Pale Kings and Princes

“One of the things I like best about you,” she said, “is how earnest you are about your work. You pretend to be such a wise guy, and you are so rebellious about rules; but you are so careful to do what you say you’ll do.”

“There’s not too much else to be careful about,” I said.

“Post Christian ethics,” she said.

“I’m careful about you,” I said.

She cut a wedge of cornbread and transferred it carefully to her plate. A faint wisp of steam eased up from it.

“Yes,” she said, “about me, and about us.”

“You too,” I said.

“We’ve both learned to be careful of us,” she said.

We looked at each other. The connective force of our gaze was palpable.

“Forever,” I said finally.

Susan nodded.

I drank some coffee, looking at Susan over the rim of the cup. Then I put the cup down and cut another piece of cornbread from the round. I felt the intensity of the silence, like a cup filled too full and keeping its contents through surface tension. I took a breath and let it out.

Susan smiled.

“Are you going to confront the cocaine man?” she said.

“Esteva? Maybe. And the kid probably, and see what happens.”

“What do you think will happen?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “It’s like sluice mining where they wash tons of earth off a hillside with jets of water. They get all this sludge in motion and see if gold turns up.”

“Do you think Esteva will be angry?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Will you need help?” Susan said.

“Against a horde of armed killers? Surely you jest.”

“Will you do something for me,” she said. “Will you ask Hawk to go with you?”

“Maybe,” I said, “in a while, since you asked so nice.”

She smiled. “Thank you,” she said. “But you acquiesce so easily. Perhaps all is not as it appears to be?”

“Well,” I said, “maybe not.”

“You were going to ask him anyway.”

“But not for myself,” I said. “It’s best for society if Hawk is kept busy.”

21

I parked the rented Mustang in Caroline Rogers’s driveway before lunch on Monday. The driveway had been plowed and a path had been cut through the plow spill to the front door. The house was a two-story raised ranch with fieldstone facing on the first floor and red cedar siding on the second. The front door was painted green. I rang the bell. Caroline opened the door. She was dressed and her hair was combed and she had on lipstick. There was no particular sign of pain. Grief makes less of a mark on people’s appearance than is thought. People torn with sorrow often look just like people who aren’t.

I said, “Hello, Mrs. Rogers, may I come in?”

She smiled and nodded and stepped aside. I walked into a living room full of maple furniture upholstered in print fabric. Somewhere in the house a television set was on.

“Let me take your coat,” she said.

I took off my leather jacket and handed it to her. She paid no attention to the gun in the shoulder rig. She was a cop’s wife. She’d seen guns before.

“Coffee?” she said. “It’s all made.”

“Thank you.”

She left the living room and came back in maybe a minute with cream, sugar, and a mug of coffee on a small tole tray. The mug was white and had a big red apple painted on the side. She set the tray down on the coffee table, and gestured toward the couch.

I sat. She smoothed her plaid skirt down along the backs of her thighs and sat in a wing chair across from me, her knees together. She was wearing cream-colored cable-stitched knee socks and penny loafers. She folded her hands on her lap. I noticed there were no rings on either hand.

“How are you?” I said.

“I’m coping,” she said.

I poured a little cream in the coffee, added two sugars, and stirred. If you add the sugar first it doesn’t taste right.

“How’s the kid?”

“Brett seems all right. He and his father were not close.”

I drank some coffee.

“No rings,” I said.

“No,” she said. “It’s a way to start living a new way. I miss him, but I have a long time left without him.”

I nodded.

“Is your son home?”

“Yes, he’s in the den.”

I squeezed my lips together for a moment. “I need to see him,” I said. “I need to talk with you both about something.”

“What is it?”

“I need to talk with you both,” I said.

Caroline didn’t argue. She got up and went out of the living room and returned in a moment with Brett. The first time he looked at me I didn’t register. He had a vague apprehensive look, the way a kid might have when his mother says a man wants to talk with you. Then he saw me again and I did register. He stopped short, and stared at me and then took a step back and closer to his mother.

“Yeah,” I said, “it’s me. The guy on the Maine Pike.”

He shook his head and opened his mouth and closed it.

“What about the Maine Pike,” Caroline said.

I looked at Brett. He didn’t say anything.

“Brett?” Caroline said.

Brett’s face was red. He didn’t look at me, or his mother. His hands were jammed into the side pockets of his beige and blue warm-up suit.

Caroline looked at me. “Mr. Spenser?”

I took in a deep breath. “Having nothing better to do a few days back I staked out the Esteva warehouse and when Brett drove out in a big tractor with no trailer I followed him.”