Thin Air

"And you've not spoken with Frank about this?"

"Mostly he doesn't know what day it is," I said. "But even if he did, what's to talk about?"

"One would assume if you were looking for a man's wife, you would want to talk with him about it if possible. If only to offer him emotional support."

"He won't want to talk about it," I said. "Except as a case."

"Maybe you should help him, when he's able."

"Some people," I said, and stopped and took a significant bite of the second sandwich, "even some very intelligent people, even now and then some very intelligent shrinks, sometimes think that not talking about things is a handicap. For the people who aren't talking about things, however, it is a way to control feelings so you won't be tripping over them while you're trying to do something useful. Containment is not limitation. It is an alternative to being controlled by your feelings."

Susan smiled.

"How artful," she said. "You're talking about men and women, but you don't specify."

"I don't think it's necessarily gender differentiated," I said. "Lot of women are critical of a lot of men on the issue, and a lot of men feel that women don't get it. But I hate to generalize. You, for instance, are very contained."

"And there are moments when you are not."

Pearl came loping back from the house toward my second sandwich. There was an accusatory look to her as she came, unless that was just projection on my part. I got another large bite in before she reached me.

"Like when?" I said around the bite.

"You know," Susan said. "I don't wish to speak of it in front of the baby."

"She has to know sometime," I said.

Pearl rested her chin on my knee and rolled her eyes up to look at me. I gave her the remainder of my sandwich.

"I think she knows everything she needs to know, now," Susan said.

Pearl bolted down the remainder of my lunch and wagged her tail.

"You won't tell the guys, will you?" I said. "That the dog bullies me?"

"No," Susan said. "Or that you let me see your emotions from time to time."

"Whew!"

"Have you located this man Deleon?"

"No. I've talked to the cops and a priest. He's somewhere in Proctor. Monday, I'm going to talk to a guy named Freddie Santiago, who's sort of the mayor of Hispanic Proctor."

"Isn't that most of Proctor?"

"Yeah, nearly all."

"But he isn't the real mayor."

"He may be the real mayor. But the official mayor is a guy named Harrington."

"Is Hawk helping on this?"

"Hawk's in Burma," I said. "Right now, I need someone who speaks Spanish."

"Burma? What can Hawk be doing in Burma?"

"Better not to know," I said. "Gives us deniability."

Chapter 15

When he came into the coffee shop at the Park Plaza, Quirk looked like he always did, thick bodied, neat, clean shaven, fresh haircut, hands like a mason. Today he wore a blue suit and a blue-and-white striped shirt. He slid into a seat across from me and ordered some coffee.

"Deleon is dirty," he said.

"Not a surprise," I said. "How bad is it?"

"Pretty bad," Quirk said. "He's been arrested twice on assault, once on possession with intent… once for rape. He walked on both assault charges when the witnesses failed to appear. He walked on the rape charge when the victim recanted. He got a suspended sentence and three for the possession with intent."

"The wheels of justice grind exceeding slow," I said.

"Don't they?" Quirk said. "He is suspected of, but never charged with, several murders associated with the drug trade, and probably some homicides related to some kind of sporadic turf war going on up there between him and Freddie Santiago. Freddie's got them outnumbered, I'm told, and owns most of the city. But Deleon and his outfit are so mean and violent and plain fucking crazy that Freddie has never had the nads to go into San Juan Hill and dig them out."

I nodded. A waitress came over and poured coffee into Quirk's cup.

"Would you like a menu?" she said.

Quirk said, "No, you got a couple plain donuts?"

The waitress said that she had and went to get them.

"You got any history on him?" I said.

"More than you want to read," Quirk said. "Department of Ed's got core evaluations. DYS got counseling reports. There's a file in the Department of Employment and Training, the Probation Commission, Department of Social Services, Public Welfare, probably the Mass. Historical Commission. If there was a state service this kid used it."

"How old is he?"

"Twenty-six. Born in Puerto Rico, came here as a baby. His mother was a hooker, father unknown. Mother was a crack head, committed suicide ten years ago. No record of him finishing school. He was in an outreach program at Merrimack State for a while. Which is probably where he met Lisa. Started in 1990. Lisa was there then."

The waitress returned with the donuts. She refilled Quirk with real coffee and freshened up my decaf.

"Got a picture?" I said.

Quirk nodded and handed me a mug shot, full face and profile. The first thing I noticed was that women would think he was handsome and most men wouldn't. He had a thin face with big dark eyes, and a strong nose. His hair looked longish and he was probably twenty-one or -two in the mug shot. I read his stats on the back: 6'5", 200 pounds. We were in the same weight class, but he'd have reach on me.

"DYS counseling report says he shows signs of incipient paranoid schizophrenia and is deemed capable of sudden violent rages."

"Sounds like you," I said.

"Yeah, I'd probably have incipient paranoid schizophrenia, if I knew what it meant. You interested in the prints we lifted on Lisa?"

"Isn't that cute," I said. "Yes, Lieutenant, I am agog with interest."

"Nice of you to notice that I'm cute," Quirk said. "Prints belong to somebody named Angela Richard." He gave it the French pronunciation. "She was busted in LA in 1982 and again in '85 for soliciting."

"No mistakes?" I said.

"No, they sent us her pictures. It's Lisa."

"Jesus Christ," I said. "Belson know?"

"Not yet."

"You going to tell him?"

"No, you?"

"Not yet," I said.

Quirk picked up his second donut, leaned back in his chair and looked past me out the big plate glass window at Park Square, where the yellow cabs were queuing up near the hotel entrance. The doormen were opening their doors with a flourish and pocketing the tips deftly.

Quirk said to me, "You got some co

"Cop named Samuelson," I said. "LAPD."

Quirk nodded.

"You decide you want to bust that tenement up in Proctor, gimme a shout."

"Sure," I said.

Quirk finished his donut and left. I watched him as he walked past the picture window, a big, solid, tough guy, whose word you could trust. He swaggered a little, the way cops do, as he walked toward St. James Avenue.

Chapter 16

Susan and I were aboard American flight number 11 when it took off without incident at nine a.m. We ate breakfast on the plane and speculated between ourselves as to what it was. Then Susan put on her earphones to watch the movie. And I settled in to read the rest of my current book, Streets of Laredo, and worry about crashing. I worried less while we were flying along. They didn't usually fall suddenly from the sky.