"No," Felicia said, "I think it's Jeffrey. He's the chief resident."
Felicia took my temperature and my blood pressure and pulse. She had me lean forward while she smoothed the sheets and plumped the pillows. While this was going on a guy in a white coat came in with a stethoscope hanging loosely from his neck.
"Hi," he said. "I'm Jeff Good. I was in the ER when you came in."
I introduced Susan and started to introduce Hawk.
"I met this gentleman when he brought you in," Dr. Good said. "A very strong guy, it would appear. He carried you in like you were a child."
"He's childlike in many ways," Susan said.
Dr. Good smiled without really paying much attention and pulled back the sheet to look at my leg. He touched it lightly here and there, nodding to himself. The place was full of people who nodded to themselves. Everybody knew stuff. Nobody was saying.
"What's the diagnosis?" I said.
"Blood loss and infection, both the result of a single gunshot wound in your left thigh. Exhaustion. We're pumping you full of antibiotics now, and
I think we've got the infection under control. We gave you some blood already."
"When can I go home?"
Good shrugged. "Another day, probably, if your fever stays down, and you promise to see someone in Boston, and stay off the thing for a while."
"Sure," I said.
"Got everything you need?"
"I could use something to eat besides chicken broth and Jell-O."
"Is that what they're feeding you?" Good shook his head. He looked at
Felicia, who stood worshipfully aside, gazing at him. "Can we get him a real meal?"
"Of course, Doctor. No restrictions?"
"No."
He nodded at me and went out. Felicia hurried after him.
"I'd say your chances with Felicia aren't as good as they looked," I said to Hawk.
Hawk shrugged. "It's 'cause I'm not trying," he said. "Would you care to tell me how you came to be 269
here in the hospital?" Susan said. "I've had some high points from Hawk, but
I'd like the full treatment if you're not too tired."
"Certainly," I said. "It's a compelling story, which I tell elegantly."
Hawk stood up from his chair. He seemed to do this without effort. In fact without movement. One moment he was sitting and then he was standing.
"I've already heard the story," Hawk said. "I think I'll go walk Pearl.
Gun's in the drawer. Round in the chamber."
I opened the night-table drawer as he left and saw my gun. Hawk had reloaded it. I left the drawer open.
Susan looked at the gun and at me and didn't say anything.
"We found Patty," I said. "And Rich. And Gerry Broz found us."
"How?"
"Patty told somebody," I said.
"God, she must feel awful."
"Maybe," I said. "I think she's so needy, and so desperate, that she can't feel anything but the need."
Susan nodded. "So what happened?"
I told her. She listened quietly. I always loved it when I had a story to tell her, because her attention was complete and felt like sunlight. Hawk came back just before the end.
"Pearl actually killed and ate a groundhog?" Susan said.
"Showed that soup bone no mercy, either," Hawk said.
"Let's not spread this around Cambridge," I said. "The Vegetarian
Sisterhood will picket her."
"And you let Gerry Broz go?" Susan said.
"Had to. I didn't know how long I was going to stay on my feet. If I passed out while he was there, he'd have shot me with my own gun."
"Could have shot him," Hawk said.
I shrugged.
"Could you do that?" Susan said. "Just shoot him like that?"
I shrugged again.
"Gerry could," Hawk said. "Spenser keels over, Gerry shoots him while he's laying there."
"Will he…" Susan stopped. "I don't know how to say it. Will he be less dangerous to you because you let him go?"
"Pretty to think so," Hawk said.
Susan looked at me. I shook my head.
"Hawk's right," I said. "Gerry will have to come for me. He can't stand to have been-the way he would think of it-humiliated in front of his people.
"Maybe then you should have shot him," Susan said.
"As a practical matter," I said.
"Yes," Susan said.
"I love you when you're bloodthirsty," I said.
"Don't patronize me," Susan said. "You know I'm not bloodthirsty, but I love you. I can be very practical about you if I must be, very bloodthirsty if you prefer."
"I know," I said. "I take back bloodthirsty. But…" I spread my hands.
"Before all this happened I talked to Joe."
"Joe Broz?"
"Yeah. Gerry's father. He's worried about the kid. It's his only kid and he's no good and Joe knows it."
"He ought to know it," Susan said. "What chance did his son have being the child of a mobster?"
"Joe doesn't mind that he's a mobster too," I said. "Joe likes that. What kills Joe is that he's such a crapola mobster."
"He feel sorry for Joe," Hawk said.
We were all silent.
Finally Susan said, "Would you have killed him, Hawk?"
"Absolutely," Hawk said.
"He's dangerous still?"
"He gonna come for us," Hawk said.
At which point the ineffable Felicia came in with my supper.
CHAPTER 30
WHATEVER happened to that Harvard woman you used to date?" Susan said.
"Daisy or Cindy?" Hawk said. "They both from Harvard."
"Well, tell me about both of them," Susan said. "I didn't realize you had this passion for intellectuals."
"I'se here with you, missy."
"True," Susan said. "Which one was Daisy?"
I probed the sliced turkey with my fork. It was densely blanketed with a dark gravy.
"Daisy is the redhead, taught black studies." Hawk's face was without expression. Susan raised her eyebrows.
"Yeah," Hawk said. "This a while ago. Everybody teaching black studies.
Red-haired broad with freckles, grew up in Great Neck, Long Island. Only black people she ever saw were from the Long Island Expressway driving through Jamaica."
"I assume her emphasis tended toward the more theoretical aspects of the black experience," Susan said.
I ate some turkey. It was pretty tender, but the gravy was hard to chew.
"She'd read Invisible Man six times," Hawk said. "Everything Angela Davis ever wrote. Told me she ashamed of being white. Told me she thought maybe she black in another life."
I tried some mashed potatoes. They were chewy, too.
"An African princess perhaps?" I said. It came out muffled because I was still gnawing on the mashed potatoes.
"Amazing you should guess that," Hawk said.
"Funny, isn't it," I said-and paused and tried to swallow the potato, and succeeded on the second try-"how people almost never seem to have been four-dollar whores in a Cape Town crib in another life."
"Anyway, me and Daisy used to go to The Harvest for dinner," Hawk said.
"The Harvest?" Susan said.
"Un huh," Hawk said.
I put a forkful of lukewarm succotash in my mouth, chewed it aggressively and swallowed it, hoping to tamp down the potatoes a bit.
"My God," Susan said. "The thought of you at The Harvest."
"Un huh," Hawk said.
"People in The Harvest talk about Proust," Susan said. "And Kierkegaard."
"Daisy talk about my elemental earthiness," Hawk said.
"And they talk about whether they have a date for Saturday night," Susan said. "And sometimes they discuss your sign."
"You been going there without me?" I said.
"Certainly. While you're out waltzing through the woods with your faithful dog, I'm at the bar in The Harvest, wearing a beret, reading Paris-Match, sipping white wine, and smoking imported cigarettes with my hand turned the wrong way."
"Waiting for Mister Right?" I said.
"Yes. In a seersucker jacket."
"Mister Right don't wear no seersucker jacket," Hawk said.
"Sandals?" Susan said.
Hawk shook his head.
"Chinos and Bass Weejuns?"
"Nope."
"Does he wear his sweater draped over his shoulder like a shawl?"