“Actually,” I said, “vigilante-ism would be if the residents banded together to do your job for you. This is more like consulting-ism, I think.”
“We the Arthur D. Little,” Hawk said, “of hired thugdom.”
“Go ahead,” Albanese said, “be funny. I’ve asked our counsel”-he nodded at Mr. Doyle, who was looking at us sternly-“to see if there may not be some violation of statute here.”
Jackie clicked her tape recorder on very quietly while Albanese was talking. But he heard it. He was the kind of guy who spent his life listening for the click of tape recorders and the hum of a television camera.
Without breaking stride he said, “I think what Ms. Eagen is doing will be a major television event, and I can tell you here and now that every resource of my office will be at your disposal. Gangs are the scourge of public housing. The few bad kids give a lot of decent hardworking citizens a bad name.”
“And drank rapidly a glass of water,” I said.
“Excuse me?” Albanese said.
“A literary allusion,” I said, “e.e. cummings.”
“Don’t know him,” Albanese said.
I smiled politely.
We all stood without anything to say for a while and watched Marge being filmed. When they were through, she came back over to us. Harry took some film of her with Albanese. The soundwoman followed along behind although no one was talking and as far as I could see there was no sound to record.
Then it was our turn again. Marge was going to charm us. She gave us a very big smile and the full force of her large blue eyes.
“Now,” she said, “what are we to do with you gentlemen?”
“We could go bowling,” I said. “And maybe pizza after?”
She shook her head the way a parent does to willful child.
“We’d like you to be in this piece,” she said. “Both of you.”
Hawk and I remained calm.
“This series will make a real contribution to the most disadvantaged among us,” she said. “I’d like to get your slant on it, two men who have bridged the racial gulf and are teamed up to try and help others bridge it.”
Hawk turned his head and looked over his shoulder. Then he looked back at Marge Eagen. “You reading that off something?” he said.
“You don’t believe in what you’re doing?” she said.
Up close I could see the small crowsfeet around her eyes. It didn’t hurt her appearance. In some ways I thought it helped, made her look like a grown-up.
“I don’t believe much,” Hawk said, “and one of the things I don’t believe is that some broad in a Donna Karan dress gonna do much to liberate the darkies.”
“Well,” Marge Eagen said, “there’s no need to be offensive.”
“Hell there ain’t,” Hawk said.
Marge Eagen said, “Jackie,” and jerked her head at the van, did a brisk about-face, and marched away. Everybody except Boc, the Authority Police Chief, hustled after her. Hawk and I watched them silently.
“Don’t pay attention to Albanese,” Boc said. “We need all the help we can get down here, and if you can keep these fucking maggots quiet, you’re not going to get any shit from us.”
Hawk nodded. He was still looking after Marge.
“Good to know,” he said.
Boc turned and went after the rest of them.
After maybe five minutes Jackie came back from the van. Her face was very tight.
“You asshole,” she said to Hawk. “She’s yanking me out of here. I don’t even know if we’re going to do the series.”
Hawk nodded. Jackie got her purse out of Hawk’s car, put her tape recorder in it, and went back to the van. She got in the van. It started up and pulled away. The Housing Authority car and the police car followed and Hawk and I were alone again in the middle of Double Deuce.
We looked at each other.
“How’d you know it was a Donna Karan dress,” I said.
CHAPTER 22
“Did you let her eat that bone on the couch?” Susan said.
It was 9:30 at night. I was reading Calvin and Hobbes in the morning edition of the Globe.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Why didn’t you stop her?”
“I didn’t notice,” I said. “Besides, why shouldn’t she eat a bone on the couch?”
“Because she gets bone juice all over my cushions,” Susan said. “How could you not notice?”
Answering questions like that had never proven fruitful. So I smiled ruefully and gave my head a beguiling twist and started back to Calvin and Hobbes. Then I would move to Tank McNamara, and finish with Doonesbury. I had my evening all planned out.
