Playmates

36

SUSAN and I were having dinner at a place called Rarities in the Charles Hotel in Cambridge.

Outside the bank of picture windows Charles Square was beginning to look autumnal, and the first pumpkins and cornstalks were clustered around the display base of the Charles Square sign. Harvard students were back; parents, visiting, were lounging around the hotel lobby looking a little startled that they had kids in college.

"They convicted Deegan's friends today," I said.

She was reading the menu closely, peering through the crimson-rimmed twelve-dollar half glasses that she bought in Neiman Marcus.

"Bobby Deegan? Dwayne Woodcock's friend?" she said.

"Yeah, Bobby sang them all right into the state penal institution at Ossining."

"And Bobby?"

"Disappeared into the witness protection program."

"Do those work?" Susan said.

"They work if the guys after you have limited resources, and they work if the guy in the program isn't a dope. But most of them are dopes. They can't stay away from it. They knock over a crap game or they show up in Vegas on a gambling junket and someone recognizes them, or they get in a fight and someone hears about them."

"Do you think it will for Bobby Deegan?" The waiter came solicitously by and took our order.

"Deegan's smart," I said, "but he's been a wiseguy his whole life. He's never held a job, except being a crook. They'll set him up with new identity, papers, some money, a house. And they'll place him in a job. Selling real estate, say, or being a short order cook; that kind of thing. And he'll go to work every day and after a while his boss will tell him to do something and Bobby won't want to and they'll come to words and Bobby will pop him on the nose and quit and pretty soon he's back into being a crook, and after a while somebody will recognize him, or he'll get busted, or whatever. If it's the mob after you, then you're in trouble, because they've got time and money and connections and no passion. Killing you is a wise management decision for them. Passion cools, except you and me, Hotpants, but wise business decisions by the mob are forever. His friends may forget about who put them away, or they may not."

The waiter brought Susan some sweetbreads with grilled fruit. For me he brought oysters.

"Hotpants?" Susan said.

"Yeah, that's why the oysters," I said.

Susan ate a very small bite of sweetbread. "How is Dwayne?" she said.

"Fine," I said. "Surly, arrogant, uncommunicative, and the holder of a two-point-five-million contract over three years."

"Is Chantel with him?"

"Yes." I said.

"Good," Susan said. "Can he read?"

"Some," I said. "Chantel says he got to about third grade level over the summer."

"That's very good progress," Susan said. "It's only been, what, five months?"

"Yes."

I slurped an oyster and gestured with my wine list at the waiter.

"Gewurztraminer," I said. "The Trimbach."

He smiled approvingly and hustled off after the wine. Waiters smile approvingly if you order cough syrup. I finished my oysters. The waiter served the wine. Susan finished her sweetbreads. We each took a sip of wine. Around us the soft sound of conversation, the gentle noise of steaks being cut and soup being spooned. The light was soft and the encroaching September evening darkened the view through the windows.

"You can't stand Dwayne, can you?" Susan said.

"No," I said, "who could? Even Hawk doesn't like him and Hawk doesn't have feelings about anybody."

"Except you," Susan said.

"And you," I said.

"Chantel loves him," Susan said.

"Love's different," I said. "It doesn't 'alter where it alteration finds.' "

"I know," Susan said.

The waiter appeared with barbecued duck for Susan, venison for me.

"And yet you just stuck at it and wouldn't let Dwayne destroy himself even though they tried to kill you, and it was hard, and there was no reason to care about him."

"You think I shouldn't have?" I said.

"No, I think you should have. But, God, he's obnoxious."

"You have obnoxious patients," I said.

Susan smiled. "I'll say," she said.

"Dwayne is one of the best that ever lived at what he does," I said.

"Which is playing basketball," Susan said.

"Yes. Not brain surgery, but something."

"And?" Susan said.

"And I like Chantel," I said.

Susan smiled, and her smile widened as she looked at me. Then she picked up her wine glass and raised it toward me a little and held it for a moment.

"Is this a good omen?" I said.

"If I were you," she said, "I'd have more oysters."