Free Pastime by Robert B. Parker Page B

knew she knew the answer, but she was kind enough to feed it to us.
    "We did," Hawk and I said simultaneously.
    Susan laughed. "I knew you would," she said. "Did you ever fight each other again?"
    "No," I said.
    The appetizers went away and the entree came, pork tenderloin with sour cherry sauce, and polenta. I was so pleased with it that I never even noticed what Hawk and Susan were eating.
    "But you stayed in touch," Susan said.
    "In a manner of speaking, Lollypop," Hawk said.
    "We'd go shopping together," I said. "Take in some matinees, have a sundae at Bailey's, after."
    "I feel that I am being made sport of," Susan said, "by a pair of sexist oinkers."
    "You got that right," Hawk said.
    "How did you stay in touch, Porkies?"
    "Our work tended to bring us in contact," Hawk said. "First when we fighting, we'd be on the same card sometime, changing in the same back room in some gym."
    "And later?" Susan said.
    "Our professional lives continued to intersect," I said. "Still do."
    "We both involved in the matter of, ah, crime," Hawk said.
    "From varying perspectives," I said.
    "You are each other's best friend," Susan said. "In some genuine sense you love each other. But you never show it, never speak of it. One would never know."
    "You know," Hawk said.
    "Only because I know you so well."
    "We know," Hawk said.
    "And nobody else much matters," Susan said.
    Hawk smiled and didn't say anything. Susan looked at him then at me.
    "Peas in a pod," she said.

CHAPTER 16
    I left Pearl with Susan in the morning when Hawk picked me up in his forest green Jaguar sedan.
    "She can't go with you?" Susan said.
    "Hawk hates dog drool on the leather seats," I said.
    "You don't care about that," Susan said. "And neither does Hawk. You think it might be dangerous going to see Gerry Broz and you don't want her to get hurt, or you to get hurt and her to be left alone." Susan was wearing a kimono with vertical black and white stripes, and she hadn't put her makeup on yet. Her face was shiny and vulnerable in its morning innocence.
    "Gerry's a weird dude," I said.
    She nodded and held up her face and I kissed her, and patted Pearl and went on to Hawk.
    "Gonna come by someday, see a tricycle on the porch," Hawk said as he slid the Jag away from the curb in front of Susan's house.
    "Maybe Paul will have a kid," I said.
    "Get you one of those bumper stickers say ASK ME ABOUT MY GRANDCHILD," Hawk said.
    "There's a Dunkin' Donuts in Union Square, Somerville " I said. "You could get me coffee instead."
    Which we did, and drank it as we drove on 93 and 128 to Beverly. We were meeting Gerry in an Italian restaurant called Rocco's Grotto on Rantoul
    Street. The front of Rocco's was done in fake fieldstone. A big neon sign in the window advertised PIZZA, PASTA, MORE. There was a bicycle repair shop next door and across the street a billiard parlor. Hawk and I got out of the car and went to the front door. There was a stock sign in the window that said CLOSED on it. I tried the door. It opened and we went in. There were booths down the left-hand wall, a bar down the right, and tables in the space between. Most of the tables had chairs upside down on them. Past the end of the bar was a swinging door to the kitchen, with a pass-through window to the left of it. Beyond that was a short corridor to the rest rooms. Behind the bar was a guy with straggly blond hair and a skinny neck. He was brewing coffee. He looked up when we came in.
    "You here for Gerry?" he said.
    I said yes.
    He jerked his head toward a booth.
    "He'll be along," he said.
    He had probably been a thin guy once, but as time passed he had gotten sort of plump until the only remnant of his former self was his thin neck.
    Hawk ignored the head gesture toward a booth and took the barstool nearest the kitchen. Hemoved it away from the kitchen door and sat on it, leaning against the back wall. I sat at the other end, near the door. No sense bunching up. The guy with the skinny neck shrugged and looked