Robert B. Parker by Wilderness Page B

his shirt. Janet appeared in the doorway. Newman moved his hand away.
    “Where’ve you been,” she said. “I was getting worried.”
    Newman smiled. “I’ll tell you, when we get in. Come on, Chris.”
    They sat at the kitchen table and Newman got two beers from the refrigerator.
    “I’ll have a little wine, Aaron,” Janet said. He poured her a glass of white wine.
    “You hungry?” Newman said to Hood.
    “For sure,” Hood said.
    “There’s steaks in the freezer. You want one, Jan?”
    “Yes, I’d love one. A small one, maybe half.”
    “Yeah, you got a real fat problem,” Newman said. He drank half the beer at one pull on the can.
    “Well, what have you guys been doing?” Janet said.
    Newman put the three steaks, still frozen, in a fry pan on the stove and turned the gas on medium. He drank the other half of the beer and felt it move through him like sap through a tree. He grinned.
    “We been stalking our quarry,” he said. He opened his shirt so that Janet could see the nickel-plated .32 revolver at his belt.
    “Jesus Christ,” she said. “Is that a real gun?”
    Newman opened another beer. He held one toward Hood. Hood shook his head. “Yes, ma’am,” Newman said, “it’s real. And we have been circling in on old Adolph Karl.”
    The steaks began to sizzle in the pan.
    “Well tell me about it. Tell me everything you’ve done today. Are you in on this too, Chris?”
    Hood nodded. Newman began to slice mushroomsinto the pan with the steaks. “We found out where he lived,” Newman said, “and we went and looked it over. We figure we can’t get him there so we’re waiting to see if he goes out, or goes to work or something like that. We need to get a place where we can hit him and get away clean. It may take some time.”
    Janet Newman smiled and raised her glass. “Okay,” she said. “Home from the hill is the hunter.”
    Newman smiled back at her. Hood sipped his beer. Newman turned the steaks in the pan with a pair of tongs.
    “How long do you think it will take?” Janet said.
    Hood shrugged. Newman said, “No way to tell. We’ll just have to stay on him and see.” He drank more beer and got another can. This time Hood had some too. Janet had another glass of wine. As he cooked, Newman could feel the swell of his biceps tightening his shirt as he bent his arm to move the mushrooms around in the pan. Janet set the table and put a plate of rolls out. Newman put the steaks on each of three plates. His movements seemed precise to him. Controlled. He added steak sauce to the mushrooms and let the sauce cook down a moment in the pan. Then he spooned a serving onto each plate with a spatula. He spilled none.
Good at what I do
, he thought.
    As they ate, Newman talked. “We watched that goddamned house all day,” he said. “All goddamned day, and nobody stirred.”
    “Will you go back tomorrow?” Janet said.
    “Yeah. He’s gotta come out sometime.”
    “What about your writing?”
    “Priorities, lovey. I keep telling you there’s got to be priorities. This is life and death. That’s number one.”The beer was very cold and tingled in his throat as he drank.
    “What made you decide to do it?” Janet said.
    “It has to be done,” Newman said. “And the … the what … the insult of it all has to be wiped away. I can’t stand to be cowed by those bastards. It’s the insult. I just can’t accept it.”
    “Well, I think it’s a good decision, whatever reason. I’m proud of you both.”
    “Wait’ll we do it, Janet,” Hood said. “We botch it and you won’t be proud of us.”
    “I don’t like to think about that,” Janet said.
    “Well, it’s a risk,” Hood said, “you have to face that.”
    “We won’t botch it,” Newman said. “We must be as smart as these bastards.”
    “But it isn’t just smart,” Hood said, “it’s also mean. Are you as mean as those bastards?”
    “If I have to be. I have always been able to do what I had to do.”
    Janet