I kept my eyes on the door to my apartment. After fifteen or twenty minutes it becomes harder than you'd think it would be.

But I had spent half my life looking at things for too long a time, and had learned how. The door didn't open. I continued to look at it. I no longer smelled the cigarette smoke. My nose had gotten used to it. If I hadn't quit smoking twenty-five years ago, I'd probably have opened my front door without noticing anything and walked right into a bullet with others following hard upon.

Further argument to confound the Tobacco Institute.

I hadn't figured out how to get them out of there, and I hadn't figured out what to do if they went out the fire escape. So I stayed with Spenser's crime-stopper tip number 7. When uncertain of what to do, hang around. I leaned on the corner of the elevator shaft and looked at my door. Nothing happened.

I speculated on the sexual potential of an anchorwoman I liked on local television. I decided that it was considerable. As was my own. I considered whether sexual speculation about a prominent female newsperson was sexist and concluded that it was. I wondered if she looked good with her clothes off. I reminded myself that anyone who looked good with clothes on would, of course, look even better with clothes off.

I shrugged my shoulders and bent my neck in an effort to loosen my traps. I did some calf raises. I opened and closed my left hand twenty times and then shifted the Browning into it and opened and closed my right hand twenty times. Then I shifted the Browning back.

Somebody in the building was cooking onions. I was hungry. I had expected to come home, have a drink, and cook myself supper.

I had not expected to find one or more nicotine slaves in my way.

I was going to make myself some shredded pork barbecue out of a pork tenderloin I had in the refrigerator. I was going to serve it with red beans and rice, coleslaw on the side, and some corn bread, which I was going to make from Crutchfield self-rising white corn meal. Instead I was standing out here in the dark trying to keep my extremities from going to sleep and listening to my stomach growl.

Being a hero was not an unencumbered pleasure.

I tried compiling a list of things I liked best dogs, jazz, beer, women, working out, ball games, books, Chinese food, paintings, carpentry. I would have included sex, but everyone included sex, and I didn't want to be common. I thought about my comics hall of fame. Alley Oop, Li'1 Abner, Doonesbury, Calvin and Hobbes, Tank McNamara, of course… I was sick of waiting… I shifted the Browning to my left hand and took the.357 from my belt with my right. I cocked it, and stepped out from behind the elevator shaft, and fired one round from the revolver through my front door. Then I fired three rounds from the Browning and another round from the.357. Then I hot footed it down the front stairs and out the front door. I went down Marlboro Street on the dead run with a gun in each hand, turned the corner on Arlington Street, past one building and into the alley that ran behind my building.

It was dark. I flattened against the wall behind a bulkhead that sheltered some trash barrels. I could hear my heart pumping hard, trying to catch up with my sudden sprint. In the cool October night I could feel the sweat drying on my face. The side of my building caught some moon glow. If it had worked, they should be on the fire escape. I forced myself to look wide-eyed and unfocused at the whole side of my building, rather than trying to concentrate. In the dark you saw better if you did it that way.

Especially movement. Like the movement on the fire escape below my window. Two figures coming down. Ah, Spenser, I thought, you tricky devil, you've done it again! I would have been even more impressed with myself if it hadn't taken me an hour to think of this ploy.

The two figures dropped to the ground and started down the alley toward Arlington Street. One of them was putting his gun away inside his coat. They came quietly down the alley, not running, but moving quickly and staying in the shadows. They passed from the pale moon light into the shadows, and their eyes took a moment to adjust. They passed me in the shadows without any notice. They looked like the two kids who'd come with Lonnie Wu and scared me to death. I stepped out behind them, grabbed one of them by the hair, and jammed the Browning into his ear.

I didn't say anything. They probably didn't speak English. And I didn't know how to say "Stick 'em up" in Chinese. The kid grunted and his buddy turned with his gun out. I kept myself behind my teenybopper so his pal couldn't get a shot at me. The pal began to back down the alley toward Arlington Street, in a crouch, gun forward, held in both hands, looking for a shot at me and not able to get one. I was afraid he'd shoot at me anyway and kill his buddy. These were not stable young men. I took my gun out of the kid's ear and waved it at the other one, making a "beat it" gesture. For a moment, we faced off that way. The kid I had hold of tried to twist out of the way, but I was much too big and strong for him, and I kept him jammed against me, his head yanked back against my chest. In the distance was the sound of a siren.

Somebody in my building had probably objected to gunshots in the stairwell, and called the cops. My neighbors were so traditional.

The kid heard the siren, and for another moment held his crouch despite it. Then he broke, and turned, and ran. At the corner of Arlington Street, he turned toward Boylston Street, and disappeared. I didn't care about him. I had one, which was all I needed.

CHAPTER 23

I sat in an interrogation room at Police Headquarters with Herman Leong and the Vietnamese shooter.

"Name's Yan," Herman said.

"He speak any English?" I said.

The room was cinder block painted industrial beige. The floor was brown tile and the suspended ceiling was cellotex tile that had started out white. The door was oak with yellow shellac finish.

There were no windows. Light came from a fluorescent fixture that hung from short lengths of chain in the center of the room.

"Probably," Herman said.

"But he won't let on."

Herman sat beside me on one side of an oak table shellacked the same yellow as the door. A lot of cigarettes had left their dark impressions on its edges. The kid sat across the table on a straight chair. He wore a white shirt buttoned to the neck, and dark, baggy trousers. His black hair was long, and it hung over his forehead and down to the corners of his eyes. He said something to Herman.

Herman shook his head.

"Wants a cigarette," Herman said.

"Tell him he'll get one just before the blindfold."

Herman nodded and didn't say anything. The kid stared at me.

His eyes were black and empty.

"How old is he?" I said.

Herman spoke to him. Yan answered. His voice was uninflected. His face blank. He looked bored.

"Says he thinks he's seventeen. He doesn't know for sure."

I nodded.

"Why do you ask?" Herman said.

"Just wondered," I said.

"He's old enough to kill you," Herman said.

"You let him."

"I won't let him," I said.

"What was he doing in my apartment?"

I waited for the translation.

"Says he wasn't in your apartment."

"We'll be able to make him there," I said.

"There'll be prints."

Herman translated. Yan shrugged.

"What was he doing on the fire escape?" I said to Herman.

Herman spoke to Yan. Yan answered.

"Says he was just climbing it for the hell of it, was coming down when you jumped him in the alley for no reason."