Crimson Joy

by Robert B. Parker

  CHAPTER 20

  Hawk was taking a turn sitting with Susan while I went down to the office to look at my mail and bill a couple of clients. I walked up Berkeley Street with the wind coming off the river behind me and scattering McDonald's wrappers before me as I walked. Susan was all right as long as Hawk or I stayed with her, but it was no way to live, and I knew how much she hated needing someone to guard her.

  Inside my office I picked up the mail from the pile on the floor beneath the mail slot and went to my desk and sat down with my feet up to open it. There were several calls flashing on my answering machine, and while I opened mail I turned them on.

  The first one said, "Hello, nigger lover. I heard you last night on Jimmy Winston, and I heard you trying to say it was a white man instead of letting the nigger fry like he should. Someone ought to shut your mouth for you." I finished reading through my telephone charges, as I always did, with the fond hope that I would catch the bastards in a mistake. There were five more messages on my machine. All concurred in various elegant ways with the first, except one which was a computerized vacation real estate pitch that made me yearn for the racist threats, and one in which a male voice said softly, "Maybe you're right about Red Rose, maybe he's still out there." I stopped looking at my mail and played that one back again. Then I took out the message tape, put in a spare one, and slipped the Red Rose tape in my jacket pocket.

  I finished up on the phone bill, opened a note from Rita Fiore, written on lavender paper and smelling of lilac scent. It said she was just checking in to see how I was and maybe we should have lunch. While I was mulling this the door opened into my office and five guys, who clearly did not represent the League of Women Voters, came in one by one and formed a semicircle around my desk. The last guy in shut the door.

  "You guys are in the Kerry Drake fan club," I said, "and you've come by to ask me to your next banquet."

  The leader was a weight lifter, obviously. The quartet backing him were all good-sized, although none of them would have scared me alone. The weight lifter had on baggy prewashed jeans and black Reebok coaches' shoes and a sleeveless blue muscle shirt that said Universe Gym across the front. Given the weather outside, he must have been freezing, but how else to scare me with his muscles?

  He said, "We want to talk with you, nigger lover." I said, "Ah, didn't I just hear you on the phone?" He said, "You're trying to get that nigger off." I said, "Truth, I am truth's servant, and I don't think he did it."

  "Yeah, well we do," he said.

  "Persuasive," I said.

  "We don't like niggers, and we don't like nigger lovers," the weight lifter said.

  I felt my frustration slowly catalyze into anger and the anger begin to build. I'd been wrestling with a phantom for weeks now, and here were live bodies, right before me, asking to wrestle. I held on. Five is a lot.

  "Could you make a bicep for me?" I said.

  The weight lifter actually made a start before he caught himself. I grinned to let him know I'd seen the start.

  "Step out around that desk," the weight lifter said.

  "Or you'll come around and get me," I said.

  He was in the center, slightly forward of the other four. The guy to his right was red-haired and square-shouldered with a swarm of freckles on his face.

  The weight lifter grinned slightly at his pals and said, "Yeah."

  I got up from my chair and walked around my desk. Without breaking stride I kicked him in the groin. I put a straight left into his pal's face and pulled my gun from under my arm with my right hand. The other three froze in a kind of tableau.

  The weight lifter sank to his knees, hands and forearms pressed between his legs. Red had taken maybe two steps back and was rocking back and forth, his hands to his face, the, blood trickling between his fingers.

  "You three dopes, up against that wall," I said. "Lean your backs on it. Now walk away."

  They did as I said until they were leaning on the wall and would have to move their feet and arms and lunge to stand up.

  "You too, Red, and don't bleed on my rug." Red moved over, still holding his nose.

  "Now," I said, "you, Muscles. You ready to continue yet?"

  He was still on his knees, but he'd raised his head.

  "What do you mean?" he said. His voice was strained with discomfort.

  "You ready to teach me a lesson in race relations?" I said.

  "You didn't have a gun," he said.

