Free God Save the Child by Robert B. Parker Page B

group?”
    “With some of them. Or at least with some kids who were said to be associated with this group. I’d see him now and then sitting on the cemetery wall across from the common with several kids from the group. Or maybe from the group. I’m making this sound a good deal more positive than it is. I’m not sure of any of this or of even the existence of such a group. Although I’m inclined to think there is a group like that.”
    “Who would know?”
    She frowned. “I don’t know. Chief Trask, I suppose.”
    “How bizarre is this group?”
    “Bizarre? I don’t know. I hadn’t heard anything very bizarre about them. I imagine there’s grass smoked there, although not many of us find that bizarre anymore. Other than that I can’t think of anything particularly bizarre. What kind of bizarre do you mean?”
    The wine was gone, and I was looking a little wistfully at the empty bottle. It was hard concentrating on business. I was also looking a little wistfully at Susan Silverman.
    Neither rain nor sleet nor snow nor dark of night maybe, but red wine and a handsome woman that was something else.
    She said, “What kind of bizarre are you looking for?”
    “Any kind at all. The kind of bizarre that would be capable of that dummy trick in the coffin, the kind of bizarre that would make a singing commercial out of the telephone call. The kind of bizarre that would do the ransom note in a comic strip. Would you like some brandy?”
    “One small glass.”
    “Let’s take it to the living room.”
    She sat where she had before, at one end of the couch. I gave her some Calvados and sat on the coffee table near her.
    “I don’t know anything bizarre about the group. I have the impression that there is something unusual about Vic Harroway, but I don’t know quite what it is.”
    “Think about it. Who said he was odd? What context was his oddness in?”
    She frowned again. “No, just an idea that he’s unusual.”
    “Is he unusual in appearance?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Size?”
    “Really, I can’t recall.”
    “Is he unusual in his sex habits?”
    She shrugged and spread her hands, palms up.
    “Religious zealot?”
    She shook her head.
    “Unusual family connections?”
    “Damn it, Spenser, I don’t know. If I knew, I’d tell you.”
    “Try picturing the circumstances when you got the impression he was unusual. Who said it? Where were you?”
    She laughed, “Spenser, I can’t do it. I don’t remember.
    You’re like a hammer after a nail.”
    “Sorry, I tend to get caught up in my work.”
    “I guess you do. You’re a very interesting man. One might misjudge you. One might even underrate you, and I think that might be a very bad error.”
    “Underrate? Me?”
    “Well, here you are a big guy with sort of a classy broken nose and clever patter. It would be easy to assume you were getting by on that. That maybe you were a little cynical and a little shallow. I half figured you got me in here just to make a pass at me. But I just saw you at work, and I would not want to be somebody you were really after.”
    “Now you’re making me feel funny,” I said. “Because half the reason I invited you in here was to make a pass at you.”
    “Maybe,” she said and smiled. “But first you would work.”
    “Okay,” I said. “I worked. I am a sleuth, and being a sleuth I can add two and two, blue eyes. If you half expected me to make a pass and you came anyway, then you must have half wanted me to do so… sweetheart.”
    “My eyes are brown.”
    “I know, but I can’t do Bogart saying ’brown eyes.” And don’t change the subject.“
    She took the final sip from her brandy glass and put it on the coffee table. When she did she was close to my face.
    ”See?“ she said looking at me steadily. ”See how brown they are?“
    ”Black, I’d say. Closer to black.“
    I put my hands on either side of her face and kissed her on the mouth. She kissed me back. It was a long kiss, and when it ended