The other three stood motionless. The wiry guy with the pillowcase frozen in a sort of half crouch. The other two standing upright, looking at Gerry and me in the water. The noise of the stream and the sound of the rain was all there was.

"It ain't Richie," Maishe said finally.

"And proud of it," I said.

Gerry's voice was barely audible as it croaked out of his throat.

"Spenser?"

"Un huh."

Again silence. Pearl appeared on the rising ground opposite and sniffed at the pillowcase that the wiry guy was holding.

Nobody moved.

I said, "Which one of you wants to tell Joe that you were there when his kid got killed in the woods?"

"There's four of us, Spenser," Maishe said.

"How many did you start with?" I said.

No one spoke. Pearl continued to sniff carefully at the pillowcase, bending her neck and moving her feet a little to get a careful smell survey of the contents from every angle. The guy holding the pillowcase didn't look at her. His eyes were fixed on me.

"Where's Richie?" Maishe said.

Close to me I could hear Gerry's breath, wheezing through his throat as if there were very little room for it.

"Listen," I said. "Here's the deal. You four beat it. Gerry and I walk out of here alone, and when we get to the Mass Pike, I let him go."

"That's it?" Maishe said.

I nodded.

"And if we don't?"

"Then I drop Gerry like a stone and take my chances with you."

"How many rounds you got left?" Maishe said.

I didn't say anything.

Maishe looked at Anthony. Anthony had nothing to say.

"You drop Gerry and you got nothing left to bargain with," Maishe said.

I didn't say anything. Pearl had given up on the pillowcase and walked over to sniff at the tracker on the ground behind the granite. He reached back absently and scratched her ear with his free hand. Her tail wagged. Maishe shifted his feet a little. He looked at Gerry.

"What do you want, Gerry?" he said.

I spoke softly to Gerry, my mouth two inches from his left ear, the pressure of the Browning steady in his right one.

"I would like to kill you, Gerry. It would be a good thing for civilization. And it would be fun. I'll keep you alive if it gets me out of here. But you know that if the show starts, your brains will be floating in the water."

"How do I know you'll let me go?" His voice was little more than a hiss.

"Because I said I would."

Gerry was silent. Maishe spoke again.

"What do you want us to do, Gerry?"

"If I knew you'd let me go…" Gerry whispered.

I didn't say anything. Pearl left the tracker and moseyed happily down to the stream edge and drank noisily and long. Ripe woodchuck will give you a thirst.

Gerry raised his voice. "Do what he says."

"You want we should leave you?" Maishe said.

Gerry's voice was shrill with the effort of squeezing it out.

"Do what he says. I believe him. He'll let me go later."

What Gerry really believed was that I'd kill him now. We all knew that.

Maishe shrugged. The tracker got to his feet. He still had the big revolver out but he let it slide down at his side. The guy with the pillowcase eased out of his crouch.

"Go back the way you came," I said. "Cross downstream. Keep going. If I see you or even hear you in the woods I will blow his brains out. And then you can explain to Joe how you let that happen, and who was in charge, and how four of you let one guy do it. Joe will be interested."

Nobody moved for a moment. Then Maishe said, "Fuck it," and the four of them began to drift back toward the stream, twenty yards or so down from where Gerry and I stood. I turned slowly as they went, keeping Gerry between us.

The tracker entered the streambed last. As he walked into the water he said to me, "Your dog?"

"Yeah."

"Nice dog."

"Thanks."

"Mass Pike's about three miles." He jerked his head. "Back that way. Stay on the ridgeline."

I nodded again. Then he was out of the stream.

"Maybe we'll see you down the road," he said.

I didn't answer and he was into the woods, and in a minute he was out of sight.

CHAPTER 27

GERRY and I were strolling toward the Pike. My leg was hot and stiff and swollen tight against my jeans. I limped badly and my head swam periodi cally. I didn't mention this to Gerry. He walked three or four feet ahead of me. Struggling with his own limitations, barely aware of anything except the need to get air into his lungs and stay upright. Pearl hustled along in front of us, sometimes swinging far out of sight and then larupping back through the woods to prance in front of us with her tongue out, before she careened off again. She was able to go through the dense woods at nearly top speed. Groundhog must be nourishing.

I was having trouble concentrating. My mind kept moving back over things.

I was cold and wet, but my body felt parched, and the pain in my leg pounded up and down my left side. Pearl came back to nuzzle my hand and went off again. I thought about beer. I had come down to New York, a life time ago, to fight a guy named Carmen Ramazottie, from Bayonne. We had fought a prelim at St. Nick's and I had put Carmen down with a very nice combination that my Uncle Bob had worked on with me. Bob and I stayed at a dump on the West Side called the Bristol, and the morning after the fight we checked out and took a subway to Brooklyn to see a ball game at Ebbets Field before we got the late bus home.

It was late August in New York. The subway was dense and sweaty and running slow. I had a headache and the right side of my face under the eye was puffy and darkening steadily from the reiterated application of Carmen's pretty good left jab. Coming up into the harsh city sun made my head hurt worse. I had been thirsty since the second round of last night's fight. I knew I was dehydrated and in time I'd catch up, but it didn't make me less thirsty. As we crossed Flatbush Avenue, the tar was soft from the sun, and the ballpark crowd was damp with sweat. Shirts clung. Bra straps chafed.

There were a lot of black faces in the crowd, come to see Jackie Robinson play.

Ebbets Field was small and idiosyncratic. It was a short 297 feet to the right-field screen. The base of the scoreboard in right was angular, and

Carl Furillo, and Dixie Walker before him, had made an art of playing to odd caroms off it. There were advertising signs on the outfield walls. The fans were close to the field, and after a game they could stream across the outfield and exit through the gate in deep center field. The Cardinals were in, their gray road uniformstrimmed in red; Stan Musial and Red Schoendienst. We got seats behind first base while there was still batting practice to watch. I was old enough to drink in New York. In Boston I was still underage. We got two big paper cups of Schaefer beer and settled back.

The beer was cold from the tap and fresh. I felt it seep through me the way spring rain invigorates a flower.

In the bottom of the first inning Duke Snider did his little kick step and hit the ball into Bedford Avenue. My Uncle Bob and I toasted him with an other beer. My headache was going. The throbbing in my cheek diminished.

Stan Musial. Duke Snider. Cold beer in the sunshine. Only yesterday, when the world was young.

"I gotta rest," Gerry said.

My focus swam back onto him. He had slumped to the ground, his back against a birch tree, his legs sprawled before him, his arms limp at his side. I realized I'd lost track of him entirely. I didn't remember walking the last half mile. I didn't remember coming down the side of this gully.