Cold Service (17 page)

"Brock seems a lot more exultant about things than Tony," I said when they were gone.

"If this actually go down, then the Brockster be actually running it," Hawk said. "Tony knows he can't."

"But it's not going down," I said, "is it."

"I suspect Mr. Johnson understands Rimbaud's limitations," the Gray Man said.

"Ain't gonna see no more of him," Hawk said.

"Or you," I said to the Gray Man.

"Unless someone hires me to kill you," he said.

"Which one," Hawk said.

"Either."

"Hope they don'," Hawk said.

"As do I," the Gray Man said.

"Jesus," I said, "I may cry."

The Gray Man smiled his smile.

"I have no sentiment," he said, "and if employed to, I would kill you as promptly as possible. But I admire certain traits, and both of you have them in no small measure."

"Gee," I said.

Hawk said, "When you found Johnson, wasn't you supposed to kill him?"

"Ives had suggested that," the Gray Man said.

"Wasn't that why he gave you to us?" I said.

"I do speak Ukrainian," the Gray Man said.

"But you were supposed to use us to find the Afghan connection, and when you found him, you were supposed to ace him," I said.

"Yes."

"So," Hawk said. "You going to?"

The Gray Man shook his head.

"It would have ruined everything else if I did it sooner," he said. "And now"-the Gray Man shrugged-"he's gone again."

"And it pleases you," I said. "The way it's going to work out."

"It does."

"Hawk gets to clean up the people who killed Luther," I said.

"Except for Podolak," the Gray Man said.

"That will come," I said. "The city gets pretty well cleaned up of its, ah, criminal element, and Tony's kid gets to take over."

" 'Cept there ain't nothin' to take over," Hawk said. " 'Cause the Afghans have moved on, and when they come to ask you 'bout it, 'pears you done moved on, too."

The Gray Man said, "You sound like a minstrel show."

Hawk's voice dropped a pitch. With no expression he said, "I speak in many voices, my gray friend."

"Apparently," the Gray Man said.

"So there's Brock Rimbaud in charge of a business with no product, and no supplier, in a town that is probably going to be run by the state."

The Gray Man smiled.

"And you like that," Hawk said. "You like thinking 'bout the little twerp coming to the office and you ain't there."

"And trying to find Mr. Johnson, and he ain't there," the Gray Man said.

He put his hands on the desktop and pushed himself gracefully to his feet.

"So that's why you didn't shoot Johnson," I said.

"Certainly," the Gray Man said. "Even if I did, there would shortly be another Johnson."

I nodded.

"And Ives?" I said.

The Gray Man smiled.

"Ives expects to be disappointed," the Gray Man said. "It is the nature of his work."

He glanced around the damaged office.

"And our work here has not been fruitless," he said.

"No," I said. "It hasn't."

The Gray Man looked around the room again, then at Hawk and me.

"Down the road somewhere," he said, and walked across the room and out the same door that Johnson had gone through.

Hawk spoke. The woman nodded. Hawk took an envelope out of his coat and handed it to the woman. She didn't take it right away. First, she took the hand that held it, in both of hers, and held it for a minute while she said some animated somethings to Hawk. Hawk nodded. Then she took the envelope and slipped it into her purse on the bench beside her. Hawk continued to look down at the boy. The boy stared silently back. Hawk spoke. The boy didn't answer. Hawk squatted on his heels so that he and the boy were at eye level. The boy turned his face in against his grandmother's breast. The grandmother stroked the boy's head. Hawk stood, nodding to himself. Nobody said anything. For a moment, none of them even moved. Then Hawk nodded again and turned and walked across the street and got into the car.

"We done?" I said.

Hawk nodded.

I put the car in gear, and we drove back toward downtown.

"First installment on Boots's money?" I said.

"Kid's money," Hawk said.

"Is there a grandfather?" I said.

We turned onto Washington Street. The black neighborhoods stretched out on either side, neither elegant nor decrepit. Simply low-end urban housing that looked like any of the other neighborhoods in the city, except everyone was black. Except me.

"No," Hawk said. "She lives with her sisters."

"She work?" I said.

"Yes."

"Sisters take care of the kid?"

"Yes. Kid's great-aunts. One of them is twenty-nine."

"The aunts okay?" I said.

"Think so," Hawk said. "They ain't, I'll see about it."

I nodded.

