Robert B. Parker’s Someone to Watch Over Me

43

That afternoon, Pearl was a welcome diversion from time ill spent with Peter Steiner and the Gray Man.

I sat alone in my darkened office, slumped into one of my client chairs and tossing a tennis ball into the empty anteroom over and over. Pearl and I made a great team, a resounding thud, thud rhythm like McQueen got going while stuck in the POW cooler. Pearl would catch the ball on the second bounce off the wall. Her hunting and retrieving instincts as deeply ingrained as mine to snoop and eat.

I tossed the ball through my office door to the outer door again, the repetition helping me unwind and focus, to practice what Susan called non-emotional, tactical thinking. I mulled over how to tactically eliminate the Gray Man from the equation and deliver the goods on Steiner.

On what I guessed to be my fiftieth throw, Pearl figured she’d had enough and bypassed me for the couch. She jumped up onto the cushions and began to work out the ball with her tiny teeth.

“Any ideas?” I said.

Pearl continued to chew.

“They won’t hesitate,” I said. “It will be quick and unexpected.”

Pearl chewed hard enough that the ball squeaked. The squeak seemed to surprise her, stopping her chewing, and then she resumed the activity with a squeak every few seconds.

“Lee Farrell is a great cop,” I said. “But his work might take months.”

Squeak. Squeak.

“We don’t have months,” I said. “These young women need to be heard. Carly Ly needs to be found. Investigations, civil suits, the Feds. Too much time.”

Squeak.

“It’s not what you look at,” I said. “It’s what you see.”

Pearl continued to chew but stopped momentarily to stare. Her skinny tail wagging back and forth. She looked content lying on her belly with her back legs spread out and her front paws holding the ball.

“I have to draw them out,” I said. “And the only way to do that is to keep annoying Steiner. Fortunately, being annoying is my skill set.”

Pearl dropped the ball, and it bounced onto the floor. She looked up at me with her brown eyes and yipped. She wanted me to retrieve it for her.

“We know Ruger will come for me,” I said. “It’s the waiting. Waiting is such hell.”

I reached down and grabbed the ball. She snatched it from my hand and started to squeak with even more fervor. I rubbed her back and her ears and thought about what Susan had said, about not saddling her with a puppy.

Pearl looked up at me, panting, with an immediate and familiar stare. I knew that look, had known it since I was a kid in Wyoming to that time I’d been ambushed in the woods by Gerry Broz and his men in Stockbridge. We’d been through much together.

“Me and you,” I said. “Always.”

I heard Mattie’s familiar triple knock on the door. Pearl jumped off my lap and bounded through my office and into the anteroom.

“I heard voices,” Mattie said.

“I was talking to Pearl.”

“Did she talk back?”

“Not yet.”

“Oh, thank God,” Mattie said.

I asked her to sit, and she did so in my chair. Mattie Sullivan looked completely at home with her Chuck Taylors kicked up at the edge of my desk.

“It’s a good idea for you to stay away for a few days,” I said.

I told her about Hawk and me meeting with Peter Steiner and his surprise very special guest. Mattie listened and for once didn’t speak until I was done.

“Nope.”

“They’ll kill me and you without giving it a second thought,” I said. “When this is settled, we can go back to our agreement. Okay?”

“Nope,” Mattie said again.

“This man doesn’t care about you,” I said. “He’s been paid to get rid of me.”

Pearl brought Mattie her ball. Mattie tossed it into the other room, but it didn’t have the elegant double bounce I’d perfected.

“Ever hear that discretion is the better part of valor?” I said.

“Is that an old saying where you come from?”

I nodded.

“We have an old saying in Southie, too,” Mattie said. “And Peter Steiner and Poppy Palmer can go royally fuck themselves.”

“Would you consider staying with Susan until things are settled?”

“I dunno,” she said. “Maybe.”

“She might need a little help with Pearl.”

“Planning on going somewhere?”

I walked over to the right-hand drawer of my desk for the .357 and a box of ammo. “Not a chance.”