Now and then - By Robert B. Parker Page 0,6
did. All of it. Sitting in the darkened car with the wind driving the hard rain straight in against the window. We listened to the sounds of obvious intimacy. At one point Jordan actually screamed. And giggled.
Once she said, “Perry, what are you doing to me?” in a littlegirl voice. Perry laughed. Otherwise he was quiet. Things culminated and then there was quiet.
After a time Jordan’s voice said, “Oh my God.”
Perry said, “Ever like this at home?”
“No,” Jordan said. “Nothing.”
I felt as if my soul were clenching like a fist. I was listening to something I had no right to hear. I thought about Doherty. Would I share this with him? Not unless I had to. I could probably convince him by playing the I-can’t-wait-to- get-naked part. The stuff before she was noisily in bed with another man.
“We got plenty,” Hawk said.
I nodded and shut off the tape. Hawk reached for the radio switch.
“Shall we have a drink while we talk about what you know?”
Perry said.
Hawk’s hand stopped. He looked at me.
“Postcoital?” he said to me.
“Let me get my body covered,” Jordan’s voice said.
“I like your body the way it is,” Perry said. “Stay here. I’ll get us a drink and we can talk in bed.”
“Perfect,” Jordan said. “I’ll tell you what I’ve learned from Dennis.”
I turned the tape recorder back on.
8.
We listened. Our street opened at the far end onto the river. Compressed by the high buildings on either side, the wet wind made the car tremble when it gusted. Inside it was just us and the two voices.
“Dennis says that the bureau knows that there is some sort of antigovernment activity associated with Concord,” Jordan said.
“But as far as I can tell it is no more interesting to them than half a dozen other groups.”
“My name ever come up?” Perry said.
“Only in my dreams,” Jordan said.
Hawk grunted.
The heavy rain flooded down the windshield, distorting what little we could see, making us seem alone in oceans of dark space, listening to disembodied words through the radio speaker.
“I hope you don’t talk in your sleep,” Perry said.
“Even if I did,” Jordan said, “poor Dennis wouldn’t make anything of it. He doesn’t know what to make of me, for God’s sake, or what to do with me. He has pulled his ignorance up around himself and hides.”
“How do they know about Last Hope?” Perry said.
“Nothing that I know of.”
“You ever mention it to him?”
“No, of course not. For obvious reasons.”
“Of course,” Perry said.
“According to Dennis, the bureau’s attention is focused at the moment on a group called FFL. I don’t know what the initials stand for.”
“Freedom’s Front Line,” Perry said.
“Are they violent?” Jordan said.
“The philosophy is purgative,” Perry said.
“By violence?”
“Yes.”
There was silence, then Jordan said, “Sometimes it almost seems the only way.”
“I know,” Perry said.
“I wonder if I could do it?” Jordan said.
“Fight?”
“Kill,” Jordan said, “for a cause I believed in.”
“Fortunately you probably won’t have to make that decision,”
Perry said.
“I don’t know,” she said. “This country. The way this country is going . . .”
“I know,” Perry said.
He sounded very soothing.
“Does Dennis talk about the bureau’s anti-terrorism operations?” Perry said.
“There’s something called Operation Blue Squall,” she said.
“But I don’t know much about it.”
“It would help us in our mission,” Perry said, “if we knew more.”
“I know. I’ll try. But Dennis and I don’t talk so much anymore.”
“Because of us?” Perry said. “He knows there’s something going on?”
“I can’t be here,” she said, “with you, and home with him. He knows I’m not there.”
“What else does he know?”
“He doesn’t even know what he knows,” Jordan said. “I told you he’s got his head down like a man in a sandstorm.”
“What if he decided to fi nd out?” Perry said.
“He won’t.”
“He’s an FBI agent,” Perry said. “He has resources.”
“Maybe,” Jordan said. “But none that will help him here.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“I’m right,” Jordan said. “I’ve lived with him for twenty-fi ve years. The poor bastard.”
“You feel sorry for him?”
“He’s so overmatched in this,” she said.
“So what do you think you should do?” Perry said.
“Right now,” Jordan said, “I think I should give you a blow job.”
“That’ll work,” Perry said.
I reached over and shut off the radio.
“You don’t want to listen to a BJ?” Hawk said.
“No.”
“Might be some more clues,” Hawk said.
“I got all the clues I can stand.”
We were quiet. The wind and rain kept coming.
“She find that bug in her purse,” Hawk said, “gonna matter more than we thought it would.”
“I know.”
“You working on a plan?” Hawk said.
“I am,” I said.
9.
How come