"It's what you do," Susan said.

"I've always known it. And I've come to terms with it."

Pearl put her head on Vinnie's lap, her eyes rolled up looking at the smoked turkey sandwich that Vinnie was eating.

"But it scares me."

"Sure," I said.

"And I want you to be as careful as you can be… and not let them kill you."

"None of us want that to happen," I said.

Hawk seemed not to be listening which was an illusion. Hawk always knew everything that was going on around him. He was looking at the road, and then at the meadow, and down toward the woods, and back at the road.

Vinnie was staring down at Pearl as he chewed his sandwich. She stared back up at him. He scowled at her. She continued to stare at his sandwich. Finally he pulled off a corner of the sandwich and gave it to her. She raised her head, swallowed it, put her head back in his lap and continued to gaze at the sandwich.

"Swell," Vinnie said.

"Do you think that Lonnie is connected to Craig Sampson's murder?" Susan said.

"He could be connected," I said.

"Or it could be something else."

"Like?"

"Like he's running some rackets in town and he doesn't want an outsider coming in, stumbling across them, and causing trouble."

"But isn't trying to kill you the wrong way to do that?" Susan said.

"If he's covering up something, wouldn't that just cause more attention to be brought?"

"I've thought about that," I said.

"And I've got a couple of conclusions."

Vinnie got careless with his sandwich, and Pearl snapped the rest of it out of his hand and sped away to finish it off. I pushed another sandwich toward Vinnie.

"Ever occur to you maybe I don't like dogs?" Vinnie said.

"It has," I said.

"Isn't she quick?" Susan said.

"Quick," Vinnie said, and unwrapped his new sandwich. Pearl came back to the table and looked at Susan and wagged her tail.

Susan bent over and gave her a kiss on the muzzle.

"Good for you," she said to Pearl. Then she looked at me and said, "Conclusions?"

"The first time they made a run at me was in Port City, in a public place, middle of the day," I said.

"Like maybe they weren't sweating the Port City Police Department," Hawk said, his gaze moving comfortably over the landscape.

"And the second time," I said, "they were in Boston, and if they'd have succeeded, who would tie it to Port City?"

"And even if somebody did," Hawk said, "maybe they still not sweating Port City Police."

"Hawk has reached the same conclusions," I said to Susan.

"I still say if it were me, I'd just lie low and await developments."

"Sure," I said.

"But a guy like Lonnie, he's used to doing what he wants to. He's an activist. And, he may have people to answer to. Maybe he gets a call from the head guy at Kwan Chang 'get the white guy out of our town." Say Hawk's right and he's wired with the cops. There's not a lot of risk. And he doesn't know I'm stubborn. So he warns me, and it doesn't work. How's he look now? He can't run Port City the way they want it, then the long will replace him. And he's going to run the Death Dragons, he can't lose face by letting me ignore him."

Susan nodded.

"So it makes sense from Lonnie's point of view," she said.

"But we still don't know whether he's involved in Craig's death."

"No, we don't."

"And we have no idea who was shadowing Jimmy?"

"No, we don't."

"And Jocelyn."

"About her I've got an idea."

Susan smiled at me.

"Oh, good," she said.

"Yes," I said.

"It's a start."

Pearl scrambled up on the bench seat between me and Susan and sat at table hopefully. Susan put her arm around her.

"You went to Harvard," I said.

"If I needed a translator, you think you could find one?"

"I imagine so," Susan said.

"I don't want a specialist in ritual folk poetry of the Tang Dynasty," I said.

"I need someone who can talk to street types."

"I sort of guessed that," Susan said.

"Wow," I said.

"You did go to Harvard."

Hawk speared two bread and butter pickles from the open jar, gave one to Pearl, and ate the other one. Pearl swallowed hers and waited. Nothing happened so she bounced up onto the table and put her nose in the jar. The mouth of the jar was too small and she couldn't get it all the way in, but she was able to put her tongue in and lap a little pickle juice. Vinnie watched in silence.

"Fucking dog's up on the fucking table eating the pickles," he said.

Susan smiled at him patiently.

"She likes pickles," Susan explained.

CHAPTER 25

Hawk and Vinnie were sitting with me in my office with the door locked to keep the Death Dragons at bay. We were drinking some coffee and eating some donuts. Hawk was reading a book by Cornel West, and Vinnie was sitting with his feet up on the corner of my desk and his eyes half closed, listening to his Walkman through the earphones. I had some mail to go through, and then I had to think about Port City. Most of the mail was junk. And so was most of what I knew about Port City. Vinnie was humming softly to himself. Hawk looked up from his book.

"What you listening to?" he said.

"Lennie Welch," Vinnie said.

Hawk looked blank.

Vinnie gave him a sample. "

"You-oo-oo-oo made me leave my happy home…"

" "Lucky you can shoot," Hawk said and went back to his book.

Someone turned the knob on my office door. Hawk rolled left out of his chair, Vinnie went right. They came to their feet on either side of the door, guns out, hammers back. Vinnie was still wearing the Walkman. I was crouching behind the desk, with the Browning aimed at the door.

"Yeah?" I said.

"Spenser? Lee Farrell, is this a bad time?"

I put the gun away and nodded at Hawk to open the door. He did, and Lee walked in. He looked at Hawk and Vinnie still on either side of the door.

"Hawk," he said.

"Lee."

"Vinnie Morris," I said.

"Lee Farrell."

Lee nodded at him.

Vinnie said, "I know he ain't a Chink, but he's wearing a gun."

"He's a cop," I said.

Vinnie shrugged, and went back and sat down. Hawk locked the door again and leaned on the wall. Lee looked around.

"You expecting trouble?"

"Just because the door's locked and I've got a couple guys with me."

"Guys? I know Hawk, and I've heard of Vinnie Morris."

I grinned.

"When you care enough to get the very best," I said.

"Yeah," Lee said.

He took a donut out of the box on my desk and ate some.

"I'm on my way to work," he said.

"I ran Craig Sampson's name through Triple I, and he's not there. So I queried the FBI and they have him."

"Why wasn't it in the Triple I index?"

"Nobody's perfect," Lee said.

"Is it his prints from the army? Or something else?"

"I don't know. I requested his file."

"And?"

"Their computer's backed up, they'll get to it."

"How soon?"