Free Promised Land by Robert B. Parker Page A

child’s play for you.“
    ”Child’s play,“ she said. ”How has it been with you, blue eyes?“
    We lay on our backs on the bed beside each other while I told her. When I finished telling her I suggested an afternoon of sensual delight, starting now. But she suggested that it start after lunch and after a brief scuffle I agreed.
    ”Suze,“ I said in the dining room starting my first stein of Harp while she sipped a Margarita, ”you seemed uncommonly amused by the part where Jane tried to caponize me.“
    She laughed. ”I think your hips are beginning to widen out,“ she said. ”Are you still shaving?“
    ”Naw,“ I said, ”it did no damage. If it had, all the waitresses here would be wearing black armbands and the flag would fly half-mast at Radcliffe.“
    ”Well, we’ll see, later, when there’s nothing better to do.“
    ”There’s never anything better to do,“ I said. She yawned elaborately.
    The waitress came and took our order. When she’d departed Susan said, ”What are you going to do?“
    ”Jesus, I don’t know.“
    ”Want me to hang around with you while you do it?“
    ”Very much,“ I said. ”I think I’m in over my head with Pam, Rose and Jane.“
    ”Good, I brought my suitcase on the chance you might want me to stay.“
    ”Yeah, and I noted you unpacked it and hung up your clothes. Confidence.“
    ”Oh, you noticed. I keep forgetting you are a detective.“
    ”Spenser’s the name, clues are my game,“ I said. The waitress brought me a half-dozen oysters and Susan six soused shrimp. Susan looked at the oysters.
    ”Trying to make a comeback?“
    ”No,“ I said, ”planning ahead.“
    We ate our seafood.
    ”What makes you say you’re in over your head?“ Susan asked.
    ”I don’t feel easy. It’s an element I’m not comfortable in. I’m good with my hands, and I’m persevering, but… Pam Shepard asked me if I had children and I said no. And she said I probably couldn’t understand, and she asked if I were married and I said no and she said then for sure I couldn’t understand.“ I shrugged.
    ”I’ve never had children either,“ Susan said. ”And marriage wasn’t the best thing that ever happened to me. Nor the most permanent. I don’t know. There’s all the cliches about you don’t have to be able to cook a souffle to know when one’s bad. But… at school, I know, parents come in sometimes for counseling with the kids and they say, but you don’t know. You don’t have children… there’s probably something to it. Say there is. So what? You’ve been involved in a lot of things that you haven’t experienced firsthand, as I recall. Why is this one different?“
    ”I don’t know that it is,“ I said.
    ”I think it is. I’ve never heard you talk about things like this before. On a scale of ten you normally test out about fifteen in confidence.“
    ”Yeah, I think it is too.“
    ”Of course, as you explain it, the case is no longer your business because the case no longer exists.“
    ”There’s that,“ I said.
    ”Then why worry about it. If it’s not your element, anyway, why not settle for that. We’ll eat and swim and walk on the beach for a few days and go home.“
    The waitress came with steak for each of us, and salad, and rolls and another beer for me. We ate in silence for maybe two minutes.
    ”I can’t think of anything else to do,“ I said.
    ”Try to control your enthusiasm,“ Susan said.
    ”I’m sorry,“ I said. ”I didn’t mean it that way. It’s just bothering me. I’ve been with two people whose lives are screwed up to hell and I can’t seem to get them out of it at all.“
    ”Of course you can’t,“ she said. ”You also can’t do a great deal about famine, war, pestilence and death.“
    ”A great backfield,“ I said.
    ”You also can’t be everyone’s father. It is paternalistic of you to assume that Pam Shepard with the support of several other women cannot work out her own future without you. She may in