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(Page author's note:  I am posting these pages to pass along examples of Mr. Parker's skills, as well as to let you read one of
the worst times in Spenser's life; the period when he and Susan were estranged.  Three books cover this period.  I began with
the second, Valediction, which is where the situation with Susan becomes devastating for the detective.  This book is the
resolution of the problem.  I hope I have chosen the best parts to illustrate what I am trying to convey.
Any errors in text are mine, not Mr. Parker's).

(photos from "Spenser: For Hire,"
the television series, based on
the novels by Robert B. Parker.
Thanks to the web page linked here
for the photos):

 TNT-TV.com/series/Spenser

Link to first Spenser page:    Spenser
Link to Valediction:        Valediction

This site has been visited
this many times since
10/23/99

Background:  Spenser's girlfriend, Susan, who already spent a lot of time away from him while studying in Washington, D.C., has left him in Boston and gone to San Francisco after getting her Ph.D. in psychology from Harvard.  She is trying to "find herself."  She has a "guy friend," and Spenser's heart is breaking.  Then one day he opens his mail and finds...

(Chapter 1)

    I have no time.  Hawk is in jail in Mill River, California.  You must get him out.  I need help too.  Hawk will explain.  Things are awful, but I love you.
                                                                                                Susan

    And no matter how many times I read it, that's all it said....

 (Spenser breaks Hawk out of jail.  They are driving away from the jail and Hawk tells the story).

(Chapter 4)

...
    Hawk laid the .44 in his lap.  I was driving barefoot.  Hawk said, "They catch us, they gonna shoot us.  So you be ready.  This is a bad town, babe."
    I said, "Susan.  I want to know.  Tell me."
    Hawk nodded.  "Yeah.  Some of this gonna be hard to hear."
    I didn't say anything.  The dashboard clock on the Skylark said 4:11.
    "Susan call me," Hawk said.  "She say she can't call you.  But she in trouble.  She say she gotten involved with this dude Costigan and he a bad man."
    There was nothing on the road before us.  The Skylark started to creep up past sixty.  Hawk slowed to under fifty-five.
    "She say she want to leave him but she think maybe she can't.  She say she too involved to leave on her own."
    "Involved how," I said.
    "She didn't say.  She sounded real tight.  So I say, I come right out in the morning, and if she want to leave I take her with me.  And if anyone bother her, I tell them to stop.  (page author's note - LOL - he means kill them).  "And she tell me to come to her condo, which is down here in Mill River, and she give me the address, fifteen Los Alimos, Unit number sixteen.  And she say, she don't know if she want to leave, but she needs to talk with me and if she want to leave, she need to be able to."
    We had reached 101.  Hawk turned north, toward San Francisco.

(Chapter 5)

    It was a clear night, a lot of stars, the moon about three-quarters full.  The land loomed higher in a dark mass of low hills to my left, and tabled away flat toward the bay on my right.  There was nothing on the highway.
    "So you went out," I said.
    "Course."
    "Without telling me anything."
    "Yes."
    The wheels made a little hum on the asphalt and now and then when we hit a seam there was a harumph.
    "I wouldn't have, either," I said.
    "I know," Hawk said.

...

    "How'd she look," I said.
    "She looking terrific, except she looking real tired and she tense, like she frantic but she don't want anyone to know it, including her."
    "How'd she sound?"  I said.
    "Same way," Hawk said.  "Got a bow, you could play 'Intermezzo' on her."
    I blew out some breath.
    Hawk said, "Told you this wouldn't be easy."
    I nodded.
 

(Chapter 6)

...

    "You broke three of Costigan's teeth," I said.
    "He got some left," Hawk said.
    "I know.  We'll get to that."
    "We surely will," Hawk said.
    "But first we get Susan," I said.
    "We surely will," Hawk said.
    "And then we'll see about the Costigans."
    "We surely will," Hawk said.
    "And Mill River," I said.  "Might neaten that up a little, too."

...

(Chapter 15)

(Note:  Spenser has found a psychologist Susan has been seeing.  He meets with her in her office).

...

