"You used to work for the government," Quirk said. "Twenty years in, you took your pension and your contacts and set up in business for yourself."

"Yes," O'Dell said.

"And when you were a Fed," Quirk said, "you mostly spent your time subpoenaing records."

O'Dell started to protest and stopped and shrugged his high shoulders and nodded.

"You're in with tough guys, now," Quirk said.

O'Dell nodded. His hands were folded down at his paralleled thumbs, and he studied them, as if to make sure they were perfectly aligned.

"Your original question," O'Dell said.

Quirk nodded. Grimes's nose appeared to have stopped bleeding. But he continued to sit on the floor with his head in his hands.

"The thing is, we don't know what the fuck is going on."

"Tell me what you can," Quirk said. His voice was quiet.

Grimes's pale blond hair was thinning on top. With his head down, it showed the care with which he had combed his hair to hide that fact. The interchange with me had badly disarranged it, and, stiff with hair spray, the hair stood at random angles.

"We were told to come down here and try to get what he had found out about Olivia Nelson," O'Dell said.

Quirk smiled.

He said, "Un huh?"

"That's why we were kinda rough in the cell there," O'Dell said. "We didn't really know what to ask."

Quirk smiled understandingly.

"And you had four guys to help you," Quirk said.

O'Dell shrugged. "Who asked you to find this out?" Quirk said.

"Mal Chapin."

"Short for Malcolm?" Quirk said.

"I guess."

"And who is Mal Chapin?" Quirk said.

O'Dell looked surprised. In his circles, Mal Chapin was probably an important name. "Senator Stratton's office."

"He hired you?"

"Well, yeah. We're, like, ah, friends of the office, you know?"

"And the office steers business your way," Quirk said.

"Sure. That's how DeeCee works."

"Who arranged the deal with the Alton County Sheriff?"

"I don't know. I assume it was Mal. He's got a lot of clout with Party people around the country."

"And when you found out what Spenser knew," Quirk said, "what then?"

"We see if we can scare him off," O'Dell said.

"That'll be the day," I said.

I sounded exactly like John Wayne. No one seemed to notice. Quirk looked at O'Dell for a long, silent moment. Then he took one of the business cards out of his pocket and went to the phone. He read the dialing instructions, and dialed.

"This is Lieutenant Martin Quirk," he said. "Is Reilly O'Dell there?... How about Edgar Grimes?... I'm the Homicide Commander, Boston Police Department. Please describe O'Dell for me."

He waited. Then he nodded. "How about Grimes?" he said. He waited some more.

Then he said, "No, Miss, that's fine. Just routine police business. What is your name, Miss? Thank you. No, they are not involved in a homicide."

He hung up. "Your secretary is worried about you," he said.

Neither of them said anything.

"What is your secretary's first name?" Quirk said to O'Dell.

"Molly," O'Dell said.

"What's her last name?" Quirk said to Grimes.

"Burgin," Grimes said. He continued to hold his head in his hands and stare at the floor between his feet.

Quirk looked at me. "Got any questions?" I shook my head. "Okay," Quirk said.

We went to the door. Quirk paused and turned back to O'Dell and Grimes. A bruise was beginning to form on Grimes's forearm where Quirk had hacked the gun free.

"Have a nice day," Quirk said.

And we turned and left the room. Nobody said good-bye.

chapter twenty-five.

WHEN SUSAN AND I made love at her house, we had to shut Pearl the wonder dog out of the bedroom, because if we didn't, Pearl would attempt tirelessly to insinuate herself between us. Neither of us much wanted to leap up afterwards and let her in.

It was Sunday morning. We lay under one of Susan's linen sheets with Susan's head on my chest in the dead quiet house, listening to the sound of our breathing. I had my arm around her, and under the sheet she was resting the flat of her open hand lightly on my stomach.

"Hard abs," Susan said, "for a man of your years.

"Only one of many virtues," I said.

There was a big old windup Seth Thomas clock on Susan's bureau. It ticked solidly in the quiet.

"One of us has to get up and let the baby in," Susan said.

"Yes."

The sun was shining off and on through the treetops outside Susan's bedroom window and the shadows it cast made small patterns on the far wall. They were inconstant patterns, disappearing when a cloud passed and reappearing with the sun.

"Hawk came by and took me to dinner while you were gone," Susan said.

"Un huh."

"Fact, he came by several times," Susan said.

"He likes you," I said.

"And I swear I saw him outside my office a couple of times when I would walk a patient to the door."

"Okay, Quirk asked him to keep an eye on you when I got busted in South Carolina. He knew something was up and he didn't know what. Still doesn't."

"And Martin thought I'd be in danger?"

"He didn't know. He was being careful."

"So Hawk was there every day?"

"Or somebody, during the night too."

"Somebody?"

"Maybe Vinnie Morris, maybe Henry, maybe somebody I don't know."

"Maybe someone should have told me."

"Someone should have, but I'm the only one who knows how tough you are. They didn't want to scare you."

"And you think it's all right now?"

"Yeah. With Quirk involved, and the Federal Attorneys in Boston and Columbia. The cat's out of the bag, whatever cat it is. No point in trying to chase me away."

"So I don't need a guard?"

"No."

"Wasn't Vinnie Morris with Joe Broz?" Susan said.

"Yeah, but he quit him a while back, after Pearl and I were in the woods."

Susan nodded. We were quiet for another while. Susan moved the flat of her hand in small circles on my stomach.

"One of us has to get up and let the baby in," Susan said.

"Yes."

The mutable patterns on the far wall disappeared again, and I could hear a rhythmic spatter of rain against the window glass.

Susan said, "I'd do it, but I'm stark naked."

"I am too," I said.

"No, you're just naked," Susan said. "Men are used to walking around naked."

"Do you think stark naked is nakeder than naked?" I said.

"Absolutely," Susan said.

She tossed the sheet off of her. "See?" she said.

I gazed at her stark nakedness for a while. "Of course," I said and got up and opened the bedroom door.

Pearl rose in one movement from the rug outside the door and was on the bed in my place, with her head on my pillow, by the time I had closed the door and gotten back to the bed. I nudged her over a little with my hip and got in and wrestled my share of the sheet over me, and the three of us lay there with Pearl between us, on her stomach, her head on the pillow, her tail thumping, attempting to look at both of us simultaneously.

"Postcoital languor," I said.

"First," Susan said, "you tell me about South Carolina, and then we'll go out and have a nice brunch."

So I told her.

"And the woman in Nairobi really is Olivia Nelson?" Susan said.

"Yeah, guy from the American Embassy went over and talked with her. She's the real thing. Fingerprints all the way back to her time in the Peace Corps, passport, marriage certificate, all of that."

"Does she have any idea who the woman was that was killed?"

"Says no."

Pearl squirmed around between us until she got herself head down under the covers, and curled into an irregular ball, taking up much more than a third of the bed.

"What are you going to do now?" Susan said.

She had her hand stretched out above the bulge Pearl made in the sheet, and she was holding my hand, similarly stretched. The rain spattered sporadically on the windowpane, but didn't settle into a nice, steady rhythm.