School Days - By Robert B. Parker Page 0,31

said. "Take the bedroom."

"You gonna have sex with me?" she said.

"Nope."

"Why not?"

"Too young," I said.

"I know how," she said.

"Good to have a skill," I said.

"I done it a lot."

"Practice makes perfect," I said. "You don't wanna?"

"I'm flattered to be asked," I said. "But my heart belongs to another."

"You gonna let me stay here for nothing?"

"That's what I'm going to do," I said.

I took the couch. It was a big, comfortable couch, but it was less convenient than it sounded, because Pearl also took the couch, and my first night there was not very restful. Nor was Pearl's.

In the morning, George was moving better. She emerged late, wearing one of my shirts for a nightgown. It was sufficiently modest. The shirttails reached her knees. I made us breakfast and left her to eat it, and Pearl to watch her, while I went into my bathroom for a shower and then to my bedroom for clean clothes. By the time I came out, freshly scrubbed and clean shaven, she had finished breakfast. I noticed that she hadn't eaten too much. She took out a pack of cigarettes and lit one. I disapproved, but I figured this wasn't the week for her to quit, so I just opened one window a crack in the living room, and didn't comment.

I didn't want to leave her alone yet, so I sat and read David McCullough's book on John Adams while she was in the bedroom with the television going. We didn't have much to say, so we didn't say it. She slept a lot. I made her some soup.

At supper, I asked her a few questions about Jared Clark that she didn't know the answers to. I was pretty sure that we could make a very long list of questions she wouldn't know the answer to. After supper, Pearl and I watched the Sox game on the living-room television and spent a second night on the couch in territorial conflict.

The next morning, when George came out she was wearing another of my shirts, but her hair was combed and she looked like she'd washed. She was moving pretty well, and she didn't seem either pained or drugged. After breakfast, I showed her how to operate my washer-dryer, and she put her clothes through. While she was doing that, I checked my answering machine at the office. There was a message from Major Johnson. I wrote down the details.

Late in the afternoon, fully dressed in her laundered clothes, George came into the living room, smoking a cigarette.

"I'm bored," she said.

"Me, too."

She looked startled, as if it hadn't occurred to her that I might experience anything.

"How long I gotta stay here?"

"Long as you think you need to," I said.

"I gotta hide from Animal."

"Doesn't mean you can't go out and walk around," I said. "It's a big city."

"What are you going to do?"

"Got some business tonight," I said. "How you feeling?"

"I feel okay."

The bruise along her jawline was now blue and yellow, and the swollen eye had opened a little. Her lip was still fat. I went to the kitchen and got a spare set of keys from what Susan called the "crap drawer," where I kept such things. The name seemed harsh to me.

"You want to go out," I said. "Big key opens the front door downstairs. Other one opens my door. Pearl should stay in until I get back."

"I never been in Boston before," she said.

"Of course not," I said. "It must be forty miles."

"I never been anywhere," she said.

I wrote my address and home phone number on the back of one of my business cards and gave it to her.

"You get lost, take a cab back here," I said. "Or you call me."

"I don't have any money," she said.

Of course she didn't. I gave her some.

Chapter 32

THE SOUTH BAY SHOPPING MALL was tucked in under Southampton Street, just west of Andrew Square across the expressway. It was dark when I got there and met Major Johnson in front of the Home Depot. There were a number of other youngish black men with Major, and none of them seemed impressed with me.

"So," Major said. "Whitefish, wha's happenin'."

"Wha's happenin'?"' I said. "I keep telling you, Major, you African guys aren't going to integrate with our culture if you insist on talking funny."

"Fuck you," Major said.

"There you go," I said. "White guys say that to me, too."

Major grinned at me suddenly.

"I forgot what you was like," he said.

"How could you," I said. "Jose arrive yet?"

"He be along," Major