I stood up. “You folks are going to make it. And while you are, I’m going to make a call.”
They paid me very little heed and I left feeling about as useful as a faucet on a clock. Back in the room I called Clancy in the Suffolk County D.A.’s office.
“Spenser,” I said when he came on. “Powers out of the calaboose yet?”
“Lemme check.”
I listened to the vague sounds that a telephone makes on hold for maybe three minutes. Then Clancy came back on. “Yep.”
“Dandy,” I said.
“You knew he would be,” Clancy said. “You know the score.”
“Yeah, thanks.” I hung up.
Back in the coffee shop Pam was saying, “It’s too heavy. It’s too heavy to carry the weight of being the center of everybody’s life.”
The waitress brought me another cup of coffee.
“Well, what are we supposed to do,” Harv said. “Not love you. I tell the kids, knock it off on the love. It’s too much for your mother? Is that what we do?”
Pam Shepard shook her head. “It’s just … no of course, I want to be loved, but it’s being the only thing you love, and the kids, being so central, feeling all that … I don’t know … responsibility, maybe, I want to scream and run.”
“Boy”— Harv shook his head — “I wish I had that problem, having somebody love me too much. I’d trade you in a goddamned second.”
“No you wouldn’t.”
“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t be taking off on you either. I don’t even know where you been. You know where I been.”
“And what you’ve been doing,” she said. “You goddamned fool.”
Harv looked at me. “You bastard, Spenser, you told her.”
“I had to,” I said.
“Well, I was doing it for you and the kids. I mean, what kind of man would I be if I let it all go down the freaking tube and you and the kids had shit? What kind of a man is that?”
“See,” Pam said. “See, it’s always me, always my responsibility. Everything you do is for me.”
“Bullshit. I do what a man’s supposed to do. There’s nothing peculiar about a man looking out for the family. Dedicating his life to his family. That’s not peculiar. That’s right.”
“Submerging your own ego that extent is unusual,” Susan said.
“Meaning what?”
Shepard’s voice had lost its strangled quality and had gotten tinny. He spoke too loudly for the room.
“Don’t yell at Suze, Harv,” I said.
“I’m not yelling, but I mean, Christ, Spenser, she’s telling me that dedication and self-sacrifice is a sign of being sick.”
“No she’s not, Harv. She’s asking you to think why you can’t do anything in your own interest. Why you have to perceive it in terms of self-sacrifice.”
“I, I don’t perceive … I mean I can do things I want to … for myself.”
“Like what?” I said.
“Well, shit, I … Well, I want money too, and good things for the family … and … aw, bullshit. Whose side are you on in this?”
Pam Shepard put her face in her hands. “Oh God,” she said. “Oh God, Jesus goddamned Christ,” she said.
Chapter 28
The Shepards went home after a while, uneasy, uncertain, but in the same car with the promise that Susan and I would join them for dinner that night. The rain stopped and the sun came out. Susan and I went down to Sea Street beach and swam and lay on the beach. I listened to the Sox play the Indians on a little red Panasonic portable that Susan had given me for my birthday. Susan read Erikson and the wind blew very gently off Nantucket Sound. I wondered when Powers would show up. Nothing much to do about that. When he showed he’d show. There was no way to prepare for it.
The Sox lost to Cleveland and a disc jockey came on and started to play “Fly Robin Fly.”
I shut off the radio.
“You think they’ll make it?”I said.
Susan shrugged. “He’s not encouraging, is he?”
“No, but he loves her.”
“I know.” She paused. “Think we’ll make it?”
“Yeah. We already have.”
“Have we?”
“Yeah.”
“That means that the status remains quo?”
“Nope.”
“What does it mean?”
“Means I’m going to propose marriage.”
Susan closed her book. She looked at me without saying anything. And she smiled. “Are you really?” she said.
“Yeah.”
“Was that it?”
“I guess it was, would you care to marry me?”
She was quiet. The water on the sound was quiet. Easy swells looking green and deep rolled in quietly toward us and broke gently onto the beach.
