"Done this before, ain't ya," he said.
"Both of us have."
"I can take you anyway," Buster said. "But you make too good a fight of it and Shorty will dust the broad:"
He did the same feint with his right and came around with the hook again. I blocked the hook and put one of my own over his lowered right hand and banged him on the chin. It rocked him back a step. He grunted. Shorty stepped closer, looking for direction, and while he was looking, Susan picked up a brick from its pallet and, holding it in both hands, hit him on the back of the head like someone driving a fence post. Shorty went down without a sound and the gun skittered into Linnaean Street. Buster turned at the sound and I kicked him in the groin. Buster yelped and doubled over. Susan got the gun and turned it toward Shorty before Buster had fully sunk to the ground. He lay on the ground, his hands pressed in to his crotch, his knees up. Susan had the gun in both hands as I'd shown her. It was cocked.
"You
sonovabitch," Susan said. "You sonovabitch."
Shorty paid no attention. He was out. Buster wasn't out but probably wished he were. I went over and took the gun from her.
"You cock it?" I said.
"No."
"He had it cocked," I said. "Amazing it didn't go off when he dropped it."
"Yes," Susan said. "That is surprising."
Her voice was perfectly even, although she was trembling slightly. As I stood beside her the trembling stilled. Her voice was calm as iron. After great pain, a formal feeling comes.
"Is he alive?" she said. "The one I hit."
"Probably," I said.
"Oddly, I wouldn't care if he were not," she said.
"Why don't you go in and call 911," I said. "And I'll stay here and guard the casualties."
"Certainly," Susan said.
"That was pretty good, Wonder Woman."
"Yes," she said steadily. "It was."
She turned and walked unhurriedly into her house. Shorty had rolled over onto his back and his eyes were open but unfocused. Buster was sitting up, still clutching himself.
"We might want to try this again someday," I said. "Just you and me, Buster, without any guns, or a tough Jewess to tip the odds."
Buster had nothing to say to that and we were quiet the two or three minutes it took for a Cambridge cruiser to come whooping down Linnaean Street with its siren on and the blue light flashing.
chapter thirty-seven
A CAMBRIDGE DETECTNE named Kearny took our statements in Susan's downstairs office. He was in the middle of it when Lee Farrell showed up. Kearny and Farrell knew each other.
"Who fought your battles before you met Susan?" Farrell said to me.
"I used to run," I said.
"You just visiting," Kearny said to Farrell, "or has Boston got an interest?"
"Boston has an interest," Farrell said. "You people got the piece that Susan took away from one of the alleged assailants?"
"Yeah, a little bang-bang named Kenneth Philchock."
"Somerville's got a homicide, woman named Carla Quagliozzi."
"Broad got her tongue cut out," Kearny said. "I heard about that."
"She got shot first. Be good to know if it was Philchock's gun."
"Call Lieutenant Harmon about that," Kearny said. "Why is Boston interested?"
"Got a case that ties in," Farrell said.
"You want to share it with me?" Kearny said.
"Call Captain Quirk about that," Farrell said. "How are you, Susan?"
"I'm fine, Lee."
"People get shaky sometimes, after the fact."
"I know, but I'm fine."
"DeMilo and whatsisname made a statement?"
"Philchock," Kearny said. "I don't know, Lee. I'm trying to get a statement from these people, you know?"
Farrell nodded.
"I'll call Central Square," he said. "Okay?"
He nodded at the phone on Susan's desk.
"Of course."
"Awful polite for a cop," I said.
"But not for a homosexual," Farrell said.
"Oh yeah," I said. "I forgot."
Farrell dialed a number.
"Okay," Kearny said. "I got what happened. Either of you got a theory about why?"
Susan shook her head.
"You know either of the assailants?" Kearny said.
"No." Susan's voice was firm.
Kearny looked at me. "You know them?"
"Nope."
I didn't look at Farrell. He didn't say anything. He was busy telling somebody at Cambridge Police Headquarters who he was.
"You make a lot of enemies," he said. "Anybody mad at you?"
"Hard to imagine," I said.
"Yeah," Kearny said. "Anybody?"
"Can't think of anybody," I said.
Farrell hunched the phone in his shoulder and looked at me while he waited to be transferred to the proper department. But he still didn't say anything and I saw no reason to get too many footprints on the problem until I figured it out better than I had.
"Guys like these two don't usually assault strangers on the street for the hell of it," Kearny said.
"I know," I said. "Doesn't make any sense, does it."
"It would make a lot more sense if this was related to you nosing around in somebody's business who didn't want you nosing around in his business," Kearny said.
"It sure would," I said.
Open and earnest, a law-abiding citizen eager to help the police. Kearny looked at me like he didn't think I was so open and earnest, and maybe even like I wasn't helping the police. Cops get cynical. Farrell had gotten connected to the proper person and talked for a moment and listened for several moments and then hung up.