“It is not funny,” Susan said.
“No,” I said, “that was a rueful smile.”
“I’m serious,” she said. “My stuff means a lot to me.”
“I thought it was our stuff,” I said.
“You know what I mean. I care about it. You don’t.”
“I know,” I said. “I know that a lot of you goes into design and decor. It is part of your art. And the results are in fact artful. It’s just that preventing the dog getting bone juice on your cushions was sort of on the back burner. I was feeling like I could read the paper and relax my vigilance for a bit.”
“You were reading the comics,” Susan said and walked out of the living room. I looked at Pearl, she did not seem abashed. She was vigorously getting bone juice on the rug.
CHAPTER 23
I was in my office evaluating the health hazard of a third cup of coffee, compounded by the possibility of a donut. Outside my window it was overcast with the hard look of rain toward the river. A good day for coffee and donuts.
My office door opened, and there, radiant in a white raincoat and matching hat with a lot of blue polka dot showing at her neck, was Marge Eagen herself, the host of the number-one-rated local show in the country. My heart beat faster.
“Hello,” I said.
“I wasn’t sure whether to knock or not,” Marge Eagen said. She smiled beautifully. “I thought you might have a receptionist.”
“I did,” I said, “but she returned to her first love, neurosurgery, a while back and I haven’t bothered to replace her.”
Marge Eagen laughed delightedly. “I heard you were funny,” she said.
“Lot of people say that.”
“May I sit down?”
“Of course,” I said.
I nodded at the chair. She sat and glanced around my office.
“Great location,” she said. I didn’t comment.
“Is it as fascinating as it seems,” Marge Eagen said, “being a private detective?”
“Better than working,” I said.
“Oh, I’m sure,” she said, “that you work pretty damned hard.”
“So what can I do for you?” I said.
“My, my,” she said. “So businesslike.”
She had unbuttoned her shiny white raincoat and let it fall off her shoulders over the back of the chair. She had on a dark blue dress with big white polka dots. When she crossed her legs, she showed me a lot of thigh. I remained calm.
“I really need to know what the problem is,” Marge Eagen said.
I nodded encouragingly.
“Just what is the issue with your black friend,” Marge said. “We’re out there trying to do a story that should help his people, and, frankly, he seems to have a real attitude.”
“Hawk?” I said. “An attitude?”
“Oh, come now, don’t be coy, Mr. Spenser. What is his problem?”
“Why not consult with him?” I said.
“Well, I don’t know where to find him, and in truth I’m more comfortable talking with you.”
“Is it because I’m so cuddlesome?” I said.
She smiled the smile that launched a thousand commercials.
“Well, that’s certainly part of it,” she said.
“And I’m not a surly nigger,” I said. “That’s probably appealing too.”
“Th
ere’s no need to be coarse,” Marge Eagen said. “The stations are really behind this. We believe in the project. We care.”
“Hawk probably thinks you are a self-important ninny who is looking for television ratings and using the problems of the ghetto to that end. Hawk probably thinks that your coverage will do no good, and will make people think it’s doing good, thus making things, if possible, worse.” Marge Eagen’s face got red.
“You arrogant fucking prick,” she said.
“Everyone says that,” I said.
She stood, and turned, angrily shrugging her coat back on.
“Of course maybe he just doesn’t like having his picture taken,” I said. “With Hawk you never know.”
She didn’t answer. Without looking back she stalked out my door and slammed it shut behind her.
No business like show business.
CHAPTER 24
It was raining when Major Johnson showed up with what appeared to be the whole Hobart posse. It was a light rain, and sometimes it would stop for a while and then pick up again, and the weather was warm. On the whole it was a nice rainy spring afternoon.
The Hobarts came down the alley from the back end of the project in single file. They all had on Raiders caps and Adidas sneakers. Most of them were in sweatsuits. Major had on a leather jacket with padded shoulders and a lot of zippers. As they came Hawk and I got out of the car to face them. I had the shotgun.
