Robert B. Parker’s Someone to Watch Over Me

40

I brought a pizza and flowers to Susan. And a basted bone to Pearl. Her chewing had grown worse, two antique chairs recently falling prey to her sharp little teeth.

“You certainly know the way to a girl’s heart.”

“I had a hard time deciding on the beef knuckle or the ham bone.”

Susan swatted me on the nose with the summer bouquet. I marched the pizza upstairs to her kitchen, Pearl sniffing and following behind me. I placed the pizza box in the oven and unwrapped the ham bone for Pearl.

Pearl snatched it up and marched away with it in her mouth as if just receiving an Oscar.

I turned on the oven, found a bottle of Ipswich in the refrigerator and a bottle of Chianti in the pantry. I opened the wine, poured a glass, and cracked open my beer off the edge of the counter.

Susan was still dressed for work in her shrinking outfit. A black silk jumpsuit with tall black heels. She pulled out her earrings and kicked off her heels, snatching up the wineglass.

“Long day.”

“The last client was especially trying,” she said.

“It’s funny,” I said. “I can talk to you about my work. But you can’t talk to me about yours.”

“You find that funny?” she said. “That’s why therapists often need therapists.”

“But you don’t.”

She took a seat at the kitchen table and drank a little wine. “I often only need a little time to clear my head.”

I drank a little beer. Pearl padded up to me and rested her head against my leg. She looked up at me, and I rubbed her long ears.

“Seems familiar.”

I nodded.

“Do you really believe it’s her?” Susan said. “Or is that just something that makes you feel better?”

“Does it matter?”

Susan watched as Pearl climbed into my lap and began to lick the bottle of beer. I thought about tilting it a bit to give her a sip.

“Don’t even think about it,” she said.

Susan headed back to the oven and checked on the pizza. When she returned, she leaned against the counter and took a sip of the Chianti. Pearl had stopped angling to drink my beer and settled into my lap. I stroked her smooth, almost hairless skin, and she let out a long, content breath. I also took in a deep breath, far from content, and let it out slowly.

“I have good news and bad news,” I said. “Which one do you prefer first?”

“Who in their right mind likes bad news first?”

“Masochists,” I said. “Fatalists. It makes them happy.”

“Since I’m neither,” she said.

“You’ll be happy to know that tonight’s pizza came from Armando’s.”

“I saw the box.”

“And I did not add anchovies.”

Susan thought about it and then raised her glass. “And now for the bad.”

“Perhaps we should wait until after we eat.”

“That bad?”

I waffled my hand over the table. Pearl watched the motion with great curiosity and then glanced up to Susan. I drank the second half of my beer and set down the bottle. “He’s back.”

“He?”

“Ruger,” I said. “The Gray Man.”

“And what does that have to do with us?” she said. “That business was finished a long time ago.”

“One might think.”

“You let him go,” she said. “Twice. You could’ve killed him. Or had him prosecuted.”

“A wedding gift for his daughter.”

“An inappropriate gift,” she said. “Considering what all he’d done.”

I started to get up, and Pearl sprang off my lap. I was headed to the refrigerator when Susan turned and grabbed me a new beer and cracked off the top on the countertop.

“Explain,” she said.

I told her more about the run-in with Poppy Palmer in Boca. I told Susan that Poppy had known a lot about my shooting. And then I explained about the visit to Grace Bennett’s earlier that day. She listened intently to every detail.

“You treated a dishonorable man with honor.”

“It certainly appears that way.”

Susan walked to the table and sat down. She closed her eyes and shook her head. “There are times when I can deal with this insanity clinically,” she said. “I can compartmentalize who you are and what you do and realize that’s just part of the package. But right now, at this point in our lives, I’ve had enough.”

“Meaning.”

“I am asking you to do something I seldom ask of you.”

I waited.

“Let the police handle this,” she said. “You and Mattie have done a fine and admirable job finding these victims. You have put these girls and their parents in touch with perhaps the best attorney in Boston, someone they could never know or afford. And now you’ve delivered pertinent and important details to Lee Farrell. Do you really believe Lee won’t do everything he can to make sure Peter Steiner and all his associates go to jail?”

“Nope.”

“Then step back,” Susan said. “Please. This man is paid to kill people. If he took Steiner’s money, he’ll finish this. You are a living reminder of everything he’s not. He’d be delighted if you are dead. You probably shouldn’t have let him go the last time.”

“Hawk and Quirk agree.”

“What else is there to do?” she said.

“Find more victims,” I said. “Make sure nothing happens to any of them. Make sure that Carly Ly is found and brought home.”

“None of that is your job.”

“And how would that look to Mattie?” I said. “If I quit.”

Susan gulped down the wine and reached for the bottle. She refilled the glass almost to the rim.

“Do you remember how long it took you to recover?”

“Not something easy to forget.”

“I can’t do that again,” she said, starting to cry. “I refuse to lose you and be left caring for this crazy little nibbling hound well into my golden years.”

Pearl wandered over and placed her front paws on Susan’s knees.

“No way,” she said. She knocked Pearl away, wiped her eyes, and tried to stop crying. “If something happens to you, this dog can’t live here. She’s your dog. Your responsibility. If you want to make her Pearl, you’ll just have to stick around.”

Pearl scrambled up into Susan’s lap and began lapping up the tear streaks. Susan laughed and cried and finally kissed the little puppy on its head. She gulped down some more wine.

“Goddamn you both.”

“I can’t do it, Suze.”

“I know.”

“But if it’s really him, I know what needs to be done.”

“Is that any comfort?”

“To me, it is,” I said. “Now how about some pizza?”