'Only go this way, one time,' Hawk said.
Susan and I sat side by side on one side of the table and Hawk sat across. We were on top of the Hyatt Regency Hotel on the Cambridge side of the Charles. The room rotated very slowly, and you got a grandiloquent view of Boston half the time.
Susan had a large pina colada with fruit in it and was sipping it sparingly through a straw. It looked good, but I was embarrassed to order one. I had beer. Hawk had a pina colada. Nothing embarrassed him.
'It would be easier with two,' Susan said. 'And he has been in it from the start. He's got a right to be in at the finish.'
'See that,' Hawk said. 'Suze know. Except for who she hang around with she got a lot of style.'
'That's not why he wants to help bust Poitras,' I said to Susan. 'He's got as much curiosity as a parsnip. He wants to be there to remind Tony Marcus that he's in it with me.'
'Which will make Marcus more likely to keep his word,' Susan said.
'Yes.'
She reached over and patted the top of his motionless hands where they rested beside his glass. 'What a darling man you are,' Susan .said, her face serious. 'Some of my best friends are black.' Hawk burst out laughing. Several people turned their heads in mild annoyance and turned them quickly back.
'You like all honky broads,' Hawk said. 'Sentimental.'
Then they both giggled.
'When you get through with the interracial humor,' I said, 'I have a goddamned plan.'
'We listening,' Hawk said.
'Okay, when I burgled Poitras's pad…'
'Sexist whitey goyim,' Susan murmured, and the two of them got hysterical. 'Always talking at us minorities,' Hawk gasped. And they giggled even more. I put my chin in my hand and watched them. They were like grade- school kids who had started laughing at something innocuous and then couldn't stop. It was the only time I could recall Hawk out of control about anything. In fact, Susan was the only person I'd ever seen toward whom he showed anything but pleasant disinterest.
I tried twice again before they finally got it under control.
'When I burgled Poitras's pad, I copped a set of keys and had duplicates made,' I said. Susan was staring at me with her elbows on the table and both hands pressed against her mouth and her eyes moist.
'Um-hum,' she said. Her shoulders shook.
'Christ,' I said. 'Did George Patton have to deal with Amos and Andrea? We'll go over tonight and walk in unannounced.' I said it in a rush.
Hawk nodded.
'And we'll send April out with Susan, and Amy Gurwitz if she wants to go.
Then we check that the dirty movies are still there for evidence and call the cops. Can you handle April, Suze, even if she doesn't want to go?'
She had it under control now. 'I think so. If not, Hawk can help me.'
'If he's not too busy doing his Pigmeat Markham impressions,' I said.
'I bring a stick,' he said. ' 'Case she get vicious.'
'Okay, let's drink up and do it,' I said.
'Just like that?' Susan said.
'If it's to be done,' I said.
'And April?' Susan said.
'You keep her in the car, and after the cops come, we'll take her back to my place and talk.' I shrugged. 'It's the best I can think of.'
'It's the best I can think of too,' Susan said.
We paid the check and went down in the elevator. Susan and I had come in her Bronco. Hawk had met us there. We decided to go in the Bronco and left Hawk's Jaguar in the parking garage.
It was dark, and the lights of Boston across the Charles made elegant starry patterns against the hard early- winter blackness. We crossed the river on the B.U. bridge and Susan turned left onto Commonwealth at the NO LEFT TURN Sign.
'Lawless,' I said.
'It's a dumb rule,' Susan said. 'There's no reason not to turn left there.'
'That's true,' I said.
Boston University had us surrounded as we drove down Commonwealth.
'Commanding architectural integrity,' Susan said as we passed through.
'Better-looking than some Burger Kings,' Hawk said.
In Kenmore Square the punk rockers and the college kids were feasting on pizza and subs and hot dogs and doughnuts and cheeseburgers and thick shakes and beer, and being cool. Beyond Kenmore, Commonwealth Avenue became more sedate, and after we dipped under Mass. Ave. it became positively haughty. The wide mall in the
