IT WOULD HAVE been helpful if Vinnie hadn’t shot the mystery man,” Susan said.
I was driving, Susan beside me. It was dark. The wipers were moving gently. It embodied most of what I wanted in life, alone with Susan, going someplace, protected from the rain.
“It would be helpful if the tooth fairy came by,” I said, “and left a note under my pillow explaining everything.”
“I guess it was just Vinnie being Vinnie,” Susan said.
“Yes,” I said.
“It wouldn’t occur to him that the gunman might be a valuable witness.”
“It wouldn’t,” I said.
“And if it did?” Susan said.
“He wouldn’t care,” I said.
“Some nice friends,” Susan said.
“I’m not sure Vinnie is a friend, exactly,” I said. “But if I need him he shows up. He’s not afraid of anything. He keeps his word. And he’s a really good shooter.”
I was in Kendall Square, looking for a parking spot close to the college. Susan would hate walking in the rain. Unlike myself.
“Who seems to be without regard,” Susan said, “for any of the rules.”
“He has some rules,” I said.
“Like Hawk,” Susan said.
I spotted an unoccupied hydrant across the street from Concord College.
“Some,” I said. “He’s not as smart as Hawk.”
“Most people aren’t.”
“And he doesn’t have Hawk’s, what, joy?” I said.
Susan laughed.
“Oddly, joy is about right for Hawk,” she said.
I let the traffic pass, and U-turned back toward my hydrant.
“It’s almost as if we were talking about you,” she said. “Which is kind of frightening.”
“I have more rules,” I said.
“I know.”
“And I have you.”
“Yes,” she said. “You do.”
I parallel-parked so adroitly that I was looking for applause. Susan had no reaction. She’d expected it. That was, after all, a kind of applause. We got out and headed across the street. Susan had an umbrella. She offered me shelter under it. I declined, of course.
“This lecture,” Susan said from under her umbrella. “It’s by the man that Jordan whatsis was having an affair with?”
“Richmond,” I said. “Yes. Epstein gave me the FBI file on Alderson, or at least as much of it as Epstein felt I should see.”
“That’s cynical,” Susan said.
“You bet,” I said. “According to the file, Alderson is a visiting professor at Concord, and part of his deal is to give two public lectures per academic year.”
“And we’re going to assess him?” Susan said.
“Got to start somewhere,” I said.
“And you brought me along to help with the assessment?” Susan said.
“Yes.”
“Not because it was going to be so boring you couldn’t stand to do it alone?”
“Boy,” I said, “you shrinks!”
We went into the college and found our way to the lecture hall. We sat in the last row. I put my feet on the back of the chair in front of me. No one else was within three rows of us. Susan smiled.
“Childhood habits persist,” Susan said.
“I was always a little rebellious in school,” I said.
“I’m shocked,” Susan said. “Shocked, I tell you.”
It was a big lecture hall, and could probably hold more than one hundred people. There were maybe thirty of us scattered around the room. A professor in an ill-fitting corduroy jacket came out onto the stage and introduced Alderson.
“My, my,” Susan said when Alderson came onto the stage. “Handsome.”
“If you like that look,” I said.
“What look do you like?” Susan said.
“Thuggish,” I said.
Susan smiled.
“Yes,” she said. “I like that too.”
After the lecture, some of the audience gathered around Alderson at the lectern. They were almost all women. Alderson was animated and charming with them.
“Recruiting a replacement?” I said to Susan.
“Women like him,” Susan said.
We left, and, with the rain still coming pleasantly, we drove out to Arlington and had a late supper at a restaurant called Flora.
“Whaddya think?” I said.
“He’s a graceful performer,” she said. “Speaks well. Doesn’t say much that’s new and informative.”
“The federal government is fascist, his organization is the place of last refuge for freedom-loving Americans,” I said. “That’s not new?”
“I don’t admire this current government either,” Susan said.
“Who does?” I said.
“Possibly eleven people somewhere back in the hills,” Susan said. “But I remain unconvinced that Last Hope is the answer.” “What’d you think of him?” I said. “As him.”
“We didn’t see him,” Susan said. “We saw his public persona. All we know is that he’s capable of assuming that persona.”
“On the tapes he was in his seduction persona,” I said.
Susan sipped her martini.
“Did it resemble his public one?” she said.
“Less oratorical,” I said.
“What does the FBI file say?”
I drank some scotch.
“Last Hope advertises itself as helping people in trouble with the government,” I said. “According to the Feds, they claim to counsel the victims of government oppression on how to fight back and to provide access to lawyers, investigators, and CPAs.”
“And do they do that?”
“Feds don’t seem to think they do much of it.”
“How many people in the organization.”
“Feds don’t know.”
“Who finances them,” Susan said.
“Feds don’t know.”
“Shouldn’t they know more than they seem to?”
“They don’t think Last Hope amounts to much,” I said. “Or at least they didn’t, until one of their agents got killed.”
“And you?” Susan said. “You think they amount to much?”
“I don’t know if they’re in a position to bring our government to its knees,” I said. “But I think Alderson killed two people.”
“And you want him to answer for it,” Susan said.
“I do,” I said.
“You barely knew these people,” Susan said.
“I knew them enough,” I said.
The waiter brought salmon for Susan, and gnocchi for me. I had another scotch.
“And you withheld information,” Susan said, “that might prove useful to the police and the FBI.”
“For the moment,” I said.
“Because you want to catch him yourself,” Susan said.
“Yes.”
She nodded.
“That’s not unlike you,” Susan said. “In any case.”
I nodded.
“But you seem unusually intense about this one,” she said.
“I’m an intense guy,” I said.
“That’s just it,” she said. “You’re not, at least not so it shows.”
We were quiet for a moment. Susan waited.
“You think I identify with Doherty?” I said.
“Maybe,” Susan said.
“Because you were with another man once?”
“There are parallels,” Susan said.
“It was a long time ago,” I said.
“That’s right,” Susan said.