"Are you feeling that you should have done more and better?"

"Of course."

"Do you know why he killed himself?"

"He was gay, and he didn't want to be," she said. "That's why he was seeing me. He desperately wanted to be straight."

"Isn't that a little outside the scope of your service?" I said.

As she talked she began to focus on the subject, as she always did, and in doing so she came back into control.

"It is hideously incorrect to say that one can help people change their s.e.xual orientation. But in fact I have had some success, in doing just that."

"Helping gay people to be straight?" Estelle was startled.

"Or straight people to be gay. I've had some success doing both. The trick is over time to find out where they want to go, and where they can go, and try to achieve one without violating the other."

"I've never heard that," Estelle said.

She was genuinely interested, but there was that sound in her voice that doctors get which says, in effect, "If I haven't heard of it, it's probably wrong."

"No one is willing to incur the vast outrage that would ensue," Susan said.

"It's your experience," Hawk said.

"One ought not to have such an experience," Susan said. "And if one were stupid enough to have it, one should surely not talk about it."

"Shrinks, too," I said.

"Hard to believe," Hawk said.

"We've all known people who were married," Susan said, "and left the marriage for a same-s.e.x lover. Why is it so impossible to imagine it happening the other way?"

"But who would be gay, if they could choose?" Estelle said.

"That is, of course, the existing prejudice," Susan said. "But it also implies that those who led straight lives could have chosen not to before they did."

Estelle didn't look too pleased about existing prejudice, but she didn't remark on it.

"I guess, as I think of it, that if a gay person entered into a straight relationship I'd a.s.sume it was only a cover-up."

"As if gay is permanent but straight is tenuous," Susan said.

"I hadn't thought of it quite that way before," Estelle said.

Susan nodded. "It's a hard question," she said.

"Kid making any progress?" Hawk said.

Susan smiled without pleasure.

"Yes. But it wasn't the direction he'd come to me looking for."

"He was discovering that maybe he wasn't going to change?" I said.

"Yes."

"You did what you could," Estelle said.

"I wonder if he'd have been better off without my help," Susan said.

"The rescue business is chancy," I said.

Susan smiled at me slowly, and patted my forearm.

"It is, isn't it," she said.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

Hawk was standing at the window of my office looking down at the green Chevy idling in front of Houghton Mifflin.

"Ain't it about time you and me pulled the plug on the followers?" Hawk said.

"Nope."

"How 'bout we go out to the Soldiers Field Development Corporation and shake up their boss?"

"Whom you believe to be Felton Shawcross," I said.

"Whom else?" Hawk said.

"CEO doesn't always know what his employees are doing," I said.

"True," Hawk said. "You and me for instance."

"My point exactly," I said.

"We could yank one of the followers out of his car and hit him until he tell us why he's following you."

"He may not know," I said.

"'Cause he a employee," Hawk said.

"Yes."

"We could ask whom employs him."

"We can always do that. Just like we can always call on Felton Shawcross," I said. "Right now I figure if they wanted to make a run at me they would have by now."

"Probably."

"So they're just trying to keep tabs on me."

"Probably why they following you around," Hawk said.

"Because they want to know if I'm getting closer."

"Which they'll decide based on who you see."

"Whom," I said.

Hawk turned around and looked at me and smiled.

"So when you see somebody that's important, maybe they'll do something."

"Yep."

"And then ya'll gonna know whom is important."

"You're doing that whost.whom thing on purpose, aren't you?" I said.

"Ah is a product of the ghetto," Hawk said. "Ah's trying to learn."

"And failing," I said.

"So it is your professed intention," Hawk said, "to continue visiting with princ.i.p.als in the case until you get a discernible reaction from those monitoring your movements?"

"That be my professed intention, bro," I said. "You be down with that?"

"Jesus Christ," Hawk said.

"I don't sound like an authentic ghetto-bred Negro?" I said.

"You sound like an a.s.shole," Hawk said.

"Well," I said. "There's that."

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

Brinkman "Brink" Tyler had his office in a recycled warehouse on the recycled waterfront, not so far from the Harbor Health Club. I couldn't find an open hydrant, so I parked my car on the fourth level of the garage near the aquarium and walked, with Curly behind me looking intensely like he was just out for a walk. The Lexus that had been following me was pulled up across from me on the little side way that led to the aquarium. To my left the biggest urban renewal project in the country was chattering very slowly along, and corrupting all of the downtown traffic patterns in the process.

I found Tyler Financial Services on the lobby directory and took the elegant bra.s.s-and-rosewood elevator to the second floor. I could have found stairs, I suppose, but no one of stature would use them in this building. There was a lot of brick, and a lot of pickled oak, and a lot of hanging plants, and in Tyler's front office one crisp female secretary with a British accent. To her left a half dozen people were working in front of computer screens. To her right was a large office with an etched gla.s.s door. A discreet sign on the door said simply BRINK. I gave her my card and smiled her the smile that made me look just like Tom Cruise only bigger. She smiled back, though not very warmly. She seemed to sense that I wasn't a client. She checked her appointments, saw that I had one, and took me to the office door that said BRINK. She had a surprising amount of hip sway for one so crisp.

Brink Tyler was in full uniform: striped shirt, wide yellow suspenders, polka-dot bow tie. He looked to be maybe fifty, with a fresh haircut and a good tan. His hair was smooth.

"Brink Tyler," he said and put out his hand.

We shook firmly and I sat down. Behind Tyler was a huge picture window that overlooked the harbor, where the port of Boston activity was close by and frequent.

"You were Nathan Smith's broker," I said.

"What a shame. Yes, I was. And a personal friend as well."

"How was he doing?" I said.

"Excuse me?"

"How was his economic life?"

"Fine," Tyler said. "Excellent. Nathan was a member of a very old and successful family in this city."

"That's great, isn't it? Did he have a lot of money?"

"For G.o.d's sake, man, he owned a bank."

"Wow," I said. "Could I get a look at his monthly statements?"

"Oh, no. I'm afraid that's impossible."

"I represent his wife," I said.

"No, we'd really need her permission to show you that. She should have them. They went out only last week."

"She contends that she knows nothing, and only you, Brink Tyler, can answer my questions."

"My hands are tied," Tyler said.

"Call her," I said.

"Call her?"

"Yes. Ask her permission to give me the statements."

Brink wasn't thrilled with that. He sat back and thought about it. I sat back and waited. The blue stripes in his white shirt were wide. Tyler's cuff links were, or appeared to be, solid gold with a small design that I couldn't make out. Elegant.

"Well," he said. "I guess I could do that."