Hush Money by Robert B. Parker Page B

with both hands. He was so inept that his fists weren’t fully closed and if he’d hit me it would have been more of a slap than anything else. But he didn’t hit me. It had been a long time since somebody who punched like he did had hit me. I hit him again, same punch, same place, and he gasped again.
    Then he hollered, “Betty.”
    I punched him in the solar plexus with my right hand and he sagged. He tried to yell Betty again but he had too little breath. Behind me the door opened.
    A woman’s voice said, “My God.”
    “Call cops,” Vincent gasped.
    I stepped away. He tried to straighten up, still struggling to get air in, and I clipped him on the jaw with a good professional right cross and he sat down hard on the floor and stayed there.
    “Stop it,” Betty screamed, “stop it.”
    “Done,” I said.
    Betty turned and ran toward her desk. Vincent was staring at me from the floor. He was about half functional.
    “Can you understand me?” I said.
    He nodded.
    “If anything even slightly annoying, anything at all happens to KC Roth, ever again, I will come back and knock every tooth out of your head.”
    He continued to stare.
    “And maybe I’ll tell Al where you are.” I could see that he heard me.
    “You understand that?” I said.
    He nodded very slightly. He was very pale, and he kept himself rigid as if any movement would make him disintegrate.
    “Feel free to explain to the cops why I punched you,” I said and turned and walked out of his office.
    Betty had hung up the phone. When she saw me she pointed me out to a couple of vigorous-looking young guys who were probably good at squash.
    “That’s him,” she said. “Don’t let him get away.”
    I didn’t feel like instructing them in the difference between scuffling and squash, so I smiled at them courteously and opened my coat so they could see that I was wearing a gun.
    “Let him get away,” I said.
    Which they did.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
    Pearl and Susan and I were sitting in Susan’s large black Explorer in the parking lot of the Dunkin‘ Donuts shop on Route 1 in Saugus, eating donuts. Actually Susan and Pearl were sharing a donut and I was eating several, with coffee.
    “I got a call from KC Roth this morning,” Susan said.
    She sprinkled a little Equal into her decaffeinated coffee and swirled it with the little red swizzle that came with the coffee.
    “Swell,” I said.
    I liked the donuts they sold with the little handle on them. When you had finished the donut you still could eat the little handle and have the illusion that you’d gotten extra.
    “She says you’ve been hitting on her.”
    I finished my donut and drank some coffee to help it down.
    “And how did you respond?” I said.
    “I said that it seemed very unlike you.”
    “And she said?”
    “That apparently I didn’t know you as well as I thought I did.”
    “Well,” I said, “if I were going to hit on someone besides you, she’d be an early candidate.”
    “Yes, she is undeniably stunning,” Susan said. “But I’m pretty sure that I do know you as well as I think I do.”
    “Maybe better,” I said.
    “So I don’t want you to deny it,” Susan said. “Because I don’t believe you did it. But I’d be curious as to why she is telling me you did.”
    “She blandished me and I was unresponsive,” I said.
    “Blandished?”
    “Yes.”
    “As in blandishments?”
    “Yes.”
    “Are you sure that’s a word?”
    “It is now,” I said.
    “Tell me about her blandishments,” Susan said.
    So I did, graphically.
    “I don’t wish to hurt your feelings, but KC has always been something of a hot pants.”
    “Damn,” I said, “I thought maybe you had told her what a Roscoe I was in bed.”
    Susan shook her head and sipped some more decaf. “Your secret is safe with me,” she said.
    From the backseat Pearl nudged at my elbow as I was about to bite into a new donut.
    “Excuse me,” I said and broke off a piece and gave it to her.
    “KC and I