Now and then - By Robert B. Parker Page 0,3

Prelude into the driveway next to the Crown Vic. She got out, straightened her pants a little, fluffed her hair for a moment, then took her briefcase from the car, closed the car door, and walked carefully to the house.

4.

It does sound kind of affair-y,” Susan said.

“I saw them together,” I said. “It’s an affair. But it’s not proof of an affair.”

“I know,” Susan said. “Will you say anything to the husband?”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “It would just be my opinion.”

“You want to offer him certainty?”

“I think until I can prove it, he’ll refuse to believe it,” I said.

Susan nodded.

“Hard to know, sometimes, what’s best,” she said.

“How about the truth?” I said.

She smiled.

“That’s often effective,” she said.

We were sharing sweet-and-sour pork for supper at P. F. Chang’s in Park Square. Unless you think that sharing means equal portions for both. In which case, I was having sweet-andsour pork, and Susan was having a couple of bites.

“But I don’t know,” I said, “at this stage of things, if I would have wanted to know without certainty.”

“You already had reason for suspicion,” Susan said.

“I did, but I couldn’t believe it.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know if I couldn’t believe you’d do it, or I couldn’t believe it could happen to me.”

“Or wouldn’t,” Susan said.

“Same result,” I said.

Susan isolated a small piece of pork on her plate, sliced it in half, and ate one of the halves.

“So I think I’ll wait until I can prove it,” I said. Susan nodded.

“Are you planning to burst in on them with a video camera?” Susan said.

“Ugh!” I said.

“How about planting some sort of electronic device?”

“Ugh!”

She smiled.

“Are you sure you’re cut out for this sort of work?” she said.

“Doherty needs to know,” I said.

“Even though it will cause him pain,” she said.

“He’s in pain now,” I said.

She nodded again, and ate the other half of the small piece of pork.

“And the pain of knowing is better than the pain of not knowing?” she said.

“Yes.”

She nodded. She seemed to have very little to say about this. Usually she had a lot.

“Do you have a plan for proving it?”

“None,” I said.

“So what are you going to do?”

“What I usually do,” I said. “Plow along, try not to break things, see what develops.”

“And if nothing does?” Susan said.

“I nudge it a little,” I said.

“Yes,” she said. “You certainly do.”

5.

This time i duked the doorman at the Marriott a twenty to hold my car out front. Unfortunately Jordan Richmond and her male friend didn’t go to the Marriott. They went down the street to a bar called the Kendall Tap. It was small, so I waited outside across the street for two hours and twenty minutes until they came out and walked back toward the college. Before we got there they stopped beside a silver Mercedes sedan parked at an expired meter. The man took a parking ticket off the windshield and folded it and put it in his pocket. Then he went around and opened the passenger door. Jordan got in. He closed the door, walked back around, got in the driver’s side, and drove away. Foiled again. Mostly to make myself feel better, I wrote down the license plate number. Then I walked back to the Concord College parking lot. Jordan Richmond’s car was still parked there. That meant that her friend would need to bring her back. I went over to the Marriott and got my car from the doorman, and parked on the street near the Concord College parking lot. I was hungry. It was 7:13 on the dashboard clock. If Jordan kept to last night’s schedule she wouldn’t be picking her car up until about ten. I thought about a baked bean sandwich with mayo on anadama bread. I thought about corned beef hash with eggs. I thought about linguine with meatballs.

I wondered why I never thought about foie gras, or roast guinea hen, or duck with olives. I wondered if everyone was like that or was it because I was plebeian? Probably because I was plebeian. Maybe if you were more cultured you thought about Dover sole when you were hungry.

It had been raining in Boston much of the time since Labor Day, and it began again. I liked rain. I thought it was romantic. Susan didn’t like it. It ruined her hair. I sometimes wondered how we could possibly be together. About the only thing we liked in common was us. Fortunately we liked us a lot. There seemed