Sudden Mischief

chapter forty-one

WHILE WE WERE having dinner at Rialto, Susan said, "We spent so much time talking to the police after the incident the other night that we haven't really discussed it with each other."

"I know it."

The waiter brought us a serving of broiled little necks.

"Hot," he said to Susan.

"Like her?" I said.

"Just like her," he said.

Susan said, "Thank you, Francis," and smiled at him enough to weaken his knees, though when he walked away he seemed stable enough. Maybe I was projecting.

"When I was alone, after it was all over, and you'd gone, I got very shaky and felt like crying."

"Post traumatic shock syndrome," I said wisely.

"That's usually somewhat more post trauma than this was," she said. "Though you are very cute to use the phrase."

"I was trying to sound smart," I said.

"Settle for cute," Susan said.

"Damn," I said. "I've been settling for that all my life."

"Anyway. I didn't cry."

"Nothing wrong with crying," I said.

"I don't like to," she said.

I shrugged. Francis came by and refilled our champagne glasses.

"Regardless," I said. "You looked pretty good with that brick, little lady."

"Do you ever get shaky after something like that?"

I thought about it.

"Mostly no," I said. "But I've done more of it than you have."

"Mostly no?"

"Yeah."

"But not always no?"

"Sometimes depends on the situation. Long time ago, in San Francisco, when I was looking for you, I had to shoot a pimp because if I didn't he'd have killed two whores. I had problems with that afterwards."

"Because it was cold-blooded?"

"Yes."

"Even though it was necessary?"

"More than that, it was my responsibility. Hawk and I got the whores into trouble with the guy. It was the only way to get them out."

"Did you feel like crying?"

"I threw up," I said.

"Oh," Susan said. "Did it bother Hawk?"

"No."

"Hawk's life has desensitized him in many cases," Susan said.

"But not in all cases," I said.

"Which is a triumph," Susan said.

We were quiet while we ate the clams. Susan washed her last one down with a swallow of champagne.

"I must admit," Susan said, "that I feel better about my own reaction, knowing you sometimes have one."

"You don't have to be so damned tough," I said.

"I don't wish to be stereotypically frail about things."

"Tough is what you do, more than it is how you feel about it before or after," I said. "You're tough enough."

"I haven't been so tough about my past," she said.

Francis came and cleared the clams and brought us each a salad of lobster and tiny potatoes. He topped off our champagne glasses without comment.

"You mean Sterling," I said.

"And Russell Costigan, and all of that," she said.

"You seem to me to have handled it pretty well," I said. "Here we are."

"But I have you embroiled in something bad because of it, because of… my former husband. That incident the other night was connected, wasn't it?"

"Probably."

"And Carla Quagliozzi?"

I shrugged.

"Did I hear something about her tongue being cut out?"

"After she had been killed," I said.

"She was one of Brad's ex-wives."

"Yes."

She shook her head.

"Things just don't go away," she said.

I ate a potato and was quiet.

"I just wanted to pretend all that never happened," she said. "But I couldn't."

I nodded and chewed my potato. It was good.

"I chose those men for their weaknesses, and then rejected them for their weaknesses."

"You said that already. No need to beat yourself up about it."

"But there's a part I haven't ever said. Not even to you."

"No need," I said.

"There is. I have caused too much trouble by not saying it."

"Long as you say it to yourself," I said.

She shook her head. "One of the reasons I was attracted to these men was that, in their imperfection, I felt safe. I knew they could never get to me."

"Get?"

"One of the aspects of my family struggle when I was little was, of course, that if my father's affection for me ever got out of hand, and my mother's worst fears were realized…"

"You had to keep him from getting you," I said.

"And having learned that, it got transferred to all the other men I knew."

"Including me."

"Me more powerful and good and complete you turned out to be," Susan said, "the more I feared that you'd get me."

"And now."

"Now, now for crissake, I know you don't even want to get me."

"True. And if I did, you wouldn't let me."

"For which I can thank Dr. Hilliard."

"So what's that got to do with how you should have faced up?" I said.

"I got you into this because I still feel guilty about it."

"If you hadn't gotten me into this, someone would have gotten me into something."

"But it wouldn't have been me," she said.

"And you feel guilty about getting me into trouble because you felt guilty about Sterling."

"Yes."

"Well, stop it," I said.

"Stop feeling guilty?"

"Yeah."

Susan stared at me for a moment and then began to smile.

"There are people in my profession who would faint dead away to hear you say that."

"But you're not one of them," I said.

Her smile widened some more. "No," she said. "I'm not one of them."

We sat for a while in silence. Then Susan, still smiling, raised her champagne glass toward me. I raised mine and touched hers.

"Here's looking at you, Sigmund," she said.

And the laughter bubbled up out of her like a clear spring.