not now, let’s just lie here and be still.“

Her right arm was around me and she reached up and patted my cheek with her left hand. The stream murmured and after a while I fell asleep.