"Get out of my way," DeSpain said.

Hawk was motionless.

"DeSpain," I said.

He tried to step past Hawk and Hawk moved in front of him again. I stepped in close behind him.

"DeSpain," I said.

Outside the lightning crashed and the thunder was simultaneous.

DeSpain looked back at me. Then he looked at Hawk and turned suddenly and stepped away from all of us. He had his hand near his hip.

"I had to do that. It was worth my life to do that," he said.

Jocelyn had stayed on the floor, lying on her side, her face blank with shock, blood coming from her nose.

"Now it's done," I said.

"Healy coming?" DeSpain said.

"He's sending some people from the Topsfield Barracks."

DeSpain nodded. His face was still wet with rain, his hair dripping wet, his soaking shirt stuck to his body. Suddenly he smiled, the old wolfish smile.

"Goddamn, I liked that," he said.

"She had that coming, and one hell of a lot more."

"I got no argument with that," I said.

"But I can't let you do it again."

"Don't matter," DeSpain said.

"Once was all I needed."

He grinned at me.

"You think you can hold me here for Healy?"

"Yeah," I said.

"I think we can."

DeSpain slowly reached back and unsnapped the safety strap on his holster. The smile was wider, more wolfish. The voice was strong again, and the eyes, still deep in their sockets, seemed almost to glow.

"Let's find out," DeSpain said.

"I'm walking. Anyone tries to stop me, I'll shoot him."

"There's three of us, DeSpain. That's suicide."

"Yeah." DeSpain's grin was wide.

"Maybe you never seen me shoot."

He moved toward the door, I moved in front of it and DeSpain pulled his gun. He had it half out of the holster when Vinnie shot him. Four shots in the middle of the chest, so fast it seemed one sound. DeSpain went backwards three steps, sat slowly, and fell over on his back, the front sight of his pistol still hidden in the holster. I looked at Hawk. He and I hadn't cleared leather. I let my gun settle back in the holster and went and sat on my heels beside DeSpain. I felt his neck. There was no pulse. I looked at his chest.

Vinnie had grouped his shots so you could have covered all four with a playing card. I looked over at Jocelyn; she was sitting upright now, still on the floor, hugging her knees. Her eyes were shiny, and her tongue flittered on her lower lip. I stood up. Vinnie had put the gun away. He picked up his cup and sipped some of his coffee. Everyone else in the restaurant was flat on the floor.

"It's all over, folks," I said.

"State police coming."

Nobody moved. I looked at Vinnie.

"Quick," I said.

Vinnie nodded.

"Very," he said.

Hawk reached down and hauled Jocelyn to her feet.

"The animal," she said softly.

"He hit me. I'm glad he's dead."

"Shut up," Hawk said.

Jocelyn started to say something and looked at Hawk and stopped and was silent. I stood and stared down for a while at DeSpain. One of the toughest guys I ever met. I looked over at Hawk. He was looking at DeSpain too.

"The short happy life," I said, "of Francis Macomber."

CHAPTER 52

I had the last French window into the new addition on the Concord house when Hawk's Jaguar rolled into the driveway on a bright blue day in November with no wind and temperatures in the forties.

"I got lunch," Hawk said as he got out of his Jaguar and went around and opened the door for Mei Ling.

"We been to Chinatown and Mei Ling ordered."

"No chicken feet," I said.

"We don't do chicken feet."

"American people are quite strange," Mei Ling said.

She was carrying a very large shopping bag. Pearl the Wonder Dog, ever alert, honed in on it at once, sniffing furiously. Mei Ling looked nervous.

"What kind of dog is that?" she said.

"Pearl don't like being called a dog," Hawk said.

He scooped Pearl up in his arms and let her lap his face for a while until Mei Ling had gotten the food into the house.

It was too late in the fall now to eat outside, so the picnic table was inside, in a space that would one day be a dining room. Susan and Mei Ling cleared the hand tools off of it, and spread the blue tablecloth over it and began to set out the Chinese food. Hawk went to the refrigerator, which was next to the table saw, and opened it and took out two long-neck bottles of Rolling Rock. He handed one to me and we stood out of the way drinking it. Hawk was dressed for the country. Black jeans, white silk shirt, charcoal brown tweed cashmere sport jacket, and cordovan cowboy boots.

"You just come from a tango contest?" I said.

"Me and Mei Ling been, ah, recuperating from our Port City ordeal."

"Lunch," Susan said.

We sat. Pearl moved about the table, looking for an opening.

We had paper plates and passed the many cartons around. It was an exotic assortment of Asian cuisine, not all of which I recognized.

Hawk and I drank some beer. Susan and Mei Ling had wine. I suspected that the workday had ended.

"What will happen to Jocelyn?" Mei Ling said.

"Not enough," Hawk said.

"Can they charge her with filing a false report to the police?"

Susan said.

"On the kidnapping?"

"Yes."

"No. All she did was send me a tape of her pretending to be tied up. Healy's working on some kind of conspiracy rap with the DA up there, but they're not sure it'll hold water."

"She was responsible for three deaths, one way or another," Susan said.

"Yeah," I said.

"She went through Port City like a virus."

"At least you stopped the illegal immigrant smuggling," Mei Ling said.

She was sitting beside Hawk on the picnic table bench. She sat very close to him and looked at him all the time. He smiled at her.

"Didn't stop it. Just got it relocated," he said.

"Of course, this is true, all Chinese people know what can change and what cannot," Mei Ling said.

"So she may get away with it."

"She may," I said.

I gave Pearl a pork dumpling, and one for me. I drank some beer.

"Of course," Susan said, "while punishment would be satisfying, what she really requires is treatment."

"She's not likely to seek it," I said.

"Then she'll do more damage," Susan said.

"Maybe Vinnie shot the wrong person," I said.

Susan looked at me solemnly for a moment, thinking about it.

"American people too," Susan said and smiled at Mei Ling, "have to know what can change and what cannot, I guess."

"Maybe I can get her to come and talk to you," I said.

"I hope so," Susan said.

"And maybe I can't."

"As long as you keep coming around, Tootsie," Susan said.

"That will do fine."

Mei Ling took a shrimp dumpling off of her plate with chopsticks and offered it to Hawk. He opened his mouth and she plopped it in. Pearl watched this closely and went and put her head on Mei Ling's lap. Mei Ling looked a little scared but took another shrimp dumpling and fed it to Pearl. I looked across the table at Susan and felt the heaviness of Port City begin to ease.