    "Don't misunderstand.  She must be rescued.  Duress is never positive.  And everything I know of you suggests you are the best one to do it.  I say all this only so that you will understand what may come afterward.  If you succeed."
    "If I don't succeed, I'll be dead," I said.  "And the matter will be less pressing to me.  Best plan for success."
    "I think so," Dr. Hilliard said.
    "I'll rescue her from Costigan and she can then rescue herself from me."
    "As long as you understand that," Dr. Hilliard said.
    "I do."
    "And when she has rescued herself.  If she chooses to be with you, do you want that?"
    "Yes."
    "And Costigan doesn't matter?"
    "He matters," I said.  "But not as much as she does.  She's been doing the best she could, right from the start.  He was something she had to do."
    "And you'll forgive her?"
    I shook my head.  "Forgiveness has nothing to do with it."
    "What does have something to do with it?"
    "Love," I said.
...

    "Anything else I need to know?"
    "Russell Costigan sounds like a man," she said, "unhampered by morality or law."
    "Me too," I said.

(Chapter 37)

    The road was smooth enough, if you were riding on a springy upholstered car seat.  If you were lying on your stomach on the roof of a van on top of steel rack ridges, you tended to wish for smoother.
...
    "Susan wasn't there we could start shooting down through the roof," Hawk said.  "Ain't but a thin piece of sheet metal."
    He had his mouth close to my ear.
    I answered him in the same way, "Don't want to hit the driver, either," I said.  "Having him roll over would not be in our long-term interests."
    "They got to stop sometime," Hawk said.
    "And there's six bodyguards, plus Costigan," I said.
    "Good idea," Hawk said.  "Getting up here.  We no better off than we was if we tried to take them back there."
    "But it gives me time to think," I said.
    "Oh good," Hawk said.

(note: Spenser shoots out a tire and the van stops so the men inside can change it).
...

...  From the back of the van, Hawk, in a half crouch, aimed his gun at the remaining guards.
    "Susan," I said, "step away from the group."
    "My God," Susan said.
    I said it harder.  "Step away."
    She did.

...

    "Okay," I said to Russell, "down, hands behind the head.  Like the guards."
    "No," he said. "I won't lie down for you."
    He was wearing a gun tucked back of his right hipbone.  I could feel it as I pressed against him.  I moved my left arm from his chin and reached around and unsnapped the holster and took the gun.  It was a .32 Smith & Wesson Chiefs Special.  With my gun still screwed in his ear, I pitched the .32 backhand into the darkness behind me.
    "Susan, get in the van."
    She didn't move.
    "Suze," I said.
    She went to the van.  And got in.

...

    I glanced back at Susan.  She was leaning forward with her face in her hands.  She rocked very slightly.  I looked back at the road and then adjusted the rearview mirror so I could see her.  In the mirror I saw Hawk lean forward and put his hands on each of Susan's shoulders and pull her up and over toward him.
    "You all right," he said.  "You be all right in a while."
    She put her face, still pressed into her hands, against Hawk's chest and didn't move.  Hawk put his left arm around her and patted her shoulder with his left hand.
    "Be all right," he said.  "Be all right."
    My hands on the wheel were wet with sweat.
 

(Chapter 38)

(Note:  Spenser and Susan are talking after he, Hawk and Susan arrive at a CIA safe house in
Charlestown).

...

    "No.  I was the thing you used to help yourself.  You projected your strength and love onto me and used it to feel better.  In a sense I never knew if you loved me or merely loved the projection of yourself, an idealized..."  She shrugged and shook her head.
    "So you found someone who didn't idealize you."
    She unfolded her arms and picked up the pencil again and began to turn it.  Her throat moved as she swallowed.  She put her feet up on the coffee table and crossed her ankles.
    "You can't have us both," I said.  "I'd be pleased to spend the rest of my life working on this relationship.  That includes the damage your childhood did you, the damage I did you.  But it doesn't include Russell.  He goes or I do."
    "You'd leave me?"  Susan said.  (note:  surprise, surprise)
    "Yes," I said.
    "If I don't give up Russell?"
    "Absolutely."
    "You could have killed him in Connecticut."
    I shook my head.  "I don't know as much as you know, about civilization and its discontents.  But I know if you are going to be whole, you've got to resolve this with Russell, and if he dies before you do, you'll be robbed of that chance."
    Susan leaned forward on the couch, her feet still on the coffee table, like someone doing a sit-up.  She held the pencil still between her hands.
    "You do love me," she said.
    "I do, I always have."
    She leaned back on the couch.  She swallowed visibly again, and began to tap her chin with the eraser end of the pencil.
    "I cannot imagine a life without you," she said.
    "Don't fool yourself," I said.  "If Russell's in your life I won't be."
    "I know," she said.  "I can't give him up either."
    "I can't force you to," I said.  "But I can force you to give me up.  And I will."
    Susan shifted on the couch.
    She said, "I'll have to give him up."
    "If t'were be done, t'were well it be done quickly," I said.
    She shook her head and folded her arms and hugged herself, the pencil still in her right hand.
    "What are you waiting for," I said.
    "The strength," she said.
 

