Free Five Classic Spenser Mysteries by Robert B. Parker Page B

Fisherman’s Wharf Holiday Inn, parked in a slot near the building where a passing cop wouldn’t wonder about us at 3:00 A.M .
    “We’ll ask Dr. Hilliard,” I said.
    “Susan’s shrink? How’s she gonna know?”
    “Maybe she won’t. But people talk about things with shrinks, and shrinks are used to remembering.”
    The seat backs in the Volvo reclined back and we lay in the dark car nearly prone.
    “Been good,” Hawk said, “we collected some firearms while at Costigan’s.”
    “I know,” I said. “Things just got rolling downhill.”
    “Things been doin’ that since we got here,” Hawk said.
    “Readiness is all,” I said.
    It was very quiet. Occasionally I could hear the sound of a truck easing up through the gears along the Embarcadero. It was a little chilly in the darknessbut I didn’t want to turn on the heater. An idling car might attract a cop.
    “We piling up some pretty good-looking list of charges,” Hawk said. “We got B and E and assault for sure at Costigan’s, to go along with murder one and felonious escape and assault on police officers.”
    “I wonder if they can make us on kidnapping?” I said.
    “Holding Costigan and the missus?” Hawk said. “If they do, it a chicken shit charge.”
    “Of course we have two counts of murder and one count of armed robbery for Leo and his driver.”
    “If they make us,” Hawk said.
    “If they try hard,” I said.
    “Figure San Francisco cops won’t get real hysterical somebody dusted Leo.”
    A light went on in one of the guest rooms in the hotel. It stayed on maybe two minutes then went off again. Susan wouldn’t be there when we found the lodge. The Costigans weren’t that stupid. But we had nowhere else that made any more sense to look. So we’d find it. And the Costigans would be waiting for us and maybe when that worked out there’d be more momentum rolling downhill and maybe something would come out of it. I thought of her face laughing in the picture beside Russell. I thought of Hawk’s description of her with the frozenhalf smile and the tears in her eyes.
Things are awful, but I love you
. I thought of Leo when I shot him. Had to do that. No other way. The whores would have suffered for it and it wasn’t their fault. A night watchman walked through the parking lot, his heels loud as he came. Hawk and I stayed slouched and motionless as he passed. It wasn’t the whores’ fault. But they didn’t have to be whores. Maybe they did. I didn’t like shooting Leo. But I had to find Susan.
    “How the Christ did we end up here,” I said.
    “I the victim of sociological forces,” Hawk said.
    “You’re a goddamned leg breaker because of racism?” I said.
    “No, I a leg breaker ’cause the hours are short and the pay is good. I end up here ’cause I hanging around with a middle-aged honkie thug. You what your momma wanted?”
    “Don’t remember my mother,” I said. “I was raised by my father and my two uncles. My mother’s brothers.”
    “They stay with your father?”
    “Yeah. They had a carpentry business. How my father met my mother.”
    “She split or she die?” Hawk said.
    “Died.”
    The security guard moved back up the next line of cars. His footfall muted slightly as he moved away.
    “We locate this lodge,” Hawk said. “Maybe we better like get outfitted, you know. Bullets, jackets, a belt for you, that kind of thing.”
    “First we find out where it is,” I said and shifted in my seat. I’d never slept on my back and wasn’t getting any better at it.
    At five thirty the sun was up. At six thirty we found a place open that sold us coffee and English muffins, and at seven thirty I called Dr. Hilliard from a pay phone on the corner of Beach Street and Taylor. Her service answered and I asked that she call me as soon as she could.
    “It’s about Susan Silverman,” I said. “And it’s life and death. Tell Dr. Hilliard that.” I gave the number of the pay phone and hung up and stayed there. Two