“Has any of this been useful, Mr. Spenser?”

“It’s been worth hearing,” I said.

“But useful?”

“Gotta think about it,” I said. “If any of my victims were willing, would you talk with them?”

She smiled again. This time with not only warmth but humor.

“The sisterhood is strong,” she said.

“I’ll take that,” I said, “for a yes.”

She nodded.

“You may,” she said.

IT WAS MORNING, and we were in the car, drinking coffee, driving south on Route 91 heading for the Mass Pike. I was enjoying a donut.

“Sure you don’t want one?” I said. “Cinnamon, my fave.”

“Ick,” Susan said.

“The naked frolic in a motel outside of Springfield seemed to go better than you thought it would,” I said.

“A moment of weakness,” Susan said.

“You think there’s anything in the fact that what Clarice remembers best about her and Gary ’s sex life is how strong and forceful he was?”

“You think he might be a little vengeful?” Susan said.

“Something like that,” I said. “I mean, even Hawk agrees that there’s a limit to the number of women you can have sex with.”

“And Hawk has tested the limits,” Susan said.

“He has,” I said. “You said once that there might be something more than sex and money in this deal.”

“What could be more than sex and money?” Susan said.

“Pathology?” I said.

“Hey, I do the shrink stuff here,” Susan said.

“And?”

“Might be,” Susan said. “Worth looking into, I suppose.”

“And how would I look into that?” I said.

“Talk to some of his other partners.”

“Oh,” I said.

I finished my donut and got another one out of the bag. Susan ate some grapes she’d brought with her from home.

“You think things really do heal stronger at the break?” I said.

“It’s a nice metaphor,” Susan said. “When a broken bone heals, there is often additional bone mass.”

“So bones may in fact heal stronger at the break,” I said.

“Maybe,” Susan said.

“Think that holds in other things?” I said.

“Some things,” she said. “Sometimes.”

“There are very few absolutes in the therapist’s canon,” I said.

“Very few,” Susan said. “Although, I guess, understanding the truth about yourself is important.”

“You think they got there?”

“Clarice and her husband? Probably,” Susan said. “No one gets there all the way. But they seem close. If she’s accurate. I assume they addressed the causes of the break, understood them, and were tough enough to change.”

“She was tough enough,” I said, “not to knuckle under to Gary Eisenhower.”

Susan smiled.

“You like that name, don’t you?” Susan said.

“I do. If I adopt an alias, I may use it.”

“Gee,” Susan said. “You look just like a Gary Eisenhower, too.”

“And from there it’s an easy leap to Cary Grant,” I said.

“Easy,” Susan said. “Of course, guilt helped.”

“Clarice?”

“Uh-huh.”

“As in she was tough enough to confess publicly because she felt she deserved the public humiliation?” I said.

“As in exactly that,” Susan said. “You’re smarter than you look.”

“Lucky thing,” I said. “If I weren’t, I probably wouldn’t be able to feed myself.”

“I’d feed you,” Susan said.

“I know you would,” I said. “But, guilt or whatever, it all worked for her. She kept her husband, her job, her children’s regard.”

“And her self,” Susan said.

Occasionally as we drove we could see the Connecticut River flowing south beside us, heading for Long Island Sound. The year had gone too far into November for there to be much leaf color left. Here and there a yellow leaf, or none, or few, but mostly spare grayness, hinting of cold rain.

“So are you saying,” I said, “that Gary ’s current victims in the gang of four haven’t got enough guilt?”

“A little guilt is not always a bad thing,” Susan said.

“And you a psychotherapist,” I said.

“I’m also Jewish,” she said.

“I think that’s a tautology,” I said.

“Oy,” Susan said.

“You think I should start berating them,” I said. “Make them feel more guilty?”

“I don’t know if it would work,” Susan said. “But I suspect it’s not your style.”

We came to the pike and headed east. I had one of those toll transponders that allow you to zip through the fast lane unhesitatingly. It made me feel special.

“It is interesting, though, that none of them feels guilty enough for your scenario to work.”

“It would suggest something about their marriages,” Susan said.

“And about them,” I said. “Some of them feel they’d be ruined if this all came out. One couple, the husband is gay, for instance, and in line for a big job. He and his wife are close. She knows, of course, and they remain friends, with a, necessarily, open marriage.”

“You don’t think that such fears beset Clarice Richardson?” Susan said.

“And they are not illegitimate fears,” I said. “She was lucky to be in a situation where decency could prevail.”

“That, too, would probably influence her,” Susan said.

“The recognition of those circumstances, and the hope that decency would prevail,” I said.

“Yes.”

“Maybe I could get them to see you professionally, and you could berate them.”

“Until they felt guilty enough to cure themselves?”

“Exactly,” I said. “How would that fly at the Psychoanalytic Institute?”

“Banishment, I think,” she said. “It is, however, not a position I’m prepared to take.”

“Is there a position you are prepared to take?” I said.

Susan smiled her fallen-angel smile. One of my favorites.

“How about prone, big boy?” she said.

“Shall I stop on the roadside?” I said.

Susan smiled.

“No,” she said.

WHEN GARY EISENHOWER came into my office on a rainy Monday morning, he had a purple bruise on his right cheekbone and a swollen upper lip. He moved stiffly to one of my chairs and eased himself into it. When he spoke he sounded like his teeth were clenched.

“I need a gun,” he said.

“I would guess that you do,” I said.

“I’m a convicted felon,” he said. “I can’t just buy one.”

“Also true.”

“Can you give me one?”

“Probably not,” I said. “Who beat you up?”

He made a slight movement with his lips, which, if it hadn’t hurt, might have turned into a smile.

“How’d you know?” he said.

“I’m a trained detective,” I said.

“Couple guys came around, tole me to stay away from Beth Jackson.”

“You’re still seeing her?” I said.

“Yeah.”

“Even though she hired me to put you out of business?” I said.

“Yeah,” Gary said.

“She your mole in the gang of four?” I said.

“How’d you know there was a mole?”

“You knew who hired me,” I said.

He shook his head and winced.

“And-” I said.

“You’re a trained detective,” Gary said.

“You tell them to take a hike?” I said.

“The two guys?” he said. “No, I said, ‘Sure thing.’ ”

“But?”

He started to shrug and remembered that everything hurt and stopped in mid-shrug.

“But she kept coming around and”-again the try at a smile-“what’s a boy to do?”

“So they caught you again and decided to get your attention,” I said.

“Yeah.”

“One of the guys slim and dark, sort of quiet?” I said.

“Yeah, Zel, he said his name was. The one poured it on me was some kind of ex-pug. He had a funny name, too, but I’m a little hazy about some of the details.”

“Boo,” I said.

“Yeah,” Gary said. “Boo. He liked his work.”

“So now what?” I said.

“I took my beating, but I’m not going away.”

“So you’ll see Beth again?”