my place for a nightcap and a bit of free love?'
'We might get your bedclothes all wrinkled,' Susan said over her coffee cup.
I sighed. 'I know,' I said. 'I thought of that, but life is a trade-off.
It'll be worth it.'
Susan finished her coffee and put her cup down and leaned a little toward me. Her dark eyes were enormous. 'You better believe it,' she said.
Chapter 18
Hawk was drinking white wine and soda at the bar in Gallagher when I came in. He had on a dark gray three-piece suit with a fine pinstripe, white shirt, pin collar, pink silk tie, and pink pocket hankie. There were diamonds winking in his gold cuff links and another glimmering in his right earlobe. His head gleamed in the bar's soft light as if he'd oiled it. I'd felt pretty good about my leather trench coat until I saw him.
'You stop somewhere and get your head buffed?' I said.
He made room for me at the bar. 'That's a halo,' he said.
I ordered beer. 'You know something or are you just lonely and I'm the only, one can stand you?'
'Tony Marcus says they going to put you in the ground if you don't stop messing with his whores,' Hawk said. He drank some wine and soda. I raised my eyebrows. 'So she is his,' I said.
'They all his, babe,' Hawk said.
'So why does he care about one more or less?' I said.
'He didn't say. He just said tell you that you going in the ground unless you back away.'
'He told you that himself?'
'Uh-huh.' Hawk grinned. 'I was visiting with him, being slick, seeing if I couldn't acquire a little intelligence without letting on, you know. And he say, `You still tight with Spenser?'-well, actually he say, `You still tight with that honky muthafucker?' but I knew who he meant, and I say, `Yeah,' and he say, `You tell him stay away from my whores or he going in the ground.''
'Man's a racist,' I said.
'No doubt,' Hawk said, 'but he got enough people to do it.'
'I know,' I said. 'Why do you suppose it matters to him. What's special about this kid?'
Hawk shrugged. 'You making any progress finding her?'
'I found her and lost her.'
Hawk smiled with pleasure. 'Lost her? Hell, I figured you was overmatched. How old is she?'
'Sixteen.'
'She didn't take your gun away, did she?'
'Hell, no,' I said. 'I'm no amateur.'
'What you going to do now?'
'I'm going to look for her some more. How about you? You still working for me or did Tony Marcus hire you away?'
'Always happy,' Hawk said, 'to take your money, long as you still alive.'
'Okay, pick up Red and stay with him. See if she surfaces there. If she does, bring her to me.'
'What if Red don't like it?'
'Reason with him.'
Hawk nodded. 'You sure it wouldn't be better for me to stick with you?
Marcus wasn't jiving.'
'No. I'm going over and sit in the Back Bay and watch a house and see what goes in and out.'
'Okay.' Hawk finished the wine and left a five on the bar. 'You get aced, Susan gonna be awful mad,' he said.
'At both of us,' I said. 'You paying for mine too?'
'Sure. It'll go on my bill.'
We got up and moved through the lunch hour crowd and out to the street.
Hawk headed up State Street to Washington and I went to get my car.
I drove round and round the block until I found a parking space on Beacon from which I could see Amy Gurwitz's house. Hawk could cover the Zone better than I could, especially since April would recognize me and not him, and the other option was watching this house. It wasn't much of an option, but it was better than driving around looking in windows, which was the only other thing I could think of.
Amy and April had been friends—or so they said at the bowling alley in Smithfield-on the run, with no money- hell, no coat. April might end up there. It was sunny and clear, not too cold for November, and the sun on the canvas roof of the MG had a greenhouse effect that made it comfortable without the heater. I tilted the seat back and stretched my legs out and stared at the Gurwitz front door for the rest of the afternoon. Nobody came out. Nobody went in. No one looked out a window. No smoke signals emanated from the chimney. No sound of
