"Thinks he's a Ninja assassin. Buys a ticket. Walks in the front door, puts on his mask, works up his courage, does the deed."

"And that's why he stood there for however many minutes, working up his courage," I said.

"Sure. Ain't so easy for some people."

"You got a whacko file?" I said.

"Sure."

"Anybody fill the bill?"

"Not till we get desperate," DeSpain said.

"Then you make do," I said.

"I've squeezed a lot of square pegs into a lot of round holes," DeSpain said.

"Just need to shove sort of hard."

DeSpain had picked up the handgun and was now twirling it by the trigger guard around his forefinger, like a movie cowboy.

"You been a cop," he said.

"Can I see the file?" I said.

Still playing with the handgun DeSpain reached over to the computer on the side table behind his desk and turned it on with his left hand. When the screen brightened, he tapped the keys for a minute. A list of names formed on the screen.

"Want a printout?" he said.

"Or you want to read it off the screen?"

"Printout," I said.

DeSpain turned on the printer, hit a couple of keys, and the list began to print.

"Couple years," DeSpain said, "these things'll violate a suspect's civil rights for you. Won't have to lift a finger."

The paper eased out of the printer and DeSpain picked it up and handed it to me. He pointed at the list with the muzzle of the gun.

"Ding dongs are hard to keep track of," he said.

"List may need an update."

I nodded.

"You learn anything, you'll dash right on in here and tell me about it," DeSpain said.

"Sure. Who's working the case?"

"Me," DeSpain said.

"Keeping your hand in?" I said.

"Sure."

"I find something, I'll let you know," I said.

"

"Predate it," DeSpain said. He scratched a spot behind his ear with the muzzle of the gun.

"We're fighting crime up here day and night," he said.

"Day and fucking night."

"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty," I said.

DeSpain's wolfish grin flashed again. It was almost a reflex.

There was no humor in the grin, or in the eyes that were as hard and flat as two stones.

"Yeah," he said.

"It is, isn't it."

CHAPTER 8

We were in front of a three-hundred-year-old farmhouse set on twelve acres about three miles from the center of Concord, waiting for the real-estate lady. The house didn't look its age, but it didn't look my age either. The foundation plantings were overgrown, the paint was peeling, some of the windowsills had shriveled and warped. The land rolled gently down toward a stream and merged with thickly forested wetlands, where the deciduous trees were already beginning to turn. From most places on the property you could see no other human sign.

Pearl the Wonder Dog raced around in steadily widening circles, her nose to the ground, her short tail erect. After every full circle she would come to stand in front of Susan with her mouth open, and stare up at her for a moment. Susan would pat her, and Pearl would dash off in another circle.

A single blue jay curved in past some pine trees and settled on the lawn and cocked his head and listened for worms. He heard none and went up again, circling closer to us before he settled on the limb of a red maple. Like most birds he seemed never completely at rest, moving his head, fluttering his wings, making brief, abrupt hops on his tree limb for no reason that I could see. On the other hand, he may have thought me sluggish, leaning against the car in the last glimmer of sunlight beside this striking woman.

Probably at least thirteen ways of looking at a blue jay.

"This is the house," Susan said.

"Perfect," I said.

"Having established that we cannot live together, we should buy a house in the country together."

"We have also established that we can spend weekends together," Susan said.

"That's because you always distract me with endless sexual invention," I said.

"Doesn't seem endless to me," Susan said.

"Ever since I sold the Maine place I've thought we should buy a weekend place out of the city, with some land we could fence, so the baby could run around and point birds."

"Pearl's instincts run more to pointing Oreo cookies, I think."

Susan ignored me.

"And this is the place. It's run down so we can buy it cheap.

Then you'll fix it up, and we'll come here with Pearl on autumn weekends and roast chestnuts and have a nice time."

When she was really intense about something she paid very little attention to anything else. Except, usually, me.

"We always have a nice time," I said.

"Yes. We do," Susan said.

"Are you making any progress in Port City?"

"Sure. Hawk's watching Christopholous and no one's following him," I said.

"I had a nice talk with DeSpain."

"Does he know anything?"

"No. He gave me the psycho list, but there's nothing on it that helps."

"Is he any good?" Susan said.

"DeSpain. Yeah. He's a good cop. Very tough cop."

"Too tough?"

"Some people thought so," I said.

"Tougher than you?"

"Never a horse that couldn't be rode, little lady. Never a rider that couldn't be throwed."

"Good heavens," Susan said.

"Does that mean he might be?"

"Means maybe we'll find out some day," I said.

"What do you know about Rikki Wu?"

"Rikki?"

"Yeah. It's not much, but so far she's the only one who's objected to my looking into the murder."

"Oh, well, yes, I suppose so. It's hard to take Rikki seriously."

"Somebody does," I said.

"If she pawned the jewelry she was wearing the other night, she could buy this house."

"Her husband, Lonnie Wu, is very wealthy, and Rikki is totally indulged. A Chinese American Princess. It has left her with a feeling of near total entitlement."

"Perhaps we should introduce her to Pearl," I said.

"A Canine American Princess," Susan said.

"Rikki gives large sums of money to the theater."

"And now she's on the board," I said.

"Can you arrange for me to have lunch with her?"

"I'm not sure she'd be willing to see you."

"Mention to her about me being hunk city."

"I'll ask her to lunch with both of us, and then I'll have a crisis with a patient and you can convey my apologies."

"Okay," I said.

"But I think hunk city would have worked just as well."

"Rikki's too self-centered to be flirtatious," Susan said.

"Shows what you know," I said.

"You seriously think…" Susan started, but Pearl started barking and jumping around, and the real-estate lady pulled up in her maroon Volvo station wagon. When the real-estate lady got out, Pearl dashed up to her and rammed her head between the real estate lady's thighs.

"How embarrassing," Susan said.

The real-estate lady smiled and patted Pearl. She didn't mind at all. She knew Pearl's owner was a live one.

"House needs a lot of work," I said.