Now and Then

43.

Susan had dinner with three women friends at the

Bristol Lounge in the Four Seasons Hotel. Vinnie and Chollo had the evening off. Hawk and I sat at the bar and nursed one beer each, and watched out for Susan.

“What the two gunslingers doing?” Hawk said.

“Vinnie is showing Chollo the town,” I said.

“How you like to be seeing the town with Vinnie?” Hawk said.

“Not fun like with you and me,” I said.

Hawk looked at his half-drunk glass of beer getting warm and fl at in front of him.

“What could be more fun than you and me?” Hawk said.

“Swapping jokes with Don Trump?” I said.

“Well, yeah,” Hawk said. “That would be more fun.”

Susan stood and said something to her friends. I slid off the bar stool. She turned and strolled toward the ladies’ room. Several people, men and women, turned and looked at her. In her understated shrink uniform she was stunning. Out with friends, she was flamboyantly so. I caught up with her at the ladies’ room door.

“Here’s what I want you to do,” I said. “You go in and look around and come back and report to me. Is there a window? Is there another way in or out? Who else is in there? If you are not back out here in one minute from the time you go in, I’m coming in after you.”

“One minute?”

“Plenty of time to do what I ask.”

“Isn’t this a little overproduced?” she said.

“Better too much than too little,” I said.

She nodded.

“Okay,” she said, “here I go.”

As she went in, I looked at my watch. It took her twenty-eight seconds to reconnoiter and report.

“No one else is in here. There are two full toilet stalls. Floor to ceiling. Both doors are ajar. There is neither a window nor another way in or out.”

I nodded.

“Can you get everything done in there in five minutes?” I said. “Including standing in front of the mirror and poking at your hair?”

“If I must,” she said.

“After fi ve minutes,” I said, “I come in.”

“If there are too many more rules and ultimatums I may not be able to go,” she said.

I smiled and bowed her back into the ladies’ room. Two women came by a minute and sixteen seconds later. They looked at me in mild askance as I leaned against the wall beside the door. I shrugged and smiled. They went past me in silence and entered the ladies’ room. Two minutes later Susan came out.

“I didn’t even look in the mirror,” she said. “Just washed my hands and came right out.”

“I don’t believe you,” I said.

She smiled.

“I didn’t look very long,” she said.

She walked back to her table and sat down. I walked on to the bar.

“Fella wanted your seat,” Hawk said. “I told him it was taken.”

“He give you a hard time?” I said.

Hawk smiled. I nodded.

“Probably thought he was brave to ask,” I said.

“Was,” Hawk said.

We sat looking at the handsome room, full of handsome people, most of whom were handsomely dressed. No one appeared dangerous, which didn’t mean that nobody was. Especially us.

“Susan mentioned that Perry Alderson seemed to have some experience with psychotherapy,” I said.

“She did,” Hawk said.

“Red told me that he met Perry when he was down and out in Cleveland and Perry did some street counseling,” I said.

“He say who Perry worked for?” Hawk said.

“No.”

“FBI got any info on him in Cleveland?” Hawk said.

“No. “

“Don’t mean there is no info,” Hawk said.

“It don’t,” I said.

“Do mean somebody got to go get it,” Hawk said.

“It do,” I said.

We both watched Susan in animated conversation with three other women. They were all attractive women, but they all seemed pallid in Susan’s penumbra.

“Here’s how I fi gure,” Hawk said.

“Uh-huh?”

“You a detective and I’m not. I don’t detect as well as you. Could be a detective, a course, if I wanted. But I don’t. On the other hand I can bust somebody’s ass, ’bout as well as you, maybe better.”

“So I should go to Cleveland,” I said.

“Yes.”

“I’m not buying the equality-of-ass-busting argument,” I said. “But you are certainly in the top two.”

“We know that one of us be the best,” Hawk said. “Just don’t agree on who.”

“You have to be with her every day, all day, every night, all night. You can never be any further away from her than you areright now. Vinnie and Chollo do wonderful work. But they are backup. You’re the one.”

“I know,” Hawk said.

We both looked at her. She finished a story with her arms out and raised toward the ceiling. The table burst into laughter. Hawk smiled.

“I’ll stay as close as you do,” he said.

“Almost as close,” I said.

“Almost make all the difference,” Hawk said. “Don’t it?”

“It does,” I said. “But I suppose if I were truly enlightened I’d say that would all be pretty much up to her.”

“But you not that enlightened,” Hawk said.

“No,” I said.

“Me either,” Hawk said.

We were quiet again, watching the table of women. Women seemed so much more at ease in social groups than men did. Men were okay in project groups, where they had a common goal and vocabulary. Sports teams. Combat units. Construction crews. Guarding Susan. But six guys all dressed up having dinner together was usually a sorrowful sight.

“I know we talked ’bout it before,” Hawk said. “And I know you not going to go for it. But . . . any one of us, Vinnie, Chollo, me, be happy to clip Alderson for you. Chollo could do it and be back in Bel Air for cocktails before the cops found the body.”

“I gotta do it,” I said.

“Clip him?”

“No, I gotta even this up.”

“Nothing says even like two in the head,” Hawk said.

“Not my style.”

“’Less you has to,” Hawk said.

I nodded.

“I’ve had to,” I said. “So far, not this time.”

“This ain’t just about Doherty,” Hawk said.

“Whatever it’s about,” I said, “I’m going to clear it.”

“It about Susan and the guy she took off with two hundred years ago,” Hawk said.

“Whatever it’s about,” I said, “I’m going to clear it.”