Narrowing the search area to 3,600 miles was about as well as we did for the rest of the afternoon. When we finished trying at six o’clock, we were no closer to finding Costigan than we had been at lunch. But dinner was closer. No cloud is all dark.
“I need a drink,” Rachel Wallace said. “Or maybe twelve.”
“I go out and get a bottle,” Hawk said. “Stretch my legs.”
“Why not have it sent up,” Rachel Wallace said. “You might be spotted.”
Hawk looked at her as if she’d said the world was flat.
“Or someone might follow you back here,” Rachel Wallace said.
Hawk looked at her as if she had just fallen off the edge of the world.
“Scotch?” he said.
“And soda and ice and glasses,” I said.
“Hotel will send them up,” Hawk said. “I don’t do set-ups.”
He opened the door quietly and went out.
“Why,” Rachel Wallace said.
“But we all feel like things, he could cause trouble, he could jeopardize … it’s childish.”
“I know,” I said. “Why don’t you call and have set-ups delivered.”
Rachel Wallace looked at Susan.
“They understand each other,” Susan said. “Something about not letting the world dictate to you. As you said, it’s childish.”
Rachel Wallace shook her head and reached for the phone on the nightstand.
Susan said to me, “I need to talk.” I pointed to the connecting room.
To Rachel Wallace, I said, “When they deliver, let me know before you open the door. And don’t stand in front of it when he knocks.”
She smiled and nodded. Susan went into the connecting room. I followed her and closed the door. She sat on the bed. I sat beside her.
“I need to talk with Russell,” she said.
I nodded.
“I am clear on what I want. I don’t want to be with him again. But I can’t just end our relationship like we did. Just drive away and leave him standing by the side of the road.”
I nodded again. “You know if you want to be with me?” I said.
“I know I don’t want to be without you,” she said.
“You know a number to call him?”
“Yes.”
“Why don’t you do it in here,” I said.
She nodded. “If you had the number Martin Quirk could probably get the location.”
I nodded. “I can’t,” she said.
“I know,” I said. “I didn’t ask.”
“He may not be with his father,” she said.
“Maybe not,” I said.
“Even if he were,” Susan said, “I couldn’t …”
“No,” I said, “you couldn’t. You couldn’t use your private knowledge of him to get his father killed. Even though Russell might like it.”
“You understand that?”
“Yes.”
“You understand that I can tell you about Jerry and about Grace and that sort of thing. But I can’t give you his number that he trusted me with.”
I nodded.
“You see the difference,” Susan said.
“Yes,” I said.
She took my right hand in both of hers and leaned forward and kissed me on the lips. Lightly.
Rachel Wallace tapped on the door. “Room service is here,” she said. I took my hand from Susan’s and patted her on the cheek. Then I went into the other room, and took my gun out and stood half into the bathroom door with the gun out of sight and said to Rachel Wallace, “Okay.”
When the waiter left there were glasses and soda and a large bowl of Smokehouse almonds. “Ice down the corridor,” Rachel Wallace said.
I was gazing at the almonds. “I’ll get some when Hawk comes back.”
Rachel Wallace grinned. “The almonds were with you in mind,” she said.
“If you weren’t a pervert,” I said, “I think I’d marry you.”
There was a tap on the door and Hawk’s voice said, “Booze patrol.”
I opened the door and Hawk came in with two bottles of Glenfiddich and a bottle of Domaine Chandon Blanc de Noirs champagne.
“Let the good times roll,” he said.
I looked at the champagne. “Domestic?” I said.
“French house, California grapes,” he said. “Top shelf.”
I went down the hall for ice. When I came back into the room Rachel Wallace was talking to Hawk.
“And he knew that you were alone at the door. How could he know someone wasn’t forcing you to lie at gunpoint.”
Hawk looked at me sadly.
“If I understand your question,” I said, “Hawk wouldn’t do it.”
“Even under threat of death he wouldn’t betray you?”
“I doubt that either of us has thought of it that elegantly, but no, he wouldn’t.”
“And you know that?”
“Yes.”
“How can you be sure?”
“ ’Cause he know he wouldn’t,” Hawk said.
Rachel Wallace shook her head impatiently. “That’s what I’m trying to get at. How do you know he wouldn’t? How do you know he knows he wouldn’t? Do you discuss these things?”
“One doesn’t,” I said.
“Oh, God, spare me the Hemingway posturing,” she said.
I grinned. “We don’t,” I said.
“But damn it, why don’t you?”
“One doesn’t,” Hawk said.
“Oh shit,” she said and began putting ice cubes in a glass.
Susan opened the door of the adjoining room. “We need to talk,” she said.
I went in and closed the door again. The phone lay on the bed, the receiver off the hook.
“He wants to talk with you,” Susan said. Her face was pale and tight.
I picked up the phone. “Yeah?”
“With Susan,” Russell said, “it looks like I lost and you might win. She wants it, she should have it. I wish her well.”
Costigan’s voice was hoarse, but steady. I knew how he might be feeling. I was quiet. My knuckles on the receiver were white.
“You and I aren’t friends,” he said, “but we got a special connection. We know things most people don’t know.”
I said, “Un huh?”
“You’re trying to kill my old man,” Russell said.
“Un huh.”
“He’s trying to kill you.”
“Un huh.”
“He’s in Boise,” Russell said. “Him and the old lady. They’ve been there since you broke into The Keep.”
“Boise, Idaho?” I said.
“Yeah. There’s an old silver mine that he’s recycled.”
“Recycled?”
“Yeah, he’s turned it into a fortress. You get him in there and you’re the best that ever lived.”
“He know you’re telling me this?” I said.
“No.”
“You there too?” I said.
“I will be.”
“See you there,” I said.
He hung up. I stood for a moment listening to the empty sound of the incompleted circuit. Then I hung up too. Susan was sitting on the bed with her back against the headboard and her knees hugged up to her chest. She stared at her kneecaps. I reached over with my right hand and softly massaged the back of her neck.
“Worse and worse,” she said.
I was quiet. She reached behind her neck with her left hand and took my right and held it against her cheek.
“You and me, babe,” I said.
She nodded, holding my hand as hard as she could.