"Yes."

"Because he thought it might be convenient for you to come here and let yourself in."

"Right," I said.

Quirk looked at me some more.

"We both know that's horses.h.i.t," he said. "But we also know that's all you're going to say until there's reason to say something else."

"Captain, you can't mean that," I said.

"I know you long enough to know how many corners you'll cut," Quirk said. "But I also know you end up most of the time on the right side of the way things work out."

I looked at him openly and honestly and didn't say anything.

"And"-Quirk almost smiled-"you got enough problems for the moment." He shook his head. "Susan's ex. Jesus Christ."

"You don't know who the stiff is?" I said.

"White male."

"Driver's license, anything?"

Quirk almost made a face.

"Coroner's people will go through the body," he said.

"Don't blame you," I said. "Coroner say anything about time of death."

"A while ago," Quirk said. "They get him to the lab, they'll be more exact."

"Cause of death?"

"Gunshot. Probably a small caliber. In the chest, doesn't seem to be an exit wound. We a.s.sume it's still in him."

"So he was facing whoever shot him."

"Yep. And he was carrying. When they were getting him in the bag there was a gun under him. Colt Python."

"So he had it out," I said.

"Not quite soon enough," Quirk said.

"So maybe he wasn't just somebody stopped by to organize an event," I said.

"Lot of people carry guns these days," Quirk said.

"The American way," I said. "You'll let me know when you get an ID?"

"Sure," Quirk said. "That's how we like to operate. We tell you everything we know. You bulls.h.i.t us. You don't know where your client is now, I suppose."

"No I don't."

"You find out maybe you could give me a jingle?"

"Of course," I said.

Quirk did not look as if he believed me entirely.

"You think he shot this guy?" he said.

"His office," I said. "And he's disappeared."

"We noticed that too."

"Doesn't mean he did it," I said.

"Doesn't mean he didn't," Quirk said.

"Mind if I go," I said.

"Go ahead," Quirk said.

I was tired. I walked slowly out through the uniformed cops standing around in the corridor and got in the elevator and went down. I looked at my watch. It was 3:40. When I went outside it was raining. Boylston Street was empty. The wet pavement gleamed under the street lights, reflecting the bright lifeless color of the neon signs that gleamed an artificial welcome outside bars and restaurants closed for the night. I turned up my coat collar and trudged down Boylston Street, thinking about the most encouraging way to tell Susan that her ex had upgraded from s.e.xist to murder suspect. The rain came harder. This thing showed every sign of not working out well for me.

chapter twenty-three.

SUSAN HAD HER first appointment at eight. Normally I never called her before she went to work, because she was zooming around like the Flight of the b.u.mble Bee, getting ready. Years ago I had stopped asking stupid questions, like why not start getting ready earlier so you won't be so rushed? And when I was there in the morning, I sat at the kitchen counter and had coffee and read the paper so as not to get trampled. But this morning I didn't want her to hear from television about the corpse in Sterling's office. They probably didn't have it yet, but I didn't want to take the chance. So soggy with two hours' sleep I turned off my alarm and rolled over in bed and called her up and told her what I knew.

"Do you know where Brad is?" Susan said.

As always, about important stuff Susan was calm. It is about the small stuff that she permits herself frenzy.

"No. He's not at home, or at least he wasn't last night."

"Do you think he is in trouble?"

"Yes," I said.

"Do you think he killed the man?"

"Don't know," I said. "He's obviously a suspect."

"Do you want to get out of this?"

"Not unless you want me to."

She was quiet on the phone for a moment.

"No, if you are willing, I'd like us to see it through."

"I'm willing," I said.

"When will I see you?" Susan said.

"After your last patient," I said. "I'll buy you dinner."

"Sevenish," Susan said.

Unless she had to, Susan never specified an exact time. Since I never knew how to time an arrival at sevenish, I always specified, knowing I'd wait anyway.

"I'll be there at seven," I said.

"Maybe you ought to try and go back to sleep," she said. "You were up awfully late."

"Good suggestion," I said.

"Yes," she said.

There was a pause.

Then she said, "And thank you."

"You're welcome," I said.

