Rough Weather: A Spenser Novel

the borogroves.’ ”
    Then I closed the phone and put it back in my pocket. Hawk was quick. He should be about at Exeter Street by now. I began to saunter along toward the Ford. I could feel the weight of my Browning on my right hip. There were fourteen rounds in the magazine, and one in the chamber. On each side of Commonwealth there was a march of brick and brownstone town houses. Most had small yards with shrubs. Halfway up the block toward Dartmouth I paused, staring, as if I’d seen something on the front walk of a town house. I stepped in and crouched down for a closer look, and as I did so, shielded by a shrub, I took the Browning off my hip and cocked it. Then I stood, with the gun against my right thigh, concealed in the skirt of my topcoat, and continued toward Dartmouth. It was getting dark. But in the streetlight at the corner of Exeter, I saw Hawk appear. Just before I came up on the Ford, I could see two men get out of the Caddie a block up on the other side. My guys would wait until I passed. I could see the car windows were down. They might not get out. They might shoot me from the car. I was whistling “Midnight Sun” as I strolled along. Footloose in the Back Bay, looking for love and feeling groovy. As I got to the car, I took a fast shuffle sideways, and standing just behind the passenger window, I pointed my gun in the window and said, “Move and I’ll kill you.”
    The guy on my side had a sawed-off shotgun in his lap. He was right-handed, and it was too awkward for him to point itback at me. Sadly, he tried anyway and I killed him. The driver slammed the car into reverse and spun his wheels. I jumped away and steadied my aim on him. He slammed the car into drive and spun his wheels, getting away from the curb. The smell of burnt rubber was strong. He careened up Commonwealth. I aimed carefully at the back of the car and didn’t shoot. There were other cars. There were people. I could probably hit the car, but I wouldn’t stop it without shooting him. Which, given the circumstance, was uncertain. He was no use to me dead anyway. One was enough. The car ran the red light at Dartmouth Street, and slammed a right and disappeared with the disapproving sound of horns beeping angrily behind him. I looked across Commonwealth at the corner of Dartmouth. The black Caddie was still there. Hawk was sitting on the hood. I didn’t see anyone else. I made a palms-up gesture at Hawk. Where are they? Hawk jerked a thumb toward the sidewalk on the other side of the car. I holstered my gun and walked across.

 
    I sat with Quirk in an
interrogation room in the new police headquarters, across the table from the two guys Hawk had collared. One had a big, rapidly discoloring bruise on his right cheekbone. The other guy had a bandage across his forehead. Hawk had apparently banged him face-first against the edge of the Cadillac roof. Beside them sat a smallish man with a lot of curly hair that stood straight out from his head. He had on a blue work shirt and a wrinkled sport coat in a small gray-green check.
    “Hawk clean on this?” I said to Quirk.
    Quirk grinned.
    “Good Samaritan,” he said. “Saw what was going down and intervened. We’re crediting him with a citizen’s arrest.”
    I nodded.
    “They got a lawyer?” I said.
    “Don’t seem to speak much English,” Quirk said. “Not sure they know they can have a lawyer.”
    “Where they from?” I said.
    “I don’t know, one of those
stan
countries in Central Asia,” Quirk said. “Boogaloo-
stan
, or something.”
    I looked at the two guys. They were ordinary-looking guys. Both had dark hair. One had a beard touched with gray. He wasn’t that old. Whiskers always seem to be the first to go.
    There was a knock and the interrogation-room door opened.
    “Captain,” a woman said, “lawyer’s here for these two.”
    A black man came into the room wearing a gray three-piece suit that looked vaguely as if it might have been made for him in Europe. His close-cut hair was gray. He wore gold-rimmed glasses and carried a briefcase.
    “Lamar Dillard,” he said. “I represent these two gentlemen.”
    “You’re not some guy from the pool,” Quirk said. “You cost money. Who hired you?”
    “An interested third party,” Dillard said, “who I am under no obligation to name.”
    Quirk nodded.
    With Dillard was a small woman with smooth black hairworn long, and big, dark eyes. She wore a plain gray dress with a white collar, and low shoes