(Chapter 40)

(note:  Hawk, Spenser and Susan are still in the safe house)

    "When you came to San Francisco last year, I began to draw away from Russell."
    She held up the whisk again and watched and made a small nod and waited while the batter drained off it into the bowl.
    "I couldn't leave him but I tried to distance the relationship as a start."
    I got up and came around the counter and got some more coffee.
    "And Russell knew at once what I was doing and he...he hung on tighter.  He put a wiretap on my phone.  He had some people watch me.  He wouldn't let me come to New York last winter to watch Paul perform."

...

    "He said no," she said.
    The connection between us was palpable.  It seemed almost to seal away the rest of the world, as if we were talking inside one of those sterile rooms that immune deficient children grow up in.
    "That simple," she said.  "I couldn't do something he told me not to."
    "What if you had?"
    "Gone away?  Even though he'd said no?"
    "Yes.  Would his people have prevented you?"
    "No," she said.
    She stirred her batter once and then poured it into her loaf pan, scraping the sides of the bowl to get it all.
    "That's when I went back to Dr. Hilliard," she said.
    "Back?"
    "Yes.  I started seeing her not long after I left Boston.  But Russell didn't like it.  He doesn't approve of psychotherapy.  So I stopped."
    Susan held the loaf pan as she talked as if she'd forgotten it.
    "But when I couldn't go to New York, and I realized I couldn't leave him and couldn't move in with Russell, and I knew that I couldn't give you up, I went back to her."

...

(Chapter 54)

(note:  Spenser is at home and Susan arrives, bringing a suitcase)

...

    I held her lightly against me.  "How's your mental health?"  I said.
    "I'm all right, " she said.  "Nobody's a hundred percent.  But I'm in the high nineties."
    "You through seeing Dr. Hilliard?"
    "Yes, at least for now.  Maybe forever."
    "And we don't have to get the children off the streets?" I said.
    She shook her head against my chest.  "I may get occasionally restless," she said, "during the time of full moon, but I don't think I'm a danger to anyone."
    "Russell?"  I said.
    "I saw him once, right after Boise.  He came to my condo in Mill River and we said good-bye.  And he left, and I haven't seen him or heard from him."

...

    Susan kissed me again.  It was not a sisterly kiss.
    "I have flown six hours," she murmured with her mouth against mine.  "I need a bath, fluff up my body a little."
    "Uh huh."
    "And then we might make love," she murmured.
    "Uh huh."
    "And drink champagne."
    "Uh huh."
    "And make love again."
    "I take it we are together again," I said.
    "Yes.
    "Forever?"  I said.
    "Yes," Susan said.  "Forever."
    "Go run your bath," I said.
 

(Chapter 55)

(note:  Spenser and Susan are lying in bed together, drinking champagne).

...

    "Hawk sent us a case of this stuff," I said.  "It's good, isn't it."
    "Lovely, " Susan said.  "You have some new scars."
    "I'll say."
    "New physical scars, " Susan said.  "Here."  She traced the healed bullet wounds in my chest.
    "A young woman shot me," I said, "last year."
    "And you never told me?"
    "No need," I said.
    "Was it bad?"
    "Yes," I said.  "Almost killed me."
    Susan put her head against my shoulder.  Her glass was empty.  I reached the champagne bottle from the floor beside the bed and poured more.  It had to be done carefully and a little at a time to keep it from bubbling over.  Susan watched.
    "It's like us, " she said.
    "The champagne?"
    "You have to pour it so carefully.  It's like our lovemaking.  Careful, gentle, delicate, being careful not to spill over."
    "It's sort of like the first time."
    "It is the first time," Susan said.  "These two people, the people we are now, have never made love before."
    "But will again, " I said.
    Susan smiled.  "Practice makes perfect," she said.
    We drank.
    "Or nearly perfect," I said.
    "Hell, " Susan said, "we're that now."

(This is the end of this series of pages.  I have tried, through excerpts from the two books, to tempt you to read all of Mr. Parker's books.  You will not be sorry.  Spenser is no Mike Hammer, but is just as tough.  And the inter-relationships between him and Hawk and Susan bring a poignancy to detective novels that you seldom see.  You can tell I am a fan *smile*).
 
 

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12/16/99
 

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