Free Looking for Rachel Wallace by Robert B. Parker Page B

at us—probably pleased that I didn’t have my car.
    “Maybe that’s so,” I said. “Or maybe that’s a lot of theory which has little to do with practice. I don’t care very much about theory or the long-range consequences to the class struggle, or whatever. I can’t deal with that. I work close up. Right then I couldn’t let them drag you out while I stood around.”
    “Of course from your viewpoint you’d be dishonored. I’m just the occasion for your behavior, not the reason. The reason is pride—you didn’t do that for me, and don’t try to kid yourself.”
    The doorman’s smile was getting a little forced.
    “I’d do it again,” I said.
    “I’m sure you would,” Rachel said, “but you’ll have to do it with someone else. You and I are terminated. I don’t want you around me. Whatever your motives, they are not mine, and I’ll not violate my life’s convictions just to keep your pride intact.”
    She turned and walked into the Ritz. I looked at the doorman. He was looking at the Public Garden. “The hell of it is,” I said to him, “I think she was probably right.”
    “That makes it much worse,” he said.
    I walked back along Arlington and back up Boylston for a block to Berkeley Street. I had several choices. I could go down to the Dockside Saloon and drink all their beer, or I could drive up to Smithfield and wait till Susan came home from school and tell her I flunked Women’s Lib. Or I could do something useful. I opted for useful and turned up Berkeley.
    Boston Police Headquarters was a block and a half up Berkeley Street on the right, nestled in the shadows of big insurance companies—probably made the cops feel safe. Martin Quirk’s office at the end of the Homicide squadroom was just as it always was. The room was neat and spare. The only thing on the desk was a phone and a plastic cube with pictures of his family in it.
    Quirk was on the phone when I appeared in his doorway. He was tilted back in his chair, his feet on the desk, the phone hunched against his ear with his shoulder. He pointed at the straight chair beside his desk, and I sat down.
    “Physical evidence,” Quirk said into the phone. “What have you got for physical evidence?” He listened. His tweed jacket hung on the back of his chair. His white shirt was crisp and starchy. The cuffs were turned under once over his thick wrists. He was wearing over the ankle cordovan shoes with brass buckles. The shoes shined with fresh polish. The gray slacks were sharply creased. The black knit tie was knotted and in place. His thick black hair was cut short with no sign of gray.
    “Yeah, I know,” he said into the phone. “But we got no choice. Get it.” He hung up and looked at me. “Don’t you ever wear a tie?” he said.
    “Just the other day,” I said. “Dinner at the Ritz.”
    “Well you ought to do it more often. You look like a goddamned overage hippie.”
    “You’re jealous of my youthful image,” I said. “Just because you’re a bureaucrat and have to dress up like Calvin Coolidge doesn’t mean I have to. It’s the difference between you and me.”
    “There’s other differences,” Quirk said. “What do you want?”
    “I want to know what you know about threats on the life of Rachel Wallace.”
    “Why?”
    “Until about a half hour ago I was her bodyguard.”
    “And?”
    “And she fired me for being too masculine.”
    “Better than the other way around, I guess,” Quirk said.
    “But I figured since I’d been hired by the day I might as well use the rest of it to see what I could find out from you.”
    “There isn’t much to tell. She reported the threats. We looked into it. Nothing much surfaced. I had Belson ask around on the street. Nobody knew anything.”
    “You have any opinion on how serious the threats are?”
    Quirk shrugged. “If I had to guess, I’d guess they could be. Belson couldn’t find any professional involvement. She names a lot of names and makes a lot of