I knew the thank you covered a lot of ground. It didn't need to be exact.

Showered, shaved, wearing a crisp white shirt, with my jeans pressed and new bullets in my gun, I arrived at the office a little past noon, carrying a ham and egg sandwich and two cups of coffee in a brown paper bag. I took off my raincoat and my new white Red Sox cap, sat at my desk, and ate my sandwich and drank my coffee with my office door invitingly open and my feet up on the desk so anyone going by could see that I had some new running shoes. Except for the fact that I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, I was the very model of a modern major shamus. After I finished my sandwich and the first cup of coffee, I considered what options the day offered. I decided that the best one was to drink the second coffee, which I had commenced to do when Hawk showed up carrying the red Nike gym bag. He took two coffees out of the bag and put them on the edge of my desk and sat in a client chair and put the gym bag on the floor.

"Want another coffee?" he said.

"Absolutely," I said. "Doubles my options."

"Got your computer disks," he said.

"Good," I said. "Give us something to do."

"What's this 'us'?"

"You're not computer literate?"

"Been keeping company," Hawk said. "With a woman works for a software outfit. One night she show me the wonders of the Internet."

"Your reward probably for being such a studly," I said.

"Studly be its own reward," Hawk said. "Anyway, that more than I want to know about computers."

"You don't groove on the information highway?"

Hawk snorted.

"What I like," I said, "is how this wondrous artifact of science is primarily useful as a conveyance for dirty pictures."

"Of ugly people," Hawk said.

"Sadly," I said.

"Confirms your faith," Hawk said.

"My faith is unshakable, anyway," I said.

Hawk reached into the gym bag and produced a white paper bag, from the white paper bag he produced a donut. He took a bite of the donut and leaned forward and put the bag on the desk.

"Now here's a real bridge to the twenty-first century," I said and took a donut.

"Quirk tell you anything last night?" Hawk said.

"They hadn't ID'd him yet," I said. "n.o.body wanted to search the body."

"Let the ME do it," Hawk said.

"That's what Quirk said. Stiff had a gun, though. It fell out of his pocket when they were taking him away."

"So maybe he ain't from the United Way," Hawk said.

"Or maybe he is," I said.

I swung my chair around so I looked out my window. It was still raining, which in Boston, in April, was not startling to anybody but the local news people who treated it like the Apocalypse. I liked the rain. It was interesting to look at, and I enjoyed the feeling of shelter on a rainy day. When I was a little kid in Wyoming, the darkened days outside the school room window had given me something to contemplate while I was being bored to death. Something about its implacable reality reminding me that school was only a temporary contrivance. While I was thinking about the rain, the morning mail came. There was a check from a law firm I'd done some work for. There was some junk mail from a company selling laser sighting apparatus for hand guns. I gave the brochure to Hawk. And there was a letter from the Attorney General's Public Charities woman with a list of the princ.i.p.als involved with Civil Streets. With my feet propped against the windowsill I went through the list. It told me that Carla Quagliozzi was president and gave me her address. I already knew that. It listed a number of people on the board of directors, none of whom I knew, except Richard Gavin. His address was Gavin and Brooks, Attorneys-at-Law, on State Street. Son of a gun. I sat for another moment thinking about that. Behind me I heard Hawk crumple the brochure on laser sights and deposit it in the wastebasket beside my desk. I looked at the rain for a while longer.

"Okay," I said and swung my chair back around and got up and walked over to the narrow table that ran along the left-hand wall of my office. There was a computer on it. I turned it on.

"Gimme the disks," I said.

chapter twenty-four.

I AM INEXPERT with a computer and hope to remain so. I had bought one initially because Susan had one and took to it easily and had become almost immediately convinced that no office should be without one. When I did use the computer, which was rarely, and I ran into a problem, which was whenever I used the computer, I called Susan and she straightened me out. Today I ran into a problem at once. When I started up the computer and slipped in a copy of Sterling's hard disk, I couldn't get any of the folders open. I tried the other disks from the disk file we'd taken from Sterling's office. Everything was locked. Hawk was sitting in my chair with his feet up on my desk watching me.