The Hobarts fanned out in a semicircle around us. I didn’t see John Porter. I took a look along the rooftops and saw nothing. Major stood inside the half-circle opposite us. He had the same half-amused, half-tense quality I had seen before.
“How you doing,” Major said. Hawk nodded slightly.
“Thought I should introduce you to the crew,” Major said.
Hawk waited.
“Figure you suppose to be scrambling with us, you ought to see who you gonna have to hass.” There was still no movement on the roofline. The rain misted down softly, and no one seemed to mind it. The boys stood arrayed.
“This here is Shoe,” Major said, “and Honk, Goodyear, Moon-man, Halfway, Hose.”
At each name Hawk would shift his eyes onto the person introduced. He made no other sign. Shoe was the kid I’d yanked out of the van. Goodyear looked like he’d been named for the Blimp. Honk was very light. Halfway was very short. Major moved slowly around the semicircle.
“This here is X, and Bobby High.”
I kept watching the roof, alternating glances at the street. The rain came a little harder.
“… and Junior,” Major said. “And Ray… ” There were maybe twenty kids in all. Major was around twenty. The youngest looked to be twelve or thirteen.
“Where’s John Porter?” Hawk said.
Major shrugged. “He ain’t here,” Major said. “I think maybe he soaking his hose.” He grinned. “John Porter heavy on soaking it. Say he need to soak it every day since he got out of rails, you know? Say his slut spend most of her time looking at the ceiling.”
“You come to tell me about John Porter’s sex life?” Hawk said.
“Come to see you, Fro. Come to intro the Homes. You ever been in rails, Fro?”
Hawk said, “It’s raining. You want to stand around in the rain?”
“We used to standing around,” Major said. “Stand around a lot. Stand around sell some sub. Stand around pick up some wiggle, stand around throat a little beverage. Maybe trace somebody.”
“Trace?” I said.
Major grinned. “You know, line somebody, haul out you nine and… ” With his thumb and forefinger he mimicked shooting a handgun.
“Ah,” I said. “Of course.”
“What kind of sub you sell?” Hawk said.
“Grain, glass, classic, Jock, motor, harp, what you need is what we got.”
Hawk looked at me. “Grass,” he said. “Rock cocaine, regular powdered coke, heroin.” He looked at Major. “What’s motor? Speed?”
“Un huh.”
“And PCP,” Hawk finished.
“You think I didn’t know that?” I said.
“What do you use?” Hawk said.
“We don’t use that shit, man. You think we use that? We see what it does to people, man. We ain’t stupid.”
“So what do you use?” Hawk said.
“Beverage, Fro. I already tol‘ you that. Some Mogen, some Juke, hot day maybe, some six. You use something?”
“I drink the blood of my enemies,” Hawk said and smiled his wide happy smile. His eyes never left Major.
“Whoa,” Major said. “That is dope, man!” He turned toward the others. “Is this a fresh dude? Did I tell you he was bad? The blood of the fucking enemies-shit!”
“How many people you lined?” Shoe asked Hawk.
Hawk looked at him as if he hadn’t spoken.
“I killed me a Jeek, last month,” Shoe said. “Motherfucker tried to stiff me on a buy and I nined him right there.” Shoe nodded toward the barren blacktop playground across the street. There were iron swing sets without swings, and a half-moon metal backboard with no hoop. The metal was shiny in the rain, and the blacktop gleamed with false promise.
“Doing much business since we here?” Hawk said.
“Do business when we want to,” Major said.
“Who’s your truck?” Hawk said.
Major looked at me for a minute and back at Hawk.
“Tony Marcus,” he said proudly. Hawk smiled even more widely.
“Really,” he said.
“You know him?” Major said.
“Un huh,” Hawk said. “My associate here once punched him in the mouth.”
