“Better than watching daytime TV,” Hawk said. “You turn up anything yesterday or today?” He shook his head. “Me and Kathie been looking, but we haven’t seen anyone she know. Stadium’s big. We haven’t looked at it all yet.”
“You scalp some tickets?” Hawk smiled. “Yeah. Hated to. But it’s your bread. Been my bread I might have taken them away. Hate scalpers.”
“Yeah. How’s the security?” Hawk shrugged. “Tight, but you know. How you gonna be airtight with seventy, eighty thousand people walking in and out two, three times a day. There’s a lot of buttons around, but if I wanted to do somebody in there, I could. No sweat.”
“And get out?”
“Sure, with a little luck. It’s a big place, man. Lot of people. ”
“Well, tomorrow I’ll see. I got us all tickets so we don’t have to deal with the scalpers.”
“All right,” Hawk said. “Hate corruption in all its aspects, don’t you, Hawk.”
“Been fighting it all my life, bawse.” Hawk drank some more champagne. Kathie filled his glass as soon as he put it down. She sat so that her thigh touched his and watched him all the time. I drank some ale. “Been enjoying the games, Kath?” She nodded without looking at me. Hawk grinned at me. “She don’t like you,” he said. “She say you ain’t much of a man. Say you weak, you soft, say her and me we should shake you. I getting the feeling she don’t care for you. She think you a degenerate.”
“I got a real way with the broads,” I said. Kathie reddened but was silent, still looking at Hawk. “I told her she was a little hasty in her judgment.”
“She believe you?”
“No. You buy anything besides booze, like for supper.”
“Naw, man, you was telling me about a place called Bacco’s. Figured you’d like to take me and Kath out and show her you ain’t no degenerate. Treat her to a fine meal. Me too.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Okay. Let me take a shower.”
“See that, Kath,” Hawk said. “He very clean.” Bacco’s was on the second floor in the old section of Montreal not far from Victoria Square. The cuisine was French Canadian and they had one of the better country pates that I’d eaten. It also had good French bread and Labatt 50 ale. Hawk and I had a very nice time. I was thinking that Kathie probably did not have nice times. Ever. But she was passive and polite while we ate. She’d bought a kind of dungaree suit with a vest and long coat that she was wearing, and her hair was neat and she looked good. Old Montreal was jumping during the Olympics. There was outdoor entertainment in a square nearby, and throngs of young people drinking beer and wine and smoking and listening to the rock music. We got in our rented car and drove back to our rented house. Hawk and Kathie went upstairs to what had become their room. I sat for a while and finished the O’Keefe’s and watched the evening events, wrestling and some of the weightlifting, alone in the rented living room, on the funny old TV set with the illuminated border. At nine o’clock I went to bed. Alone. I hadn’t had much sleep the night before and I was tired. I felt middle-aged. I was lonely. It kept me awake till nine- fifteen.
26
We took the subway to the Olympic Stadium. Subway is probably the wrong term. If what I ride occasionally in Boston is a subway, then what we rode in Montreal was not. The stations were immaculate, the trains silent, the service on time. Hawk and I forced a small space for Kathie between us, in the jam of bodies. We changed at Berri Montigny and got off at Viau. Being a supercool sophisticated worldly-wise full-grown hipster, I was unimpressed with the enormous complex around the Olympic Stadium. Just as I was unimpressed with going to the actual, real, live Olympic games. The excited circus feeling in my stomach was merely the manhunter’s natural sensation as he closes in on his quarry. Straight ahead were food pavilions and concessions of one kind or another. Beyond was the Maisonneuve Sports Center, to my right the.Maurice Richard Arena, to my left the Velodrome and, beyond it, looming like the Colosseum, the gray, not quite finished, monumental stadium. Cheering surged up from it. We started up the long winding ramp toward the stadium. As we went I sucked in my stomach. Hawk said, “Kathie say this Zachary a bone-breaker.”
“How big is he?” Hawk said, “Kath?”
“Very big,” she said. “Bigger than me,” I said, “or Hawk?”
“Oh yes. I mean really big.”
“I weigh about two hundred pounds,” I said. “How much would you say he weighs?”
“He weighs three hundred five pounds. I know. I heard him tell Paul one day.” I looked at Hawk. “Three hundred five?”
“But he only six feet seven,” Hawk said. “Is he fat, Kathie?” I was hopeful. “No, not really. He used to be a weightlifter.”
“Well, so, Hawk and I do a lot on the irons.”
“No, I mean like those Russians. You know, a real weightlifter, he was the champion of somewhere.”
“And he looks like a Russian weightlifter?”
“Yes, like that. Paul and he used to watch them on television. He has that fat look that you know is strong.”
“Well, anyway, he won’t be hard to spot.”
“Harder here than most places,” Hawk said. “Yeah. Let’s be careful and not try to put the arm on Alexeev or somebody.” Hawk said, “This dude trying to save Africa too?”
“Yes. He… he hates blacks worse than anyone I’ve seen.”
“That helps,” I said. “You can reason with him, Hawk.”
