Now and then - By Robert B. Parker Page 0,38

eleven. I went out into the hallway. Chollo was where he was supposed to be. I looked through the cut-glass window in the front door. Vinnie was where he was supposed to be. I wasn’t. I was supposed to be in the office with Susan. I walked back into the waiting room. Hawk had not moved. I looked out the front window. Vinnie hadn’t moved. I could go back out in the hallway and see that Chollo hadn’t moved. My options were limitless. I looked at my watch. It was now six minutes to ten.

“Susan asked me the other night if I thought we should get married,” I said.

Hawk continued to look at the offi ce door.

“How you feel ’bout that?” Hawk said.

He was dressed for business: jeans, ornate sneakers, a black sleeveless T-shirt. The big .44 Magnum revolver he favored was in a holster on his right hip. Even in repose the muscles in his arms seemed to strain against his black skin.

“I don’t know.”

“You love her,” Hawk said. “More than I ever seen anybody love anything.”

“True,” I said.

Outside, the bright brisk day had gotten grayer, and the hint of snow had become a suggestion.

“So why wouldn’t you?” Hawk said.

“I don’t know,” I said. “We wouldn’t necessarily live together.”

“Uh-huh.”

“There won’t be children,” I said.

“Uh-huh.”

“We have no fi nancial reason to get married.”

“Uh-huh.”

“So, why would we get married?” I said.

“’Cause you love each other more than I ever seen anybody love each other,” Hawk said.

“Which we’ve done without being married,” I said.

“Or even living together,” Hawk said.

“We tried that,” I said.

“I remember,” Hawk said. “Probably a good idea not to do that again.”

“Yes.”

I looked at my watch. It was three minutes after ten.

“So what you going to do?” Hawk said.

“We’ll talk about it some more. I guess if she wants it bad enough we’ll do it.”

“You know why she want it?” Hawk said.

“Not exactly,” I said.

“You going to ask her?”

“I thought maybe I should get it clear in my own head fi rst.”

“How that going?” Hawk said.

I shrugged.

“You ever think about getting married?” I said.

“No,” Hawk said.

“Would you ever?” I said.

“I don’t believe in much,” Hawk said.

“And I do?” I said.

“You a bear for symbols and shit,” Hawk said. “You think about what stuff means.”

“And getting married means something.”

“It do,” Hawk said.

I walked past him out into the hall again and looked up the stairs at Chollo, and then out the front-door window at Vinnie. I turned and looked at Hawk and nodded my head slowly.

“Yeah,” I said. “It do.”

Then I went back in the spare room and stood near the door and waited.

42.

A fter approximately eighteen months, 11:40 rolled around and Susan’s office door opened. Alderson stepped into the hall and turned and shook Susan’s hand, as he had when he’d come in.

“Susan,” he said. “Thank you so much. This has been one of the most remarkable hours I’ve ever spent.”

Susan shook his hand and nodded.

“Next Tuesday,” she said.

“Same time, same place,” Alderson said.

He turned for a moment and looked at me and smiled and turned back and went out the front door. Susan continued to stand in her office doorway. I went to the front window and watched him go down the steps and along the front walk and turn right and head back up Linnaean Street the way he had come.

We gathered in the spare room. Hawk and I on straight chairs. Vinnie on the couch with his iPod. Vinnie didn’t care if Alderson was unusual. If he needed to be shot, Vinnie would shoot him. Otherwise Vinnie liked listening to his iPod. Chollo sat beside Vinnie on the couch. It was hard to tell what interested Chollo, but he always seemed to pay attention. Susan rested her good-looking butt on the edge of the conference table.

“He’s a very unusual man,” Susan said.

“You have a moment to share your thoughts?” I said.

“I have all day,” Susan said. “I didn’t know how it would go, so I cleared my calendar after his visit.”

“Didn’t want no patients around, case we had to kill him,”

Hawk said.

“Yes,” Susan said.

Chollo smiled and nodded at her.

“Thoughtful,” he said. “For a gringette.”

“Is that a female gringo?” Susan said.

“It is what we always said in my village.”

“Village?” I said. “What village is that?”

“Bel Air,” Chollo said. “Bobby Horse and me, we live in Bel Air with Mr. Del Rio.”

“A hardscrabble life,” I said.

“Sí.”

We were quiet, everybody but Vinnie looking at Susan, waiting for her to tell us what she could. We knew she had allsorts