“They hiring?” I said.
“Hard to get hired,” the bartender said. “Need specialist skills, you know? Gunsmith, heavyweapons specialist, that kind of stuff. I never heard of them hiring anyone local.”
“We know a little about weapons,” I said. “And we’re not local. Who do we talk to?”
The bartender shrugged. “Got me,” he said. “Guys at the big round table work there. Maybe they can help. Was me I’d go down to the state employment office in Hartford.”
He moved away.
I turned away and leaned my elbows on the bar and sipped the draft beer and looked at the big round table. They were drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon beer from long-necked bottles and a number of them had collected on the table. They had placed a ring of lit cigarettes on the table and were arm wrestling inside the ring, the loser getting his knuckles burned. The winner of the first two matches was a fat guy with crew-cut red hair and a full beard. He had on a denim shirt with the sleeves cut off and his arms were bright pink and thick as country hams.
I said to Hawk, “Let’s get in on this?”
“Which of us?”
“Whichever one sees the chance,” I said.
“Should we win or lose?”
“See how it goes,” I said.
We went with our beers in hand and stood near the group watching the contests. The fat man won another, slowly overpowering a lean black man and pressing his knuckles briefly against the cigarette. The rest of the table whooped.
The fat man looked around the table. There was another black, a squat man with long arms, wearing a baseball cap backward.
“You want to hold up the honor of the spooks, Chico?”
The black man shrugged and moved over beside the fat man. He set his elbow on the table and they locked hands.
“Anytime,” the fat man said. Chico turned his wrist sharply, trying to catch the fat man unready, and he almost made it. The fat man’s arm went maybe forty-five degrees down before he began to hunch his shoulder and steadily press Chico’s arm back and down toward the cigarettes. Chico held for a moment six inches from the tabletop, then his arm gave way and the back of his hand pressed against the burning cigarettes. The fat man held it there.
“Got to yell, Chico. Got to say ow.”
Chico said, “Ow.”
The fat man grinned. “Goddamned near got me, Cheeks. Goddamned near made it. Be a son of a bitch if I lost my first time to a goddamned spook.”
Chico grinned and put the back of his hand to his mouth.
Hawk said, “How about me?”
The fat man looked up. “Hell yes,” he said. “How about a little money on it. With friends I do it for fun. But strangers…” Hawk took a twenty out and tossed it on the table.
He said to Chico, “ ‘Scuse me, bro,” and sat in the chair.
“Name’s Red,” the fat man said. He was looking at Hawk carefully.
Hawk nodded.
“You got a name,” Red said. “Black,” Hawk said.
“Well, you’re hot shit, ain’t you,” Red said.
Hawk sat opposite Red and placed his elbow on the table. He and Red locked hands. Next to Red, Hawk looked nearly slender.
“Anytime,” Red said.
Hawk nodded and said, “You say.”
Red said, “Now,” and lunged his forearm against Hawk’s. Slowly Hawk’s forearm bent backward toward the tabletop. Red’s teeth showed through his beard. Hawk had no expression. He looked at me. Four inches from the tabletop Hawk’s arm stopped moving down. Red grunted with effort. Hawk kept looking at me. I nodded and mouthed the word win. With no change in expression Hawk began to lift Red’s arm back up the way it had come. It was a steady, apparently effortless movement, except that the muscles in Hawk’s arm swelled so that the hem on the sleeve of his polo shirt split. He pressed Red’s hand firmly against the lit cigarette.
Red said, “Ow,” and Hawk released his hand, picked up the two twenties and folded them neatly lengthwise in half, running his thumb and forefinger along the crease to smooth it. Red stared at him with the back of his right hand pressed against his mouth. No one spoke.
Hawk gestured at the waitress. “Bring us a round,” he said, and handed her one of the folded twenties.
“You got me when I was tired,” Red said. “My right arm was tired.”
Hawk nodded pleasantly.
“Double or nothing, left-handed,” Red said.
Hawk nodded toward me. “Try him,” Hawk said.
Red looked at me. “You left-handed?” he said.