"They'll be okay. What was all the conversation about?"

"I telling her how much she get and when it would come and who to call if it don't."

"You," I said.

"Un-huh," Hawk said. "Or you."

"Me," I said. "Anything I should know?"

"Kid's name is Richard Luther Gillespie," Hawk said. "I tole him, tole his grandmother really, that he ain't got a father and he ain't got a grandfather. But he got me."

"Jesus," I said.

"I know. Little surprised myself. And I say to them, if something happen to me, he got you."

"He ain't heavy…" I said.

"Yeah, yeah," Hawk said.

He handed me a small index card.

"Grandmother's name is Melinda Rose," he said. "It's all on there. Address. Phone number. She got yours."

I nodded.

"I don't want him calling me Grampy," I said.

"Probably won't," Hawk said.

"This is my way of a good-bye, I guess," Cecile said.

Hawk was watching the bubbles drift up in his champagne glass.

"I've taken a job at the Cleveland Clinic," Cecile said.

The menu had a gentleman's steak and a lady's steak listed. The lady's steak sounded better to me.

"An offer you couldn't refuse?" Susan said.

"Sort of," Cecile said.

She glanced at Hawk.

"And I… needed a change of scenery, I guess," Cecile said.

I knew Susan was fighting it, and I knew she was going to lose. She couldn't help herself. She had to try to help.

"Hawk?" Susan said.

"Yes?" Hawk said.

"I assume you are not moving to Cleveland," Susan said.

There was a glitter of self-mockery in Hawk's look.

He said, "My work be here, Susan."

Cecile was studying the menu. I wondered what she thought about the gentleman's and lady's steaks.

"So many to kill," Cecile said softly without looking up. "So little time."

Hawk looked at me.

"What that line about honor?" Hawk said. "From a poem?"

"Richard Lovelace?" I said. " 'I could not love thee half as much, loved I not honor more?' "

Hawk nodded.

"Oh, spare me," Cecile said.

Hawk nodded thoughtfully.

"Cecile," he said. "You know, and I know, and they know, you got a nice offer in Cleveland, but that you going because you mad at me for not being who you want me to be."

"I'm not mad, damn it," Cecile said. "I love you, and I can't stand that I can't have you."

"Not good dinner conversation," Hawk said. "But it's on the table. If you love me, you could have me. You love somebody else and insist I be him."

"Oh, shit," Cecile said.

She looked at Susan.

"You understand."

Susan nodded. I was hoping she would settle for the nod. But she couldn't.

"I do understand," Susan said. "But I'm not sure that means I agree."

"You don't think I should go to Cleveland?" Cecile said. She was finishing her second martini.

"I'm sorry to sound shrinky," Susan said, "but I think you should do what's in your best interest. Given who you are and what you need, it may very well be in your best interest to end it with Hawk."

"But?" Cecile said.

"But it's probably important to see that it is your doing, not his."

"What difference does it make?" Cecile said. "He won't change."

"Probably can't change; neither can you. But if you blame him, you'll feel victimized all your life."

Cecile caught the waiter's eye and ordered a third martini. She was silent while he got it. None of the rest of us said anything. Party hearty!

"I never quite saw that part," she said finally, after she'd gotten under way on the third martini. "He can't be what I want him to be, and I can't not want it."

Susan nodded.

"If I could change," Cecile said to Hawk, "what would you want?"

Hawk shook his head.

"Nothing," he said. "I don't mind you want me to be things I'm not. You don't change, I don't change. Be fine, long as we don't fight about it."

Cecile stared at him, then back to Susan. She nodded her head toward me.

"Would you change him?"

"Of course," Susan said. "If it were convenient. And I'm sure he would change me."

She smiled at me.

"In fact, I guarantee you that right now he thinks I shouldn't be butting in here."

"Good call," I said.

"But you don't change each other," Cecile said. "And you do things the other doesn't like. And yet here you are."

"That's probably why they call it love," Susan said.

Cecile said nothing. We all joined her. She picked up her martini glass and drank some and looked at the rest of us for a moment and put the glass down. She looked like she might cry.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I don't mean to be rude. But I have to go."

Nobody said anything. Cecile stood and patted my shoulder as she went by, and let her hand trail over Hawk's as she passed him, and then she was gone around the corner and down the stairs. Hawk didn't look after her. He took in a long breath and let it out slowly.

