"Yes."

"Who were they?" Susan said.

"I don't know."

In the distance, up Commonwealth Ave. from the Kenmore Square end, I could hear a siren above the racket of the car alarm.

There were lights on in many of the windows that had been dark.

"You should take Pearl and go back to my place, otherwise they'll want to talk with you too, and it'll take half the night, and Pearl won't like it."

"No, you'll need a witness."

"Good point," I said.

"I'm glad you're not dead."

"That's so sweet," I said.

The first patrol car swung up over the curb at Dartmouth Street and drove down the middle of the mall toward us. The headlights lit the scene harshly and I could see the blood spreading out on the sidewalk around both the men I'd killed.

The patrol cops got out on each side of the squad car with guns drawn, hatless, keeping the open doors between me and them.

Pearl barked at them. Susan shushed her. I put my hands on top of my head.

"Gun's on my right hip," I said.

"You want me to take it out, or you want to come get it."

"Stay just like you are," the cop on the passenger side said.

"And step away from the lady."

I did as I was told and the cop came out from behind the door with his gun leveled.

"Walk over here, put your hands on the roof."

I did as he told me. I backed away and spread my legs so that my weight rested on my hands and I couldn't move suddenly. The cop on the driver's side kept his gun on me over the roof, while his partner came and took my gun off my hip. He smelled it. Then he patted me down.

"Put your left hand behind your back," he said.

I did and he put a cuff on it.

"Now the other hand."

I had to straighten away from the car to do it. He finished cuffing me.

"You shoot them?" he said.

"Yes."

"With that thing?"

"Yeah."

When the cuffs were on his partner went to the two bodies and felt for pulses.

"They dead?" the first cop said.

"Yeah, both of them."

His partner was young and muscular with his uniform shirt tailored and his hair cut very short. I could hear more sirens in the distance, coming from both ends of Commonwealth and at least one coming down Dartmouth.

"Why'd you shoot them?" the first cop said.

"They tried to shoot me."

"You know who they are?"

"No."

"You see this, lady?"

"Yes," Susan said.

"I'm with him. We were walking Pearl when these two men and another one came at us and tried to kill him."

"Pearl's the dog?"

"Yes."

"Where's the other shooter?"

"He got away in a waiting car," Susan said.

The first cop stepped away from me. He was older than his partner with longish gray hair, wearing the kind of translucent eyeglasses that they used to issue in the army.

"Three guys come to shoot you, two of them get killed and the third one runs away," the older cop said.

"Don't usually happen that way."

"It was exciting," I said.

"I'll bet it was," he said.

"You got a permit for the piece?"

"Yes."

"ID?"

"Yes, in my wallet, left hip pocket."

He took out my wallet, found my licenses: gun, private, and driver's. He studied them. He looked at my ID picture in the car headlights and then looked at me carefully. Then he put everything back in my wallet and slipped the wallet into my back pocket. A second patrol car came down the mall from Exeter Street, a third one pulled in behind the first one from Dartmouth Street, and Frank Belson got out of an unmarked car parked on Dartmouth Street and walked up the mall toward us. The scene was now lit like an opera set. Belson spoke to the older of the first two cops.

"I was in the area. Whaddya got, Chick?"

"Guy shot two guys, claims self-defense, girlfriend's a witness."

Belson looked at me.

"Oh shit," he said.

Then he looked at Susan and Pearl and walked over and patted Pearl's head.

"Excuse my language," he said to Susan.

"I will not," she said.

"It's fucking disgusting."

Belson nodded and grinned at her and turned.

Chick said, "You know him, Frank?"

"Yeah."

"He's a private detective."

"I know. You can take the cuffs off."

"He shot two guys," Chick said.

"You got him under arrest?"

"No."

"You gonna arrest him?"

"I'll leave that up to you."

"Take off the cuffs."

Chick unlocked the cuffs, and put them back in their little case on his belt. I resisted the temptation to rub my wrists, too trite.

Susan and Pearl came over to stand beside me. I put an arm around her shoulder. Belson turned to the other detective who had walked down behind him.

"You better get Quirk," he said.

The dick nodded and headed back to the car. Belson turned toward Chick and his partner.

"You should probably have your hats on when Quirk gets here," he said.

Both cops obviously agreed. They headed for the squad car, and one of the late-arriving cops went back to the car for his hat too.

Belson turned, finally, to me, and folded his arms, took a big inhale and let it out.

"Okay," Belson said, "tell me about it."

CHAPTER 43

I was having dinner at the Capital Grill with Hawk and Susan.

"You let one get away?" Hawk said.

"Plus the drivers of the two getaway cars, whom you, of course, would have run down on foot."

"And bitten their heads off," Hawk said.

The waiter arrived with drinks.

"Merlot," he said as he put the glass of wine in front of Susan.

She said, "Thank you, John."

I had beer, Hawk had a glass of champagne.

"And you didn't get no license plate numbers?"

"Of course not," I said.

"If I had I might have been able to learn something."

"So you don't know who they were?" Hawk said.

"Actually, I do," I said.

"Belson called me. They were a couple of Russians, with long names."

"Russians?" Susan said.

"From Russia?"

"Yeah, via New York. Since the demise of the evil empire, the Russian mob has developed a base in New York. OCU told Belson they're moving into Boston now."

"OCU?" Susan said.

"Organized Crime Unit," I said.

"So why are they trying to shoot you?" Susan said.

"I don't know."

"We been talking to a lot of organized crime types lately," Hawk said.

"One of them could have hired some help."

"Why?"

"We getting too close to the merger plans?"

"If there are any merger plans."

"Fast Eddie say there are."

"What he said was that the rocks were bumping up against each other or something like that."

"He meant there were merger plans," Hawk said.

"If there are, and we're so close, how come we don't know it?" I said.

"

"Cause we stupid," Hawk said.

"Oh," I said.

"That's why."

John brought us two steaks and the cold seafood platter. He put the seafood in front of Susan.