Susan said, “I don’t know.”
“I was under a different impression,” I said.
“So was I.”
“I was under the impression that you wanted to marry me and were angry that I had not yet asked.”
“That was the impression I was under too,” Susan said. “Songs unheard are sweeter far,” I said.
“No, it’s not that, availability makes you no less lovable. It’s … I don’t know. Isn’t that amazing. I think I wanted the assurance of your asking more than I wanted the consummated fact.”
“Consummation would hardly be a new treat for us,” I said. “You know what I mean,” she said.
“Yeah, I do. How are you going to go about deciding whether you want to marry me or not?”
“I don’t know. One way would be to have you threaten to leave. I wouldn’t want to lose you.”
“You won’t lose me,” I said.
“No, I don’t think I will. That’s one of the lovely qualities about you. I have the freedom, in a way, to vacillate. It’s safe to be hesitant, if you understand that.”
I nodded. “You also won’t shake me,” I said.
“I don’t want to.”
“And this isn’t free-to-be-you-and-me-stuff. This is free to be us, no sharesies. No dibs, like we used to say in the schoolyard.”
“How dreadfully conventional of you.” Susan smiled at me. “ButI don’t want to shake you and take up with another man. And I’m not hesitating because I want to experiment around. I’ve done that. I know what I need to know about that. Both of us do. I’m aware you might be difficult about sharing me with guys at the singles bar.”
“I’ll say.”
“There are things we have to think about though.”
“Like what?”
“Where would we live?”
I was still lying flat and she was half sitting, propped up on her left elbow, her dark hair falling a little forward. Her interior energy almost tangible. “Ah-ha,” I said.
She leaned over and kissed me on the mouth. “That’s one of your great charms, you understand so quickly.”
“You don’t want to leave your house, your work.”
“Or a town I’ve lived in nearly twenty years where I have friends, and patterns of life I care about.”
“I don’t belong out there, Suze,” I said.
“Of course you don’t. Look at you. You are the ultimate man, the ultimate adult in some ways, the great powerful protecting father. And yet you are the biggest goddamned kid I ever saw. You would have no business in the suburbs, in a Cape Cod house, cutting the lawn, having a swim at the club. I mean you once strangled a man to death, did not you?”
“Yeah, name was Phil. Never knew his other name, just Phil. I didn’t like it.”
“No, but you like the kind of work where that kind of thing comes up.”
“I’m not sure that’s childish.”
“In the best sense it is. There’s an element of play in it for you, a concern for means more than ends. It comes very close to worrying about honor.”
“It often has to do with life and death, sweetie.”
“Of course it does, but that only makes it a more significa
nt game. My neighbors in Smithfield are more serious. They are dealing with success or failure. For most of them it’s no fun.”
“You’ve thought about me some,” I said.
“You bet your ass I have. You’re not going to give up your work, I’m not going to stop mine. I’m not going to move to Boston. You’re not going to live in Smithfield.”
“I might,” I said. “We could work something out there, I think. No one’s asking you to give up your work, or me to give up mine.”
“No, I guess not. But it’s the kind of thing we need to think on.”
“So a firm I-don’t-know is your final position on this?”
“I think so.”
I put my hands up and pulled her down on top of me. “You impetuous bitch,” I said. Her faced pressed against my chest. It made her speech muffled.
“On the other hand,” she mumbled, “I ain’t never going to leave you.”
“That’s for sure,” I said. “Let’s go have dinner and consummate our friendship.”
“Maybe,” Susan said as we drove back to the motel, “we should consummate it before dinner.
“Better still,” I said, “how about before and after dinner?”
“You’re as young as you feel, lovey,” Susan said.
Chapter 29
We rang the bell at the Shepards’ house at seven-thirty, me with a bottle of Hungarian red wine in a brown paper bag, and Hawk opened the door and pointed a Colt .357 Magnum at me.
“Do come in,” he said.
