“Yes,” she said. “I will.”

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

I got a call at my office the next morning from KC Roth inviting me to lunch. I figured I was safe in a public place, so I accepted. We met at the Legal Sea Foods restaurant in Chestnut Hill, and because we were early we didn’t have to wait long.

“I’ve moved back into civilization,” KC said, when she was seated across from me with a glass of white wine.

“Chestnut Hill?” I said.

She shook her head.

“Not enough dollars,” she said. “Place in Auburndale, the first floor of a nice two-family.”

We looked at menus and ordered. KC had another glass of white wine.

“I… I have to say things,” she said.

“Okay.”

“I… I’m sorry about some of the crazy things I did. Calling you up and leaving you notes.”

“No harm,” I said.

“I was just… crazy, I guess. Crazy time, you know?”

“I know.”

“And of course I want to thank you for saving me.”

“Just had to convince you to save yourself. Your ex-husband was more useful than I was.”

“Yes. Burt was there for me. Sometimes I think I made a mistake. I could be there now in a nice house with someone taking care of me.”

“You can take care of yourself,” I said.

“I didn’t do much of a job of it before,” she said.

“Your ex-husband send you money?” I said.

“Alimony.”

“Enough?”

“Enough to be independent,” KC said.

“Or dependent.”

“Sure, men always say things like that. You have no idea what it is like to have been a married housewife forced suddenly to take care of herself.”

“You’re right,” I said.

She sipped her wine. The restaurant was busy. Legal Sea Foods are always busy.

“You think I should get a job?” she said.

“I think if you supported yourself and didn’t take money from your ex-husband, in the long run you’d feel better about things.”

“I wonder if he’s seeing anyone.”

I didn’t say anything.

“He was there for me,” KC said.

“And he urged you not to misunderstand,” I said. “He reminded you that you and he had different lives to live.”

“Of course you’d stick up for him. Men always stick up for each other. The old boys’ network.”

“I’m not so old,” I said.

“Oh pooh,” she said. “You know what I mean.”

The waitress brought chowder for KC and lobster salad for me. KC took the opportunity to order another glass of wine. We each had a taste of our lunch. KC’s wine came and she had some.

“But,” she said, “I didn’t ask you to lunch to complain.”

“Oh,” I said.

“I just wanted the chance to let you know that I understand how much you’ve done for me.”

“My pleasure,” I said.

“Is he-whose-name-shall-not-be-mentioned going to be in jail a long time?”

“Ask me after his trial,” I said.

“What if he doesn’t go to jail?”

“He will.”

“But what if there’s, you know, a miscarriage of justice?”

“Then we’ll take the necessary steps,” I said.

“You’ll still be there for me?”

“It’s sort of what I do, KC.”

“But I haven’t even paid you.”

“I know.”

“What if he comes back and I still can’t pay you?”

“We’ll work it out,” I said.

“I… I just don’t think I can cope if I don’t know you’re there.”

“Where?” I said.

“You know, there for me.”

“As I said, that’s sort of my profession.”

“You mean you’re there for anyone who hires you.”

“More or less,” I said.

She was taking in more wine than chowder, which was a shame because the chowder at Legal was very good. I finished my lobster salad.

“When you were sitting by my bedside,” KC said, “after the… that awful thing happened to me, I thought maybe I might be more than just someone who had hired you to be there.”

I didn’t like the way this conversation was going.

“Part of the service,” I said.

She put her hand out and placed it firmly on top of mine, and stared into my eyes.

“God damn it,” she said, “can’t you see I love you?”

I felt like I’d wandered into a remake of Stella Dallas.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “I rescued you from a bad situation. And you need to be in love with someone to feel secure and you don’t have anyone else to love at the moment, and I’m handy and you think I’m it.”

“Don’t tell me what I feel,” she said.

“Are you still seeing the therapist Susan recommended?”

“Drive all the way to Providence twice a week to talk about my father? I don’t think so.”

“Susan can get you someone up here.”

“You think I’m crazy?”

“I think you need help in figuring out who to love and who to trust and what you need.”

“Talk talk talk. Why can’t men ever simply feel?”

“You need help in not generalizing, too,” I said.

She stood up so suddenly that she knocked over her empty wine glass. She came around the table and threw her arms around me and kissed me on the mouth. I sat stock still feeling like a virgin under siege. Flight seemed unbecoming. KC was pushing the kiss as hard as a kiss can be pushed. I remained calm. When she broke for air she leaned her head back and stared into my eyes some more.

“I love you, you bastard,” she said. “Don’t you understand that I love you.”

“If you don’t let go of me,” I said, “and sit back down, I will hit you.”

She straightened up as if I actually had hit her, and stared at me, and began to cry. Sobbing loudly, she turned and ran from the restaurant. Everyone in the place watched her leave, and then looked at me with either disapproval (almost all of the women, some of the men) or sympathy (several of the men, one woman). My waitress remained unperturbed. She brought me the check.

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

The post office in Beecham, Maine, was located in one corner of a variety store in a small weathered-shingle building at the top of a short hill which led down to the harbor. The coast of Maine was tourist country, and a lot of shopkeepers had adopted a kind of stage Yankee persona in order to fulfill expectations.

“I’m looking for Last Stand Systems,” I said.

The shopkeeper/postmaster was a fat old guy wearing a collar-less blue and white striped shirt, and big blue jeans held up by red suspenders.

“In town here,” he said.

As he answered me he eyed Hawk. The look wasn’t suspicious exactly, it was more the look you give to an exotic animal that has unexpectedly appeared. The way he might have looked if I’d come in with an ocelot on a leash.

“Where in town?”

“Out the Buxton Road,” he said.

“Does it have an address?” I said.

“Beecham, Maine.”

The shopkeeper was seated on one of four stools bolted to the floor in front of a marble-topped soda fountain, his fat legs dangling, his fat ankles showing sockless above a pair of moccasins. There were donuts under a glass dome, and straws and napkins in chrome dispensers.

“Does it have a number on it?” I said.

“Nope.”

“If I went out the Buxton Road how would I recognize it?”

“See the sign out front.”

“The one that says Last Stand Systems, Inc.?”

“Yep.”

“That should help us,” I said.

“Might.”

“How do we get to the Buxton Road?” I said.

“Right out front. Turn right.”

“You been working on this act for a long time?” Hawk said.

The old fat guy almost smiled for a moment, but fought it off and stayed in character.

“Yep,” he said.

“Real hay shakers wear socks,” Hawk said.

“Some do,” the old fat guy said.

Hawk grinned. We turned and went back out and got into Hawk’s car and turned right. Nearly all the houses were white and set on low foundations. Many had long porches that wrapped around the front and one side where people could sit in rocking chairs and look across the street at people sitting in rocking chairs looking across the street. The Buxton Road barrel-arched over a fast-moving little river and then flattened out between tall pines on the right and the sea-foamed boulder-scattered coastline on the left. The sea birds seemed livelier on this coast. There was very little of the effortless gliding that gulls did in Boston. Here, they flashed above the waves, and dove into the foam, and scooted over the rocks and snapped food out of the tidal ponds that formed among the rusty-looking granite chunks. About a mile out of town there was a narrow drive off into the pine trees. A small sign, black letters on white wood, read Last Stand Systems, Inc. Hawk U-turned and pulled up onto the shoulder at the opposite edge of the road above the ocean fifty yards down past the sign.