Robert B. Parker’s Revenge Tour

Twenty-Four

“Do you honestly believe that both your father and Ms. Hall are in imminent danger?” Dr. Susan Silverman said.

“Define imminent,” I said.

She nearly smiled.

“You first,” she said.

It was our weekly session in her office on Linnaean Street in Cambridge. When I was in town and not on a visit to Paradise or an extended trip to Los Angeles on the case for Tony Gault that had made me a not unsubstantial amount of money, these sessions had gone on for years. I knew that I had aged in that time, all I had to do was look in the mirror in the morning. Or at night. Or anytime. Somehow, though, Susan Silverman had not. I knew it had to happen eventually. Maybe that was one of the reasons why I was still coming. I was playing the long game with her. She had to get old sometime.

“I just feel as if I need to look out for both of them,” I said to her now. “And while I know who poses a threat to my father, I don’t yet know who is threatening Melanie Joan.”

“And as loyal as you say you are to Melanie Joan, we are talking about a parent here,” she said. “Which raises the stakes.”

“Oh, baby.”

She smiled, but mostly just with her dark eyes.

“The instinct to protect people, rather than be protected, has always been a rather fundamental part of your makeup,” she said. “Some might say an essential part.”

“Long since established,” I said.

“Oh, baby,” Susan Silverman said.

She was in black today. Simple black dress, and a rare display of jewelry, pearls around her neck. No rings. Long, beautiful fingers. Hair and makeup were as flawless as ever. She was some looker. And someone I thought of as being smarter than Stephen Hawking.

“I know that others can protect them,” I said. “I just feel I’m better at it. But the good news is that I’m less reluctant to ask for help than I once was.”

“From the men in your life,” she said.

“I even reached out to my former father-in-law for help with my father.”

“Part of an ancient blood feud.”

“On a good day.”

“How did that work out?” Susan Silverman said. “With the both of them.”

“Think of it as a fluid situation.”

“So,” she said, “you are once again the maiden looking to be doing the saving.”

“Also on a good day,” I said.

“Your instincts are clearly telling you that it will be necessary, that it’s just a question of when,” she said.

“Our jobs are somewhat similar,” I said. “I’m just the only one of us with a concealed carry permit.”

“Are you sure about that?” she said.

“Wait,” I said, “you can shoot, too?”

“Like Annie Oakley,” she said. “But we’re getting sidetracked here, as we so often do.”

Another hint of a smile.

She said, “You began today by saying that your dilemma was not being able to focus fully on one situation or the other.”

“I don’t have the luxury, at least right now.”

“But you said you have your friend Lee with your father,” she said. “And you have your friend Spike if you once again need him to look out for Melanie Joan when you aren’t.”

“When she isn’t being looked after by her manager,” I said, and sighed.

“Do you feel she’s safe with him?” she said.

“Not even a little bit,” I said.

“Oh, ho,” she said.

“Pretty sure you stole that from me.”

“Nope,” she said. “From the man of my dreams.”

“The heavyweight champion of Boston private eyes,” I said.

“Well, he did fight, my cutie,” she said, “but never for the title.”

“Sometimes I feel as if I ought to give him a call.”

“I’m sure I have his card somewhere,” Susan Silverman said.

I knew we were getting near the end of my session.

“Do you believe that Melanie Joan could be a plagiarist?” she said.

“Maybe not now,” I said. “But yes, I do think she could have been earlier in her career.”

“And how do you feel about that?”

“Conflicted,” I said. “Conflicted is the coin of the realm in here, right?”

“Something else long since established.”

“But at the same time I really do feel as if I owe her,” I said.

“Whether she’s lying to you or not?”

I nodded.

“So the conflict lies, so to speak, in the fact that if you do find out who left the knife and the book and broke into your office, you will somehow be validating the lie. Or at least enabling it.”

“What I’m really wondering,” I said, “is why, if she is a thief and a liar, she would hire me in the first place.”

“Maybe the one who’s conflicted is your client,” Susan Silverman said. “And, just maybe, the greatest threat to your friend Melanie Joan is herself.”

“Why I pay you the big bucks,” I said.