  "Sure," I said. "If I didn't have a gun I could fight five of you. That seems fair."

  "If you hadn't kicked me," he mumbled.

  "I'd have punched you like I did Red and you'd have blood all over your pectoral muscles. You ready to stand up yet?"

  "Yeah." He got painfully to his feet and looked at me with his head half lowered. "We won't forget this," he said.

  "No, I certainly hope not," I said. "But I'm still game for a couple of rounds, if you like."

  "You holding the gun?"

  "Sure, just so I don't have to deal with all five of you at once. So I'll fight you one-handed. How's that sound?"

  "Sure, till I start winning, then you use the gun, right?"

  "You won't start winning, so the question is moot," I said.

  "You think you can fight me one hand?"

  "Sure," I said, and hit him square in the nose with my left fist. It rocked him back and the blood started. Just like Red. He shook his head and started toward me.

  "You on the wall, you start to move and I'll kill you," I said, and rolled backwards and let his right fist sweep past my chin. I hooked my left hand over his right shoulder and caught him on the cheek under his right eye. I did it twice more, short hooks before he could get his right shoulder and arm up for cover. When he raised the right arm I slid around him with a little shuffle and got a sharp hook into his kidneys. He grunted and turned toward me, and I slapped the gun from my right to my left hand and hit him full swinging straight overhand right on the chin, and he sagged and rubber-legged backwards two steps and sat down, his legs spread and flaccid, his arms sagging in his lap. He sat for a minute, then went over on his side and was still.

  One of the wall birds, a guy with a thick neck and very blond hair, said, "You said one hand."

  "At a time," I said.

  I put the gun back in my right hand. My knuckles were a little numb and would probably be puffy tomorrow. There was a pleasant touch of sweat on my forehead and the muscles in my shoulders and back felt energized and engorged. I felt good. Watch out, Red Rose, I'm on your trail.

  "Get him on his feet," I said, "and get him out of here."

  Red held on to his nose. The other three got the weight lifter to his feet and helped him as he wobbled among them. All five looked like they were trying to find a way to leave with dignity.

  One of them, the blond one, said, "We know where you are." I said, "You knew where I was this time, and look what it got you." No one had anything to add to that, so they shuffled the weight lifter through the door and were gone.

  I put the gun back under my arm, went to the sink in the washroom and ran cold water over my hands for a few minutes, and rinsed my face and toweled dry. Then I went back into my office and walked to the window and looked down at Berkeley Street where it intersects Boylston and did some deep breathing. . It seemed like he could trust her. He could talk to her about things he'd never said before. About that time in school. About his mother. She never told. They weren't supposed to.

  There was some sort of oath… it never hurts to keep your mouth shut.

  "My mother used to say that women would take me for all they could get."

  She smiled slightly and nodded.

  "Iguess she meant money. That they'd go out with me for my money."

  "Did you have a lot of money?"

  "Me? No. My father had some, but I never had any, and, I mean, I was a kid; kids don't have money."

  Today she was wearing a light gray suit with a high round collar and some pearls. Her stockings
and shoes were white.

  "So maybe there was something else they'd take, "she said.

  "Like what?"

  She shrugged.

  "I always felt bad when she said that. It was like nobody would go out with me for, you know, just what they could get. And it made me feel like I was stupid, like if any broad wanted to take me for everything she could get, she could, and I'd be too weak to stop her."

  "Weak," she said. It wasn't exactly a question, and it wasn't exactly a comment.

  "Dumb, whatever."

  She nodded.

  "Must have made girls seem pretty scary, when you were a boy."

  "Well, not scary. I mean a boy doesn't have to be scared of a girl"

  "Um hmm."

  "I used to fantasize sometimes. "He would feel the surge of passion, almost ejaculatory, as he flitted closer to revelation. "I used to think about tying them up." He could barely speak for the rush of excitement. He felt the sexual thrill of it dance through him.

  "Um hmm."

