I nodded. My ribs were gone, also the beans and the watermelon and the combread. Also my beer. I'd done another good job at the table.
'These are serious guys,' I said. 'Bobby came into my office this morning, offered a bribe, made a threat, neither one worked, so he went right out and found you.'
'And when I said no he probably went on and found somebody else not as good,' Hawk said. He was working on his supper now that it was my turn to talk.
'The only one as good would be me,' I said, 'and I wouldn't do it either.'
'Still, they probably find some people willing,' Hawk said. 'Not everybody know better.'
'Sucker born every minute,' I said.
'What you into?' Hawk said.
'Basketball,' I said.
'The national sport,' Hawk said, 'of ma people. Better tell me about it.'
I did. While I did, Hawk finished his meal, the waiter came and cleared it and brought dessert menus.
'The bread pudding with whiskey sauce,' I said to Hawk.
Hawk held up two fingers to the waiter and said, 'Bread pudding.'
We were eating the pudding by the time I got to Madelaine Roth. And I finished with Madelaine and the pudding at about the same time.
'What you think 'bout Bobby,' Hawk said when I got through.
'I think that cheerful, pally act is a very thin veneer over a very tough guy,' I said.
Hawk nodded. 'Yeah,' he said. 'How 'bout I cruise around with you a while. Might meet me some adventurous coeds.'
'Yeah,' I said, 'might be able to help me get Dwayne's attention too.'
'Or Chantel's,' Hawk said.
'Hawk,' I said, 'Dwayne is, you gotta remember, approximately the size of Harlem.'
'There's that,' Hawk said.
'Besides, I think we're trying to help him,' I said.
'What's this we, white man? You the helper, I just along to see how it goes.'
'Mr. Warm,' I said.
The waiter brought the check. Hawk picked it up, looked at it and handed it to me.
16
THE next time I went to see Dwayne Woodcock, Hawk came with me. We found Dwayne in the spa in the Student Union drinking a Coke in a booth with two other kids. I recognized them. One was Kenny Green, the off guard, and a reserve forward named Daryl Pope. Dwayne looked up and said something to the other two. There was some laughter.
'Dwayne,' I said. 'We need to talk.'
Dwayne was playing to his friends. 'I don't need to talk, man. You need to talk whyn't you go someplace and talk?' He made the last word stretch. Hawk came up and leaned against the comer of the booth. All three kids looked at Hawk uneasily.
'I had a chat with Bobby Deegan,' I said. Everyone at the table got a little stiffer when I said Deegan's name.
'I don't know nobody by that name, man,' Dwayne said. 'Sounds like some dumb fucking Irishman to me.'
Dwayne's buddies laughed along with him. 'Don't that sound like that to you?' Dwayne said.
'Sounds like that to me,' one of his buddies said.
I looked at Hawk. I was getting tired of college kids. Dwayne was especially easy to get tired of.
'Want me to shoot one?' Hawk said. All three turned and looked at him.
'Who you talking to, man?' Dwayne said. Hawk turned his head slowly and looked at him, carefully. Then he looked at the other two, just as carefully.
Basketball players are big, and it's been years since they were reedy. There was nothing in Hawk's look that I could see that was anything but neutrally interested. He didn't say anything. But when he was through looking at them, all three kids had stopped laughing. Green and Pope looked at Dwayne, he looked back at Hawk for a minute, and then looked at me.
'You bring some fucking dude around, say he's going to shoot us?'
'Dude,' I said to Hawk.
'Talks like all those bad-ass black guys on television, don't he,' Hawk said.
'Heart of the ghetto,' I said, 'pulse beat of the streets.'
Hawk leaned a little forward toward Dwayne and spoke softly.