We did. In the living room were King Powers and Powell, the stiff I had knocked in the pool, and Macey and the Shepards. The Shepards were sitting on the couch together with Powell standing by with his gun out, looking at them, hard as nails. Macey stood by the mantel with his slim-line briefcase and Powers was in a wing chair by the fireplace. Shepard’s face was damp and he looked sick. Getting beaten up tends to take a lot of starch out of a person and Shepard looked like he was having trouble holding it together. His wife had no expression at all. It was as if she’d gone inside somewhere and was holding there, waiting.
“Where’s the kids?” I said.
Hawk smiled. “They not here. Harv and the Mrs., I guess, thought they’d have a quiet time together, ‘fore you come, so they shipped’em off to neighbors for the night. That do make it cozier, I say.”
Powers said, “Shut up, Hawk. You’d fuck around at your own funeral.”
Hawk winked at me. “Mr. Powers a very grumpy man and I do believe I know who he grumpy at, babe.”
“I figured I’d be seeing you. King,” I said.
“You figured fucking right, too, smart guy. I got something for you, you son of a bitch. You think you can drop me into the bag like that and walk away, you don’t know nothing about King Powers.”
Macey said, “King, this is just more trouble. We don’t need this. Why don’t we just get going.”
“Nope, first I burn this son of a bitch.” Powers stood up. He was a paunchy man who looked like he’d once been thin, and his feet pointed out to the side like a duck’s. “Hawk, take his gun away.”
“On the wall, kid, you know the scene.”
I turned and leaned against the wall and let him take the gun off my hip. He didn’t have to search around. He knew right where it was. Probably smelled it. I stepped away from the wall. “How come you walk like a duck, King?” I said. Powers’ red face deepened a bit. He stepped close to me and hit me in the face with his closed fist. I rocked back from the waist and didn’t fall.
“Quack,” I said. Powers hit me again, and cut my lip. It would be very fat in an hour. If I was around in an hour.
Susan said, “Hawk.”
He shook his head at her. “Sit on the couch,” he said.
Shepard said, “You gonna shoot us?” There wasn’t much vitality in his voice.
“I’m fucking-A-well going to shoot this smart scumbag,” Powers said. “Then maybe I’ll like it so much I’ll shoot the whole fucking bag of you. How’s that sound to you, you fucking welcher.”
“She’s not in it,” Shepard said, moving his head toward his wife. “Let her go. We got four kids. They never done anything to you.”
Powers laughed with the inside of his upper lip showing. “But you did. You screwed me out of a lot of money, you gonna have to make that good to me.”
“I’ll make it good, with interest. Let her go.”
“We’ll talk about it, welcher. But I want to finish with this smart bastard first.” He turned back to me and started to hit me again. I stepped inside and hit him hard in the side over the kidneys. His body was soft. He grunted with pain and buckled to his knees.
Macey brought out his little automatic and Powell turned his gun from the Shepards toward me.
Hawk said, “Hold it.” There was no Amos and Andy mockery in it now.
Powers sat on the floor, his body twisted sideways, trying to ease the pain. His face red and the freckles looking pale against it.
“Kill him,” he said. “Kill the fucker. Kill him, Hawk.” Susan said, “Hawk.”
I kept my eyes on Hawk. Macey wouldn’t have the stomach for it. He’d do it to save his ass, if he couldn’t run. But not just standing there; that took something Macey didn’t get in business school. Powell would do what he was told, but so far no one had told him. Hawk was the one. He stood as motionless as a tree. From the corner of my eye, I could see Shepard’s hand go out and rest in the middle of his wife’s back, between the shoulder blades.
Susan said again, “Hawk.”
Powers, still sitting on the floor with his knees up and his white socks showing above his brown loafers, said, “Hawk, you bastard, do what you’re told. Burn him. Blow him away. Right now. Kill him.”
Hawk shook his head. “Naw.”
Powers was on his knees now, struggling to his feet. He was so out of shape that just getting off the floor was hard for him. “No? Who the fuck you saying no to, nigger. Who pays your fucking ass? You do what you’re told …”
Hawk’s face widened into a bright smile. “Naw, I don’t guess I am going to do what I’m told. I think I’m going to leave that up to you, boss.”
