Free Back Story by Robert B. Parker

poured himself some more champagne. "So how come the mob. " Hawk said.
    "Or some of it," I said.
    "And the FBI. "
    "Or some of it."
    "Both want to cover up the twenty-eight-year-old murder of some hippie broad from San Diego?" Hawk said.
    "Nicely restated," I said.
    "Thank you-you talk with the husband yet?"
    "Daryl's father?"
    "Uh-huh."
    "San Diego seemed like a long way to go," I said.
    "We got no place else to go."
    "Excellent point," I said.

26
    Susan sat on the bed watching me pack. Pearl loped around my apartment, alert for something to chew.
    "What are you going to do about a gun?" Susan said. "It's not a good time to be checking one through."
    "Hawk has an arrangement," I said.
    "I shudder to think," Susan said.
    "If you came, we could stay at La Valencia in La Jolla and eat in their upstairs restaurant with a view of the cove."
    "Would there be any sex involved?" Susan said.
    "Only with me," I said.
    "Oh," Susan said.
    We were quiet for a moment. Pearl padded silently into the bedroom and circled my bed and padded silently out. We both watched her.
    "I can't leave her yet with someone else," Susan said.
    I nodded.
    "You understand."
    "Better," I said. "I agree."
    "But you still wish I could come," Susan said.
    I smiled at her.
    "Why are you smiling?" she said.
    "You are always," I said, "so entirely you."
    "Yes," Susan said. "I believe I am."
    I finished packing and closed the suitcase.
    "How can you exist for several days with what's in that suitcase?" Susan said.
    "Astonishing, isn't it?" I sat on the bed beside her. She looked straight at me for a moment, then suddenly she pressed her face against my chest. I put my arms around her. Neither of us said anything. We sat for awhile.
    With her voice muffled against my shirt, Susan said, "Hawk will be with you."
    "Yes."
    "And you are one of the toughest men in creation," she said.
    "Also true."
    Pearl came back into the bedroom and saw us and came over and sniffed and sat suddenly down and stared at us with her ears cocked slightly forward. After a time, Susan raised her head and kissed me with her mouth open. She pressed herself harder against me.
    "Pearl is watching," I said.
    "I don't care," Susan said.
    Which turned out to be true.

27
    At San Diego Airport, a young, athletic-looking black man was waiting for us as we came into the main terminal. He was dressed like a character on television, with a blue-and-white durag under a side-skewed Padres baseball hat. There were a lot of platinum chains, some very expensive basketball shoes, some very baggy jeans, and a Chargers jersey that had SEAU printed across the back. He was carrying a green Adidas gym bag with white stripes on the side and holding a hand-lettered sign that said SPENSER on it.
    I said, "I'm Spenser."
    He looked at Hawk. Hawk nodded, and the kid gave me the gym bag, folded up his sign, and swaggered away like a guy looking for a fight.
    The rental car was a white Volvo sedan. Hawk drove while I opened the bag and, among a couple of towels bunched up for bulk, found two holstered Smith & Wesson nines with four-inch barrels and a stainless satin finish. They each carried ten rounds, plus one in the chamber. There was an extra magazine for each gun and two boxes of Remington 9mm ammunition. I checked one of the guns, and it was loaded, including a round in the chamber. Hawk glanced over as he drove up Route 5. "Networking," he said.
    "Hanging with a thug has its moments," I said.
    "I prefers the term 'criminal genius,' " Hawk said.
    "Of course you do," I said.
    Barry Gordon had a small house in Mission Bay with a narrow view of the water. We pulled up in front, and I got out, with my new gun unholstered and stuck in my hip pocket. Getting the holster on my belt seemed more trouble than I wanted to go through in the car. Hawk waited in the car, listening to a reggae station. The front yard had a low picket fence around it. The fence needed to be painted. Actually, it needed to be scraped, sanded, and