Paper Doll

chapter twenty-five

WHEN SUSAN AND I made love at her house, we had to shut Pearl the wonder dog out of the bedroom, because if we didn’t, Pearl would attempt tirelessly to insinuate herself between us. Neither of us much wanted to leap up afterwards and let her in.

It was Sunday morning. We lay under one of Susan’s linen sheets with Susan’s head on my chest in the dead quiet house, listening to the sound of our breathing. I had my arm around her, and under the sheet she was resting the flat of her open hand lightly on my stomach.

“Hard abs,” Susan said, “for a man of your years.

“Only one of many virtues,” I said.

There was a big old windup Seth Thomas clock on Susan’s bureau. It ticked solidly in the quiet.

“One of us has to get up and let the baby in,” Susan said.

“Yes.”

The sun was shining off and on through the treetops outside Susan’s bedroom window and the shadows it cast made small patterns on the far wall. They were inconstant patterns, disappearing when a cloud passed and reappearing with the sun.

“Hawk came by and took me to dinner while you were gone,” Susan said.

“Un huh.”

“Fact, he came by several times,” Susan said.

“He likes you,” I said.

“And I swear I saw him outside my office a couple of times when I would walk a patient to the door.”

“Okay, Quirk asked him to keep an eye on you when I got busted in South Carolina. He knew something was up and he didn’t know what. Still doesn’t.”

“And Martin thought I’d be in danger?”

“He didn’t know. He was being careful.”

“So Hawk was there every day?”

“Or somebody, during the night too.”

“Somebody?”

“Maybe Vinnie Morris, maybe Henry, maybe somebody I don’t know.”

“Maybe someone should have told me.”

“Someone should have, but I’m the only one who knows how tough you are. They didn’t want to scare you.”

“And you think it’s all right now?”

“Yeah. With Quirk involved, and the Federal Attorneys in Boston and Columbia. The cat’s out of the bag, whatever cat it is. No point in trying to chase me away.”

“So I don’t need a guard?”

“No.”

“Wasn’t Vinnie Morris with Joe Broz?” Susan said.

“Yeah, but he quit him a while back, after Pearl and I were in the woods.”

Susan nodded. We were quiet for another while. Susan moved the flat of her hand in small circles on my stomach.

“One of us has to get up and let the baby in,” Susan said.

“Yes.”

The mutable patterns on the far wall disappeared again, and I could hear a rhythmic spatter of rain against the window glass.

Susan said, “I’d do it, but I’m stark naked.”

“I am too,” I said.

“No, you’re just naked,” Susan said. “Men are used to walking around naked.”

“Do you think stark naked is nakeder than naked?” I said.

“Absolutely,” Susan said.

She tossed the sheet off of her. “See?” she said.

I gazed at her stark nakedness for a while. “Of course,” I said and got up and opened the bedroom door.

Pearl rose in one movement from the rug outside the door and was on the bed in my place, with her head on my pillow, by the time I had closed the door and gotten back to the bed. I nudged her over a little with my hip and got in and wrestled my share of the sheet over me, and the three of us lay there with Pearl between us, on her stomach, her head on the pillow, her tail thumping, attempting to look at both of us simultaneously.

“Postcoital languor,” I said.

“First,” Susan said, “you tell me about South Carolina, and then we’ll go out and have a nice brunch.”

So I told her.

“And the woman in Nairobi really is Olivia Nelson?” Susan said.

“Yeah, guy from the American Embassy went over and talked with her. She’s the real thing. Fingerprints all the way back to her time in the Peace Corps, passport, marriage certificate, all of that.”

“Does she have any idea who the woman was that was killed?”

“Says no.”

Pearl squirmed around between us until she got herself head down under the covers, and curled into an irregular ball, taking up much more than a third of the bed.

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

She had her hand stretched out above the bulge Pearl made in the sheet, and she was holding my hand, similarly stretched. The rain spattered sporadically on the windowpane, but didn’t settle into a nice, steady rhythm.

“Talk to Farrell, report to Tripp, see what Quirk finds out.”

“He’s still in South Carolina?”

“Yeah, and Belson’s going to go down. They’ll talk with Jumper Jack, and with Jefferson, and they’ll try to get a handle on Cheryl Anne Rankin.”

“I’m glad you came back.”

“Quirk and Belson will get further, they’re official,” I said.

“There was a time,” Susan said, “when you’d have felt obliged to stay there and have a staredown with the Sheriff’s Department.”

“I’m too mature for that,” I said.

“It’s nice to see,” Susan said.

“But I will go back if I need to.”

“Of course,” Susan said. “Too much growth too soon would not be healthy.”

“It’s not just to prove I’m tough. The case may require it. I can’t do what I do if I can be chased out of a place by someone.”

Susan said, “A man who knows about such things once told me, in effect, `Anyone can be chased out of anyplace.”‘

“Was this guy also a miracle worker in the sack?” I said.

“No,” she said.