"We having fun yet?" he said.

"I been talking with Gino Fish," Vinnie said. "You know I used to work with him."

"I do," I said.

"You remember that, don't you, Hawk? I was with Gino?"

"Un-huh."

"Used to be with Broz, too, but we didn't get along. Got along with Gino okay."

Hawk was wiping the sweat off his face with a towel.

"That's nice, Vinnie," Hawk said. "Nice that you got along."

"Anyway, what I'm telling you is I don't work with him anymore, but we stay in touch. You know? Sometimes I do a little something for him."

I sat on a bench and draped the towel over my shoulders.

"Every little bit helps," I said.

"Yeah," Vinnie said, "sure. So he tells me stuff, sometimes, when I see him."

"Like what?" I said.

"Like he told me that Boots is around, blowing how he gonna kill Hawk," Vinnie said.

Hawk looked up.

"Boots is saying you ain't got the balls to stand up to him man to man."

"Man to man?" Hawk said. "Christ."

"I know," Vinnie said. "I'm just repeating Boots. Says he gonna kill you. And he's a pretty nasty bastard."

Hawk nodded.

"You got any thoughts?" Hawk said.

"I thought maybe I'd hang around," Vinnie said.

Hawk nodded.

"Now I got two of you," he said. "Spenser been hanging around since Marshport closed."

"All for one," I said. "One for all."

"Oui,"Hawk said. "You think Gino might know where Boots is?"

"Why'd you say 'we'?" Vinnie said.

"French humor," Hawk said. "Think we should talk with Gino?"

"Boots tole Gino-actually, he didn't tell Gino, he tole a guy who knew a guy, you know, and it got to Gino. Boots says you got the balls, he'll meet you any day at the Marshport Mall, early, five A.M., when nobody's there."

"Empty mall on Route One-A?" Hawk said.

"Yeah. Been closed for like eight years."

"I'm supposed to go down there every morning until I see him?" Hawk said.

"Says call his cell phone and leave a message. Tell him what day. Come alone."

"No seconds?" Hawk said.

"Seconds?"

"Like in a duel," I said.

Vinnie nodded as if he'd known it all along.

"Sure, seconds," he said. "I don't think Boots got no seconds. Most people don't like Boots."

"I heard that," Hawk said.

"I figure me and Spenser go along," Vinnie said, "you decide to go, be sure everything is kosher, you know?"

Hawk nodded. He seemed barely to be listening to Vinnie.

"Got the phone number?"

"Gino gave it to me," Vinnie said. "Write it on the back of his business card."

Hawk put out a hand. Vinnie took a card out of his shirt pocket. On the front in small, black lowercase raised lettering, it said GINO FISH. On the back in a small hand was written a phone number. Hawk took the card and walked out of the boxing room to the front desk. He smiled at the young woman at the desk, reached over, picked up the phone, and dialed the number. Vinnie and I came out behind him and listened. He was silent while the phone rang and the voicemail message was delivered and the sound of the tone was heard.

"Tomorrow," Hawk said into the phone. "Saturday, May fifteenth, at five in the morning."

He hung up.

"Man," Vinnie said, "you don't fuck around."

Hawk nodded.

"Early," I said.

Hawk nodded again.

"How you want this to go?" I said.

"I go there at five, he's there, I kill him."

"We could be cuter than that," I said. "We could go down there two or three in the morning, set up. Me and Vinnie, probably Leonard if we wanted. Cut him down the minute he shows."

Hawk shook his head.

"Come down and watch if you want to," Hawk said. "But that's all."

I looked at him for maybe thirty seconds, which is a long look when nobody's saying anything. Then I got it.

"He's got to try and kill you, doesn't he."

Hawk nodded.

"What the fuck you talking about?" Vinnie said.

"He needs to make a run at me," Hawk said.

Vinnie looked at Hawk without understanding.

"Vinnie," I said. "When we had Boots, Hawk made a deal. Boots gives five million to Luther Gillespie's kid, Hawk won't kill him."

"And Boots done that?" Vinnie said.

"Yes."

"So what," Vinnie said. "Everybody knows Boots is a scumbag. You don't have to keep your word to him."

"I can do both," Hawk said. "I can keep my word and kill him, too. All he got to do is make a try on me."

"Might be a little too fine a point being made here," I said.

"Got nothing else to make a fine point about," Hawk said.