Robert B. Parker's Slow Burn Page 21

  “Have you heard from Z?” she said.

  “Nope.”

  “He’s very grateful.”

  I nodded.

  “You miss him.”

  “I had a free trainer for a few years,” I said. “He basically retooled the entire gym. But no one misses him as much as Henry.”

  “Maybe we need to invite Henry to dinner soon.”

  “He would like that very much.”

  “And Hawk?”

  “Whenever he flies home,” I said. “I just got a postcard from Marseille.”

  “Work?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “He only mentioned the bouillabaisse.”

  “Of course,” she said. “When he comes home, there will be trouble?”

  “I guess we’ll soon find out.”

  We walked toward The Pit, filled with its street painters and drum bucket musicians, the homeless holding out plastic cups. The red line terminal bustled with life, people coming and going into the city. Steam rose from sewer grates while leaves swirled and turned in the brisk wind.

  The big digital clock over the Savings Bank clicked off each minute. I looked up at it, closed one eye, and made a gun with my thumb and forefinger.

  “Let me guess,” Susan said. “You’d kill time if it wouldn’t injure eternity?”

  “No such luck,” I said. I dropped the hammer. Susan and I walked off together into the swirling leaves and music.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  My thanks to the Boston Fire Department: Steve MacDonald, public information officer, and Commissioner Joe Finn. A very special thanks to the late Mike Mullane of the Professional Firefighters of Massachusetts. Mike was a great resource and a true pal during the writing of this book. He offered beer and plenty of jokes down at Florian Hall and will be greatly missed. Boston on Fire, by Stephanie Schorow, and Ring of Fire, an unpublished manuscript by George Hall, were excellent sources on the true arson case that plagued Boston in the 1980s.

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