Free Valediction by Robert B. Parker

beer was going flat in my glass.
    "And something I won't do is try to explain to Susan how I let that happen." Hawk said. "Or Paul."
    I nodded.
    Hawk said, "You want your lunch?"
    "No."
    "Hand it over here," Hawk said.
    I passed him my untouched plate.
    "I got a date tonight," I said.
    Hawk looked up and smiled a wide smile. "That's a start," he said.
    I watched him put away my lunch. "How come you know this stuff," I said.
    "Easy when it not happening to you," he said.
    "It is not happening to a lot of people, but they don't know things you know."
    "I know what I need to know, babe. Sort of a natural rhythm."
    Linda Thomas was five minutes late. Early by the standard Susan had set. She was five foot five and black-haired with eyes that were neither green nor brown but both at different times. She was slim and small-breasted and big eyed with a wide mouth and, especially around the cheekbones, she looked a little like Susan. She was wearing a gray suit with a red print blouse and a kind of full bow at the neck that vaguely suggested a necktie. The print of the blouse was small.
    "I'm wearing my power outfit," she said, and smiled and put out her hand. I stood and shook her hand and held her chair and she sat.
    "Very professional," I said, "small-print blouse and all."
    "Career," she said, "onward, upward. Tell me a little about yourself."
    I did, and as I talked I discovered that I was telling her more about myself than I had expected to. And more about Susan and our estrangement. By seven o'clock in the stillbright summer evening we were sitting on the grass beside the swan boat pond in the Public Garden leaning our backs against each other as we talked, only very slightly drunk, watching somebody's German short-haired pointer hunt the area, scattering pigeons and treeing squirrels.
    "Funny," Linda said, "having a drink with a detective I thought we'd spend the evening talking about crime and instead we spend it talking about love."
    "Yes," I said. "I'm a little surprised at that myself."
    "That you'd talk so much about love?" Linda said.
    "That I'd talk so much about myself."
    "You're very open," she said.
    "Apparently. But enough about me. Let's talk about you. What do you think of me?"
    She laughed. "I think that Susan is crazy."
    "Or I am. Is there someone in your life?"
    Linda said, "I'm separated from my second husband. Almost a year. We see each other and maybe it will work out. But I live alone right now. We've been married seven years."
    "How old are you?" I said.
    "Thirty-eight."
    "Thank God," I said. "You look much younger than that."
    "You don't care for youth?"
    "From my vantage, babe, thirty-eight is youth. Much younger is childhood."
    The feel of her sitting with me, our backs together, in the park, by the water, watching the dog, was righter than I could ever have imagined. I felt odd, as if there were something missing. As if I had set something down.
    The pointer barreled past after a squirrel. I said, "Are you hungry? Would you care to eat something?"
    "Yes," Linda said. "I have two steaks in my refrigerator. Come to my house and help me cook them."
    "It's one of my best things," I said.
    Linda lived in a condominium on Lewis Wharf. Which meant she had a good salary or big support payments. We walked to it as the evening settled. Crossing Tremont Street I took her hand, and when we got to the other side I kept it. She rested her head briefly against my shoulder. We stopped along the way and bought a bottle of Beaujolais. Linda's apartment was blond wood and exposed brick, and an all-electric kitchen with a builtin microwave oven. It was modern and bright and clean and surprisingly unhomey. Her stove was a Jenn-Air with a built-in grill that exhausted the smoke and Linda took two steaks out and put them on the grill.
    "Can you make a salad?" she said.
    "Wonderfully," I said.
    Linda pointed to the refrigerator. "Please," she said. "After you fix us a drink."
    She took a bottle of Scotch from the cabinet over