Powell said, “I’ll do it, Mr. Powers.”
Hawk shook his head. “No, not you, Powell, You put the piece down and take a walk. You too, Macey. This gonna be King and Spenser here, one on one.”
“Hawk, you gotta be out of your mind,” Macey said. “Hawk, what the fuck are you doing?” Powers said.
“Move it out, Macey,” Hawk said. “You and Powell lay the pieces down on the coffee table and walk on away.”
Powell said, “Hawk, for crissake …”
Hawk said. “Do it. Or you know I’ll kill you.”
Macey and Powell put the guns on the coffee table and walked toward the front door.
“What the fuck is happening here,” Powers said. The color was down in his face now, and his voice was up an octave. “You don’t take orders from this fucking coon, you take them from me.”
“Racial invective,” Hawk said to me.
“It’s ugly,” I said. “Ugly talk.”
Powers said, “Macey. Call the cops when you get out, Macey. You hear me, you call the cops. They’re going to kill me. This crazy nigger is trying to kill me.”
Macey and Powell went out and closed the door. Powers’ voice was high now. “Macey, goddamnit. Macey.” Hawk said, “They gone. King. Time for you to finish Spenser off, like you started to.”
“I don’t have a gun. You know that, Hawk. I never carry a piece. Lemme have Macey’s.”
“No guns. King. Just slap him around like you was doing before.” Hawk put his .357 under his coat and leaned against the door with his arms folded and his glistening ebony face without expression. Powers, on his feet now, backed away two steps.
“Hey, wait up, now, hey. Hawk, you know I can’t go on Spenser just me and him. I don’t even know if you could. I mean that ain’t fair, you know. I mean that ain’t the way I work
.”
Hawk’s face was blank. Harvey Shepard got off the couch and took a looping amateurish roundhouse righthand haymaker at Powers. It connected up high on the side of Powers’ head near his right ear and staggered him. It also probably broke a knuckle in Shepard’s hand. It’s a dumb way to hit someone but Harv didn’t seem to mind. He plowed on toward Powers, catching him with a left hand on the face and knocking him down. Powers scrambled for the two guns on the coffee table as Shepard tried to kick him. I stepped between him and the guns and he lunged at my leg and bit me in the right calf.
I said, “Jesus Christ,” and reached down and jerked him to his feet. He clawed at my face with both hands and I twisted him away from me and slammed him hard against the wall. He stayed that way for a moment, face against the wall, then turned slowly away from the wall, rolling on his left shoulder so that when he got through turning, his back was against the wall. Shepard started toward him again and I put my hand out. “Enough,” I said. Shepard kept coming and I had to take his shoulder and push him back. He strained against me.
From the couch Pam Shepard said, “Don’t, Harvey.” Shepard stopped straining and turned toward her. “Jesus,” he said and went and sat on the couch beside her and put his arms awkwardly around her and she leaned against him, a little stiffly, but without resistance.
Susan got up and walked over and put her hands on Hawk’s shoulders and, standing on her toes to reach, kissed him on the mouth.
“Why not, Hawk? I knew you wouldn’t, but I don’t know why.”
Hawk shrugged. “Me and your old man there are a lot alike. I told you that already. There ain’t all that many of us left, guys like old Spenser and me. He was gone there’d be one less. I’d have missed him. And I owed him one from this morning.”
“You wouldn’t have done it anyway,” Susan said. “Even if he hadn’t warned you about the police.”
“Don’t be too sure, honey. I done it lots of times before.”
“Anyway, babe,” Hawk said to me, “we even. Besides” — Hawk looked back at Susan and grinned — “Powers a foulmouthed bastard, never did like a guy swore in front of ladies that way.” He stepped across, dropped my gun on the table, picked up those belonging to Macey and Powell and walked out. “See y’all again,” he said. And then he was gone.
Promised Land Page 18