Back Story. Part 14

Hawk poured himself some more champagne. "So how come the mob. " Hawk said.

"Or some of it," I said.

"And the FBI. "

"Or some of it."

"Both want to cover up the twenty-eight-year-old murder of some hippie broad from San Diego?" Hawk said.

"Nicely restated," I said.

"Thank you-you talk with the husband yet?"

"Daryl's father?"

"Uh-huh."

"San Diego seemed like a long way to go," I said.

"We got no place else to go."

"Excellent point," I said.

26.

Susan sat on the bed watching me pack. Pearl loped around my apartment, alert for something to chew.

"What are you going to do about a gun?" Susan said. "It's not a good time to be checking one through."

"Hawk has an arrangement," I said.

"I shudder to think," Susan said.

"If you came, we could stay at La Valencia in La Jolla and eat in their upstairs restaurant with a view of the cove."

"Would there be any s.e.x involved?" Susan said.

"Only with me," I said.

"Oh," Susan said.

We were quiet for a moment. Pearl padded silently into the bedroom and circled my bed and padded silently out. We both watched her.

"I can't leave her yet with someone else," Susan said.

I nodded.

"You understand."

"Better," I said. "I agree."

"But you still wish I could come," Susan said.

I smiled at her.

"Why are you smiling?" she said.

"You are always," I said, "so entirely you."

"Yes," Susan said. "I believe I am."

I finished packing and closed the suitcase.

"How can you exist for several days with what's in that suitcase?" Susan said.

"Astonishing, isn't it?" I sat on the bed beside her. She looked straight at me for a moment, then suddenly she pressed her face against my chest. I put my arms around her. Neither of us said anything. We sat for awhile.

With her voice m.u.f.fled against my shirt, Susan said, "Hawk will be with you."

"Yes."

"And you are one of the toughest men in creation," she said.

"Also true."

Pearl came back into the bedroom and saw us and came over and sniffed and sat suddenly down and stared at us with her ears c.o.c.ked slightly forward. After a time, Susan raised her head and kissed me with her mouth open. She pressed herself harder against me.

"Pearl is watching," I said.

"I don't care," Susan said.

Which turned out to be true.

27.

At San Diego Airport, a young, athletic-looking black man was waiting for us as we came into the main terminal. He was dressed like a character on television, with a blue-and-white durag under a side-skewed Padres baseball hat. There were a lot of platinum chains, some very expensive basketball shoes, some very baggy jeans, and a Chargers jersey that had SEAU printed across the back. He was carrying a green Adidas gym bag with white stripes on the side and holding a hand-lettered sign that said SPENSER on it.

I said, "I'm Spenser."

He looked at Hawk. Hawk nodded, and the kid gave me the gym bag, folded up his sign, and swaggered away like a guy looking for a fight.

The rental car was a white Volvo sedan. Hawk drove while I opened the bag and, among a couple of towels bunched up for bulk, found two holstered Smith & Wesson nines with four-inch barrels and a stainless satin finish. They each carried ten rounds, plus one in the chamber. There was an extra magazine for each gun and two boxes of Remington 9mm ammunition. I checked one of the guns, and it was loaded, including a round in the chamber. Hawk glanced over as he drove up Route 5. "Networking," he said.

"Hanging with a thug has its moments," I said.

"I prefers the term 'criminal genius,' " Hawk said.

"Of course you do," I said.

Barry Gordon had a small house in Mission Bay with a narrow view of the water. We pulled up in front, and I got out, with my new gun unholstered and stuck in my hip pocket. Getting the holster on my belt seemed more trouble than I wanted to go through in the car. Hawk waited in the car, listening to a reggae station. The front yard had a low picket fence around it. The fence needed to be painted. Actually, it needed to be sc.r.a.ped, sanded, and painted. The gate hung crooked, its hinges loose. In the small, weedy front lawn, a black Labrador retriever with a red bandana around his neck barked at me without hostility when I pushed the gate open.

Behind me, Hawk lowered the power window and said, "Backup?"

"Fortunately, I'm armed," I said.

Once I was inside, the Lab came over with his tail wagging slowly and his ears flattened, and waited for me to pat him, which I did before I knocked on Barry's door, which needed the same treatment the fence needed. The door opened almost at once.

"Hey," Barry said.

"Hey," I said.

"You Spenser."

"I am."

"So come on in, man."

"Thanks."

Barry was shirtless, wearing only tartan plaid shorts and flip-flop rubber shower sandals. He had a lot of gray hair, which he wore in a single braid that reached the small of his back. His upper body was slim and smooth, with no sign of muscle. The house appeared to have a living room on one side of the stairs and a kitchen on the other. My guess was that there were two bedrooms and a bath upstairs. Barry waved at the living room in general.

"Have a seat, man. Anywhere you'd like."

The choices were limited. He had a daybed covered with a khaki blanket and two cane-backed rocking chairs. A big television sat on a small steamer trunk under the front window, and an old pink princess phone rested on an inverted packing crate. There was a large circular dog cushion in the middle of the room, filled, from the smell, with cedar shavings. The Lab, who had come in when I did, plomped down on it and stretched his legs out to the side and went to sleep. I sat on the daybed.

"You want a gla.s.s of water or something?" Barry said. I shook my head. He sat in one of the rocking chairs. Beside the chair, on what looked to be an orange crate, was a Baggie full of something that looked like oregano but probably wasn't. Beside the Baggie was a package of cigarette papers.

"So," he said. "How's baby Daryl."

"She's quite a good actress," I said. "You ever see her perform?"

"No, man, regrettably, I never got the chance."

"I can see you're a busy guy," I said.

"I write music," he said.

"Of course you do," I said. "What can you tell me about Daryl's mother?"

"Emmy?"

"Emily Gordon," I said.

"Well, s.h.i.t, man, she died thirty years ago."

"Twenty-eight," I said.

Without looking, Barry extracted a cigarette paper from the packet and picked up his Baggie. "That's a long time ago, man."

He shook out some of the contents of his Baggie and rolled himself a joint. He was expert. He could roll with one hand. He put the joint in his mouth and fumbled with the flat of his hand on the orange crate.

"You got a match?" he said.

"No."

He stood and flip-flopped past the front stairs to the kitchen and came back with a pack of matches. He lit the joint, took a big inhale, and let it out slowly.

"Calmer?" I said.

"Huh? Oh, the joint. I know I smoke too much. I got to cut back one of these days. So what did you want to ask me?"

"Anything you could tell me," I said.

"About Emmy? Well, you know, I haven't seen her in about twenty-eight years."

He took a big drag on the joint and held the smoke in for a time and let it out slowly. He let his head rest against the woven cane back of the rocker. Then he giggled.

"s.h.i.t, man, n.o.body seen her in twenty-eight years, have they?"

"Probably not," I said. "Why did she go to Boston?"

"Always wanted to, I guess. You know how it is, man, you get some vision of a place, you finally got to go look at it, see how it compares."

He took another drag.

"She have a boyfriend?"

Barry shrugged.

"Is that a yes?" I said.

"We had a sort of informal marriage, man. You know?"

"So she had a boyfriend?"

"She had a lot of them."