Robert B. Parker Read Online Free Page B

fucking psychopath. We had him on the hook and you let him off. There’s no way to know what he’ll do.”
    At the door they stopped. “You change your mind,” Croft said, “you give me a call. You have my card.”
    Newman nodded. “Vincent would kill them?”
    Croft nodded. “No doubt in my mind.”
    “And you?”
    Croft was silent for a minute, his hands in his hip pockets. “I guess I’d have to be in the situation. Then I’d see. I don’t see too much point to figuring ahead.”
    Newman started to shake hands, hesitated, and Croft said, “Hell, I’ll shake hands with you.” He put out his hand and Newman shook it. Then Newman went out into the bright parking lot.
    After the air-conditioned building the heat was tangible and startling. His bright blue Jeep was parked against the far wall. As he walked across the half-empty lot he felt obvious and isolated. As if a high camera shot were focused on him. He’d taken the top off the Jeep for the summer, and with the big wheels and the high clearance he felt exposed still as he pulled out onto Commonwealth Avenue.
    Jesus Christ I’m scared
, he thought as he drove along Commonwealth. He wished he had a gun. He wished Croft were with him. Maybe he could tell the Smithfield police he’d had anonymous threatening phone calls. Maybe they’d put a cruiser nearby.
But if they’re watching and they see the cops they’ll get us
.
    He drove past Boston University into Kenmore Square. One foot was cocked up on the door frame. He wore a blue Levi’s shirt, washed often. The sleeves were rolled, the top three buttons were open. As he moved the steering wheel the muscles in his arms swelled beneath his tan.
    “Machismo,” he said aloud. Jiving it in self-mockery.He looked in the rear-view mirror at the thick brown column of his neck, the strong jaw, the square tanned face. In circles where there weren’t any, he was thought a tough guy.
    Past Kenmore Square he pulled onto Park Drive and drove through the Fenway. Automatically he looked, as he always did, at the light towers of Fenway Park as they showed above the apartment buildings. They had loomed for him, when he was a boy, like the towers of Camelot.
    He went past the Museum of Fine Arts and pulled into the faculty parking lot at Northeastern University. His wife’s parking sticker entitled him. Northeastern was an urban university of unrelieved ugliness. Janet’s office was in a converted industrial building. Inside, the brick walls and hardwood floors had been veneered with paint and vinyl and the open spaces partitioned with wallboard. It was air-conditioned. In Janet’s office there were another woman and two men. Newman knew them. He didn’t like them much. He was jealous of Janet’s work and her friends at work and her commitment to both the work and the friends.
    As he came to her door she was talking animatedly. Her eyes were bright and wide, her hands moved. Her color was high.
Goddamn isn’t she something
. There was a faint red line on her left wrist, where last night the rope had marked it. He felt anxiety heavy in his stomach, but also faintly, around the edges, desire as he remembered her naked helplessness.
    He stepped around the corner of her office door and said, “Newman’s the name, words are my game.”
    Janet stopped talking and smiled at him and waved.
    “Margie,” he said, “how are you? Jim? Charles?”
    They spoke to him. He made them a little uneasy, he knew. He had been reviewed in
Time
and
Newsweek
and been on the
Today
show. For them he was a celebrity. And a celebrity in the field where they would care. They were all English professors, he was a writer. Always inside them was the war; Newman understood it. Always there was the disdain for his popularity and envy of his success. He liked making them uncomfortable.
    Janet said, “What are you doing here? Did you have your appointment?”
    “Yeah,” Newman said. “I had it. It went okay. They were a little upset, but