  They were both quiet. I could tie you up, he thought. If I had my stuff with me. I could make you stay there and tie you up.

  "What do you suppose those girls were going to take?" she said again.

  He felt as if he might explode.

  "Me," he heard his voice. "They'd take me."

  "Away from?" she said.

  "Her. "His voice seemed loose from him, out there on its own in the room.

  CHAPTER 21

  Susan and I were having dinner in Davio's on Newbury Street, in a booth in the back. Susan had developed a taste for red wine, so that lately she was putting away a glass at a single sitting. We had a bottle of Chianti between us and a salad each.

  Susan guzzled nearly a gram of Chianti and put the glass down.

  "Um," she said.

  "We've got a list of seven possibles among your clients," I said.

  "Possible Red Rose killer?"

  "Possible guy who left the rose and ran."

  "How did you come by the list?" she said.

  "We staked out the office and followed anyone who fit the description."

  "Who's we?"

  "Quirk, Belson, and me. Hawk stayed with you."

  "Because you were the man who'd seen him," she said.

  "Yes."

  "Did you compromise them?"

  "No," I said. "They never knew they were followed." I handed her the seven names typed on a piece of white paper. She picked up the paper without looking at it.

  "Of course I speculated on who it could be," she said. "To outrun you they had to fall within certain broad categories."

  I nodded. There was some bread in a basket on the table and I broke off a piece and used it as a pusher when I ate some salad.

  She looked at the list. Nodded her head.

  "Yes," she said. "These were some I considered. You must have eliminated others because they didn't look like the man you chased height, that sort of thing."

  "Yes."

  "It is unfortunate as hell," Susan said, "that our professional lives have had to intersect like this, so soon after we had reorganized our personal lives."

  "I know," I said. "But we have to deal with it. We've dealt with worse."

  "Yes," she said, and took another hit on the Chianti. "We have.

  And we can. It's just that the problem cuts across business and personal in a way that touches on the core of our relationship."

  "I know," I said.

  "We are able to love one another with the intensity that we do because we are able to be separate while we are at the same time one."

  "E Pluribus Unum?" I said.

  "I think that's something else," Susan said.

  The salads went and pasta came. When the waiter had set down the food and left, Susan said, "This thing is compromising the separateness. I'm never alone. If you're not with me, Hawk is. And when I'm working, one of you is there, at the top of the stairs with a gun."

  I nodded. I was having linguine with clam sauce. It was elegant.

  "You know that this has nothing to do with being tired of you," Susan said. She had her fork in her hand and was leaning forward over her tortellini.

  "Yes," I said. "I know that."

  "Or Hawk," Susan said. "There is no one except you I enjoy being with more than Hawk."

  "But you need time alone."

  "Absolutely."

  "But," I said, "we can't let him kill you." Susan smiled.

  "No. We can't," she said. "And I'm quite confident that we won't. If I'm to be guarded, who better?"

  We ate pasta.

  "If one of my patients is in fact the Red Rose killer, and left the rose in my hallway, I could probably make a stab at which of these names it is," Susan said.

  "But you aren't going to," I said.

  "I can't." She ate some more tortellini. "Yet."

  "Remember that it's not only you. It might be some unknown black woman that he's going to do next."

  Susan nodded. "That of course also weighs with me. This is very difficult." She drank some wine. "He has not struck, if you'll pardon the melodramatic statement, since Washburn confessed."

  "We both know the answer to that," I said.

  "Yes. He could lie low for a while."

  "But how long?" I said.

  "He'd probably be able to hold off for a while, but… it's need. The poor bastard is driven by a need he cannot resist. He's acting out something awful."

  "So he'll do it again."

  "Yes," Susan said softly. "And God only knows what going under cover costs him, and what he'll be like when he emerges."

  "You think he's one of yours," I said.

  She looked at the wine in her glass. The light above the booth shone through it and made it ruby. Then she looked back up at me and nodded slowly.