The entire semicircle was silent for a moment. For all their ferocity they were kids. And a man who had punched Tony Marcus, and survived, got their attention.
“You do that?” Major said.
“He annoyed me,” I said.
“I don’t believe you done that,” Major said.
I shrugged.
We were quiet for a while standing in the rain. “Where the sly?” Major said. “She don’t like us no more?”
“Why should she be different?” Hawk said.
“This mean we not going to be on TV?”
Hawk was quiet for a moment. He looked at Major while he was being quiet.
“We need to talk,” Hawk said finally.
“What the fuck we doing, man?”
“Now, right now, you’re profiling,” Hawk said. “And I’m being bored.”
“You bored, man, whyn’t you put your motherfucking ass someplace else, then?”
“Why don’t you and me sit in the car, out of the rain, and we talk?” Hawk said.
You could tell that Major liked that-he and Hawk as equals, the two commanders conferring while the troops stood in the rain. Besides, it was a Jaguar sedan with leather upholstery.
“No reason to get wet,” Major said.
Hawk opened the back door and Major got in. Hawk got in after him. He grinned at me as he got in. I stayed outside the car, with the shotgun, staring at about nineteen hostile gangbangers, in the rain, which was coming harder.
CHAPTER 25
We were at the other end of life. Susan and I and Hawk and Jackie were sharing a bottle of Iron Horse champagne and having dinner on the top floor of the Bostonian Hotel. Hawk had on a black silk suit and a white shirt with a pleated front. I was wearing my dark blue suit, which I almost always wore, because it flattered my eyes, and because I didn’t have another one. I was sure we didn’t look like people who spent their days sitting with guns in the middle of a housing project. And the women we were with didn’t look like they’d date such people.
Jackie was wearing a little black dress with pearls. She rested her forearm on the back of Hawk’s chair and traced small circles between his shoulder blades with her forefinger.
“You talked with the boy?” she said… “Actually talked?”
“Un huh.”
“And are you going to tell me what he said?”
“Background only,” Hawk said.
Jackie nodded.
“You notice,” I said to Susan, “that the Kingfish accent seems to go away when he talks to Jackie?”
Susan smiled, which is something to see. “Yes,” she said, “but I am far too delicate to mention it.”
“That is mostly for you honkies,” Hawk said in a kind of David Niven accent, “so as not to confound your expectations.”
“What did you and Major talk about?” Jackie said.
“Woman is not easily distracted,” Hawk said.
“As you have every reason to know,” Jackie said.
“I wasn’t talking about that,” Hawk said.
There was a moment of silence while Jackie smiled at him and Hawk gave her the same kindly look that he gave everyone.
“Major got in the car,” Hawk said, “and I said to him, `We can go two ways. We can talk, and work out an arrangement, or we can pop the cork on this thing.‘ Major looking mostly at the car while I’m talking. And when I say that, he sort of nod and keep looking at the car. And I say, `I will kill you if I need to.’ And he stop looking at the car and he sort of laugh.”
“Really intimidated,” I said.
“Yuh. He must know your reputation, too, ‘cause he say I be dead and the Mickey, which is you, be dead long time ago, except he says no.”
“We’ve had two encounters and come out first both times,” I said. “Doesn’t that tell him anything?”
“No shooting,” Hawk said. “Kids only impressed with shooting. Everybody got a gun. What you and I would punch somebody on the chops for, these kids shoot you.”
“Makes you nostalgic for street fighters,” I said.
Hawk nodded.
“Mickey?” Susan said.
“Irish,” Hawk said, “means white.”
“All whites?” Susan said.
“Un huh.”
“Would I be Irish?” she said.
“You’d be slut, or sly, or wiggle,” Hawk said. “Women’s race don’t matter.”
“Sexism again,” Susan said.
“You might be an Irish slut, though,” I said.
“Gee,” Susan said, “my chance to pass.”
“Make you an IAP,” I said.
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