Robert B. Parker’s Someone to Watch Over Me

16

I had dinner with Susan and Hawk that night at Harvest in Harvard Square. Since I’d just run six miles up and down the Charles with Hawk, I felt confident to order the fried haddock with french fries and coleslaw. Susan had the roasted beet and red endive salad with lobster bisque, and Hawk had a dozen Island Creek oysters from Duxbury and a bottle of Iron Horse.

“Prepping for a big evening?” I said.

“Don’t need no oysters for that,” Hawk said.

“But it doesn’t hurt,” I said.

Hawk selected another oyster off the ice and slurped it from the shell.

“Like a Boy Scout,” Hawk said, turning to study a woman standing at the bar. She had long brown hair and wore a very short blue romper. The silky material rode up high enough to know her area code. “Always prepared.”

The woman glanced at Hawk and smiled. Hawk said something about needing to earn another merit badge.

“You know I’m right here,” Susan said.

“Did you hear something?” I said.

Susan gave me the side eye. “Don’t bother with the oysters tonight, haddock boy.”

Hawk laughed. He refilled his champagne glass from a silver bucket. I was still working on a pint, and Susan had barely touched her glass of Riesling. She had on a purple silk camisole that showed off her lovely tan shoulders. Her dark black hair pinned up high on top of her head.

“Haddock should be on the state flag,” I said, forking off another bite.

“Save some for the puppy,” Susan said.

“Heard you still not calling that dog Pearl,” Hawk said.

Susan finished a small spoonful of bisque. She patted her lips with her napkin. “I advocated calling her something else,” she said. “Not to conflate Pearl’s memory.”

“Pearl’s memory is conflated with our two Pearls and the Pearl I had as a kid.”

“As a trained therapist,” Susan said. “I’d say you’re trying to evade grief.”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe his ass just crazy,” Hawk said. “Only so many blows a man can take to the head.”

I cut off a small portion to save for Pearl. I ate a few french fries, considering the discussion. “Makes as much sense as anything,” I said.

“Reincarnation?” Susan said.

“I think I used to be a big-breasted white lady back in the day,” Hawk said. “I think about them all the time.”

“What about a big-breasted black woman?”

“I think about them, too,” Hawk said. “And Asian. And Latina. I don’t discriminate.”

“It’s okay to be sexist,” Susan said. “As long as you’re not bigoted?”

I drank some beer. “If Hawk and I didn’t discuss women, we wouldn’t have anything to talk about.”

“You talk about sports and music,” Susan said.

“I turned this white boy on to Fathead Newman.”

“I already knew about Fathead Newman.”

“Bullshit,” Hawk said. “You only knew about ‘Fathead’ Newman as a sideman to Ray Charles. Not as a solo artist.”

Susan looked to me. I turned to her and grudgingly nodded. She drank some Riesling. I worked on the haddock. And Hawk worked on his Iron Horse.

“This conversation on sexism and ogling women isn’t over,” Susan said.

“What if I ogle you all the way home?” I said.

“That,” she said, “is not only permitted, it is encouraged.”

Hawk shook his head and stood up. “Excuse me,” he said, heading toward the woman at the end of the bar, champagne glass in hand. Something he said made the woman throw back her head in laughter.

“You never told me what you found out about the woman Wayne Arnett mentioned.”

“Had a visit from my biggest fan today,” I said. “Captain Lorraine Glass. Can you believe that woman still doesn’t like me?”

“You’re an acquired taste.”

“I have explained that to her,” I said. “She’s still hesitant.”

“What did she have to say?”

I told her about my conversation with Glass.

“Sisters,” Susan said, shaking her head. “That’s horrible.”

“Yep.”

“But pretty common,” Susan said. “A sexual predator will often use a family member like a sister or even the child’s mother to get close to them. The child will blame themselves and not tell what happened. The proximity to family and the predatory grooming makes it all the more shameful and scary. They feel alone and isolated. What happened to the case?”

“The DA dismissed it.”

“Who was the DA?”

I told her. Susan knew many stories about him from Rita and how he’d been the reason for her leaving the DA’s office and going into private practice.

“It was either a bribe or blackmail,” Susan said.

“Probably,” I said. “Steiner appears to have unlimited resources.”

Susan sipped some more Riesling. I looked over to the bar to see how Hawk was doing with the woman in the mini-romper. She was feeling his biceps as he flexed.

“But Peter Steiner is probably used to dealing with the morally compromised or greedy.”

“True.”

“And you are neither.”

“That is true, too.”

“You’ll help Mattie and her friend until he’s punished,” she said. “While finding out if there are others.”

“That’s the idea.”

Susan tapped at her chin with her forefinger. She closed one eye as if giving me a long, careful consideration. I smiled back.

“It’s almost as if you like me,” I said.

“You are a taste I have acquired.”

“Hawk left half his oysters.”

Susan reached out and pushed the platter toward me.