  "I think he's one of mine."

  "Which one?" I said.

  She shook her head.

  "I haven't the right," she said. "Not yet. If I'm wrong and he's accused, it will destroy him."

  "Godammit," I said.

  Susan reached across the table and put her hands on my mouth. She let her hands slide down from my mouth along my shoulders and arms and rested them on my forearms.

  "Please," she said. "Please."

  I took in as much air as I could get through my nose and let it out slowly, the way I used to let cigarette smoke drift out after I inhaled.

  She was leaning forward so far that the tortellini was in danger.

  "To be who I am. To be the woman you love, to be part of what we are, which is not like anyone else is, to be Susan, I have to be able to deal with this as I must. I must use my judgment and my skill and I mustn't let fear change any of that."

  I looked at her small hands lying on my forearms. It seemed as if we were alone in a void, no waiters, no diners, no restaurant, no world.

  And it seemed as if we sat that way for twenty minutes.

  "No," I said finally, "you mustn't. You're perfectly right."

  I looked up at her big eyes, and they held me. She smiled slowly.

  "And," I said, "you're about to put your tit in the tortellini." . He'd heard the boyfriend on the radio, Spenser. He'd been saying that the schwartze didn't do it. Did they know about him? Did the sonovabitch make him when he'd left the rose? Everybody else thought the schwartze did it. How come Spenser didn't? Did she? Did she know he did it? Did she know he tied all the other broads up and gagged them and watched them struggle and try to scream through the gag? He looked at the fish in the tank swimming quietly, the morning sun shining through the tank.

  She'd come out in a minute and say come in and then he'd be in the tank.

  Maybe she'd like being tied up. Some women did. They liked being tied up and naked and begging for it. He could feel the rush again as he thought about it. But he couldn't come talk to her anymore if he did something. And she might tell the boyfriend. Big bastard. In the papers it said he'd been a fighter. Fuck him. Maybe she'd told the boyfriend. Maybe she suspected
him from what he said in there. They knew. Shrinks knew stuff even when you didn't want them to. She watched him all the time. She watched when he moved his arm or jiggled his foot, or shifted in the chair. She watched everything. She concentrated on him… the fish cruised in slow circles in the sunny water… she cared about him. She wouldn't tell the boyfriend. She wouldn't. The boyfriend thought it on his own. The has tard. She wouldn't tell. The office door opened. She was there in a dark blue dress with red flowers on it.

  "Come in," she said.

  When he stood, it startled the fish and they darted about in the tank.

  "My father used to go to whores," he said. "And then he'd feel bad about it and the next day he'd bring her roses." The shrink seemed interested. He thought she would be.

  "And she used to say, "You been with some floozie, George? "And he'd just sort of look at the floor and say, "A rose for you, Rosie," and he'd go away."

  "He wouldn't fight with her," the shrink said.

  "No, he never fought with her. He just got drunk and went to the whores."

  She looked quietly at him. There was always that quiet about her, that peaceful welcoming stillness. No judgments.

  "How did you feel about that?" she said.

  He felt himself shrugging, felt himself being casual.

  "Hell, he took me once," he said. He felt the feeling again in his stomach, the feeling of void ness She raised her eyebrows slightly.

  "Black hooker," he said. "I was about fourteen." The void was expanding and behind it the sensation, the hotness and tingle that always came. He heard himself telling her. He felt his daring and that added to the tingle. "Christ, she smelled bad."

  The shrink waited, inviting him with her calmness.

  "Turned me off," he said, still feeling himself being casual.

  They were both quiet, the shrink sitting perfectly still, he sitting as casually as he could, one arm leaning on the back of his chair. He could feel his eyes begin to tear. Still casual, he looked at her, blurred now, waiting.

  "I couldn't," he said, his voice shaky and hoarse. "I couldn't do anything. She was fat, and, and .. He felt his shoulders shake a little. "… hairy and… she was mean."

  "To you?" the shrink said.