Pastime

"His past," I said.

Vi

"His past," Vi

I nodded.

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"

"Kid's about to get married," I said. "She was pretty much a bitch all his childhood and he wants to know her as something other than that before he moves too far on into adulthood."

"You shoulda been a college professor," Vi

"You say that because you don't know any college professors," I said.

Vi

"True," I said. "But you asked me."

"Yeah," Vi

He took a package of Juicy Fruit gum from his coat pocket and offered me some. I shook my head, and he selected a stick, and peeled it open, and folded it into his mouth.

"Me and Joe don't give a fuck about her," he said. "We want him."

"I don't give a fuck about him," I said. "I want her."

Vi

"How about Gerry?" I said.

This time there was no hint of expression in Vi

Joe's kid."

"Joe's a creep," I said, "but compared to his kid he's Abraham Lincoln."

Vi

"Is Gerry going to get in the way?" I said.

"Joe told him to stay out of this."

"You think he will?"

Again Vi

® ю

No.

"Like I said. What about Gerry?"

"Okay," Vi

Joe a long time. You don't like him. That's okay. He don't like you. But

Joe says he'll do something, he will. He says he won't, he won't."

"That's true for you, Vi

"We won't argue. I know Joe a long time. But we both know Gerry and we know he's a fucking ignoramus.

"But he's mean and you can't trust him," I said.

"Exactly," Vi

"So you're going to have trouble with Gerry too."

"Nothing I can't handle."

"Tricky though," I said.

"Yeah," Vi

"You want to tell me what kind of mess Gerry is in with Richie Beaumont?"

"No."

The light was begi

"I have no interest in Richie Beaumont," I said. "But I have a lot of interest in Patty Giacomin. I would not want anything bad to happen to her."

"I got no need to hurt the old lady," Vi

"You let me know if you find him?"

I gri

"Yeah," Vi

We were silent some more, listening to the traffic. "I don't want trouble with you, Spenser."

"Who would," I said.

"You're probably half as good as you think you are," Vi

"Hawk," I said.

"You and he can be a large pain in the fungones."

"Nice of you to say so, Vi

"So let's think about helping each other out, maybe, to the extent we can."

"Sure," I said.

"Good," Vi

"Hawk with you in this?" he said.

"Not so far," I said.

"Gerry's got a lot at stake here," Vi

"He has to be," I said. "Thanks."

Vi

"Yeah," he said. And went out.

CHAPTER 12

SUSAN insisted on cooking di

"Helmut hears you're doing your own cooking," I said, "he'll have a heart attack. You represent his profit margin."

"I won't abandon him," Susan said. She had every pot she owned, including two she had just bought for the occasion, out on the counter. Pearl was underfoot sampling the residue in a pan already used. Susan gave us each a

Catamount Golden Lager to drink and then went back to her preparation.

"Couscous," she said. "With chicken and vegetables."

"Sounds great," Paul said.

Susan cleared a space among the pans and put some chicken breasts down on the marble counter and began to cut them into cubes. Pearl stood on her hind legs, with her front paws on the counter, and pointed the raw chicken from a distance of three inches.

"Doesn't that tend to beat hell out of the knife blade?" Paul said.

Susan looked at him as if he'd espoused pedophilia.

"No," Paul said quickly. "No, of course it doesn't."

I sipped my beer. Susan continued to hack up the chicken. She had her lower lip caught in her teeth, as she always did when she was concentrating. I liked to watch her.

Paul watched me watching her.

"Is Susan the first woman you ever loved?" he said.

"Yes."

"What about this hussy you mentioned the other day in the Ritz bar?" asked

Susan.

"She was a girl," I said.

"And you?" Susan said.

"I was sixteen," I said. "And she sat in front of me in French class."

"Sixteen?" Paul said. "You had a childhood?"

Pearl managed to get a scrap of raw chicken. She got down quickly and trotted to the living room where she put it on the rug and rolled on it.

"I can hardly remember her face now," I said. "But she had long hair the color of thyme honey, and she combed it straight back and it was quite long and very smooth. Her name was Dale Carter,and I used to write her little notes of poetry and slip them to her. And she'd read them and smile and I knew she was flattered."

"Poetry?" Susan said.

Pearl returned from the living room licking her muzzle.

"Yeah. Stuff I'd read and would adjust to fit her.

Dale, thy beauty is to me like those Nicean barks of yore… that kind of thing."

Paul and Susan looked at each other. Pearl continued to point the chicken.

"Well," Susan said, "you were sixteen."

"Barely," I said.

"So," she said, "did it develop?"

"We became friends," I said. "We would talk all the time between classes and we would eat lunch together and sit on the high school steps after school, and I just couldn't get enough of her. I just wanted to look at her and hear her voice."