chapter thirty-six


SUSAN AND I were walking up Linnaean Street holding hands. They were halfway through laying the brick walk up to the new condominium being rehabbed out of an old Victorian next to Susan's place. The bricks were being set in stone dust instead of sand, and a pile of it made a small gray pyramid next to a half-empty pallet of paving bricks. It was eleven o'clock in the evening and the site was deserted, except for two guys who stepped out of the half-built condo. One of them had a gun and he was pointing it at me. The other one was Buster DeMilo.

"Don't do anything fancy," Buster said, "or the broad gets it too."

"Susan, this is Buster," I said. "Buster, Susan."

"Stand over there, Susan," Buster said. "And stay quiet."

Susan stepped aside. Buster's associate kept the gun on me. He was a short guy with small eyes narrowly separated by a sharp nose. His hair was long and he wore an earring. The gun was a semiautomatic, nine millimeter, probably. Maybe a Colt. The short guy seemed comfortable with it.

"You got a beatin' coming," Buster said.

"No doubt," I said. "This one from Haskell?"

"Mr. Wechsler can't allow people to embarrass him like you done. Been any worse and I'da had to kill you."

"You going to do the beating?" I said.

"Yeah."

"And Needle Nose with the gun? He's here to be sure you win?"

"They tell me you're always heeled," Buster said. "Shorty does most of the shooting."

"He shoot Carla Quagliozzi?"

Buster was putting on a pair of tan leather gloves. "We ain't here to talk, pal," he said.

Buster feinted with his right hand and brought in a pretty good left hook. I half slipped the punch and shuffled back and a little sideways. Buster was big. Bigger than I was, and he looked in shape, and he knew what he was doing. He shuffled after me in a way that told me he used to box. If he used to, then he knew I used to by the way I'd slipped his punch. Buster grinned at me.

"Done this before, ain't ya," he said.

"Both of us have."

"I can take you anyway," Buster said. "But you make too good a fight of it and Shorty will dust the broad:"

He did the same feint with his right and came around with the hook again. I blocked the hook and put one of my own over his lowered right hand and banged him on the chin. It rocked him back a step. He grunted. Shorty stepped closer, looking for direction, and while he was looking, Susan picked up a brick from its pallet and, holding it in both hands, hit him on the back of the head like someone driving a fence post. Shorty went down without a sound and the gun skittered into Linnaean Street. Buster turned at the sound and I kicked him in the groin. Buster yelped and doubled over. Susan got the gun and turned it toward Shorty before Buster had fully sunk to the ground. He lay on the ground, his hands pressed in to his crotch, his knees up. Susan had the gun in both hands as I'd shown her. It was cocked.

"You sonovabitch," Susan said. "You sonovabitch."

Shorty paid no attention. He was out. Buster wasn't out but probably wished he were. I went over and took the gun from her.

"You cock it?" I said.

"No."

"He had it cocked," I said. "Amazing it didn't go off when he dropped it."

"Yes," Susan said. "That is surprising."

Her voice was perfectly even, although she was trembling slightly. As I stood beside her the trembling stilled. Her voice was calm as iron. After great pain, a formal feeling comes.

"Is he alive?" she said. "The one I hit."

"Probably," I said.

"Oddly, I wouldn't care if he were not," she said.

"Why don't you go in and call 911," I said. "And I'll stay here and guard the casualties."

"Certainly," Susan said.

"That was pretty good, Wonder Woman."

"Yes," she said steadily. "It was."

She turned and walked unhurriedly into her house. Shorty had rolled over onto his back and his eyes were open but unfocused. Buster was sitting up, still clutching himself.

"We might want to try this again someday," I said. "Just you and me, Buster, without any guns, or a tough Jewess to tip the odds."

Buster had nothing to say to that and we were quiet the two or three minutes it took for a Cambridge cruiser to come whooping down Linnaean Street with its siren on and the blue light flashing.

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