Free Early Autumn by Robert B. Parker

him till I get there.”
    “But what if he doesn’t?”
    I smiled. “You say that because you don’t know Hawk. Hawk will take care of the Cambridge end.” I wrote Susan’s address on a piece of paper. “Have your mother drive you there.”
    The kid was nervous. He yawned repeatedly. I could hear him swallow. His face looked tight and without color. “What if she’s not there?” he said.
    “No reason she shouldn’t be,” I said.
    “What if this doesn’t work?”
    “I’ll make it work,” I said. “I’m good at this. Trust me.”
    “What would they do if they got me?”
    “Take you to your father. You wouldn’t be any worse off than now. Relax. You got nothing to lose here. Your father wouldn’t hurt you.”
    “He might,” Paul said. “He doesn’t like me. He just wants to get even with my mother.”
    I said, “Look, kid, there’s just so much value to thinking about things you can’t control. It’s time to stop now. You’ve had a tough life and it doesn’t seem to be looking up. It’s time to start growing up. It’s time to stop talking and start being ready. You know?”
    “Ready for what?”
    “For whatever comes along. Your way out of a lousy family life is to grow up early and you may as well start now.”
    “What am I supposed to do?”
    “What I tell you. And do it with as little whining as you can. That would be a start.”
    “But I’m scared,” Paul said. There was outrage in his voice.
    “That’s a normal condition,” I said. “But it doesn’t change anything.”
    He was silent. We passed Mount Auburn Hospital and crossed the Charles onto Soldier’s Field Road. To the right Harvard Stadium looked like it was supposed to, round and looming with arches and ivy on the walls. The Harvard athletic plant sprawled for acres around it. Soldier’s Field Road became Storrow Drive and I went off Storrow by BU, and made the complicated loop turn till I was heading inbound on Commonwealth. At Mass. Ave. there was an underpass. I stayed to the right of it and turned onto Mass. Ave. and drove past the up ramp from Storrow and parked on the bridge with my emergency lights blinking. It was three twenty. Beside me Paul’s stomach rolled. He belched softly.
    “You see them?” he said.
    “No.”
    A car behind me blew its horn at me, and the driver glared as he went by. Two kids in a Buick pulled around the car. The one in the driver’s seat gave me the finger. The passenger called me an asshole through his rolled-down window. I kept my eyes fixed on the Cambridge side of the bridge.
    At three twenty-five I said to Paul, “Okay. It’s time for you to walk. Tell me what you’re going to do.”
    “I’m going to walk to the middle and when my mother gets to me I’m going to tell her lie down, that you’re coming, and then I will lie down too.”
    “And if she doesn’t hit the sidewalk?” I said.
    “I’ll tell her again.”
    “And when I show up what happens?”
    “I get in one side. She gets in the other. We drive to that address.”
    “Good. Okay, walk across the street. They’ll start her on their side.”
    He sat for a moment. Belched again. YawnedThen he opened the door of the MG and stepped out onto the sidewalk. He crossed and began to walk slowly toward the Cambridge side. He went about ten feet and looked back at me. I grinned at him and made a V with my fingers. He kept going. At the far end of the bridge I saw his mother get out of a black Oldsmobile and start toward us.
    The Mass. Ave. Bridge is open. It rests on arches that rest on pilings. There’s no superstructure. On a summer evening it is particularly pleasant for strolling across. It is said that some MIT students once measured it by repeatedly placing an undergraduate named Smoot on the ground and marking off his length. Every six feet or so there is still the indication of one smoot, two smoots, painted on the pavement. I could never remember how many smoots long the bridge was.
    He was almost to his