'Gerry Broz?'
'Don't know his last name. White guy, scraggly mustache. Kinda fat ... not really fat, just sort of flabby- looking.'
'That's Gerry,' I said. 'You know what he's got to do with this?'
'No,' Chantel said. 'I just see them together when we go out. They talk to Dwayne. Dwayne don't want me talking to them. He knows I don't like them. He's afraid I'll say something bad.'
'Dwayne likes them?' I said.
'He likes Mr. Deegan,' she said. 'I don't think he likes Gerry so much.'
'Most people don't,' I said.
'Dwayne don't like white people exactly, but he likes them to like him, you know? He needs to have them think he's a big man.'
'And Deegan makes him feel good?'
Chantel leaned a little forward toward me.
'Yes. Mr. Deegan got money, and he acts like he got money. He know what to do in restaurants and how to talk to headwaiters and what to tip the hat check girl, you know, that kind of man. Real sure of himself. Confident, seems nice, but very aggressive too, like a big success.'
'Dwayne likes that?' I said.
'Dwayne been a star most of his life but he been poor most of his life too and where he lived was all black people like where I lived. But his was poorer. We weren't poor. And you'd see all these cool white guys on TV, and you didn't really think about it, and if you did you wouldn't admit it, but being a success got kind of mixed up with being white, or being like a white person, or having white people like you. Mr. Deegan is what Dwayne thinks he ought to be.'
'He is better than that, Chantel, or you wouldn't love him.'
'He needs to know he better than that,' Chantel said. 'He got to see that Mr. Deegan is a sleaze with nice manners.'
'Okay,' I said. 'I think I've got it. I show Dwayne that Deegan's a sleaze, prove to Dwayne that he himself is not a sleaze, get Deegan off his back, keep anyone from finding out he shaved points, teach him to read and write and not let anyone know that he can't.'
For the first time since I'd seen her, Chantel smiled.
'Yes,' she said, 'that's exactly it.'
'And on the seventh day I'll rest,' I said.
20
I got the call from Dwayne on my office phone at four-thirty on a cold drizzly Thursday afternoon. Hawk was with me. We'd spent most of the last hour trying to figure out how to deal with the mess Dwayne was in, and we weren't making much progress. We were in the middle of a five-minute break devoted to a discussion of the paralegal's backside when the phone rang and I answered it.
'I need to see you,' Dwayne said.
'How come?' I said.
'I been thinking 'bout what you said and I was wrong to get mad,' Dwayne said. 'I need to talk with you without anybody seeing me.'
'I'll meet you,' I said.
'Gotta be private, man. Nobody better see me.'
'Wherever you want,' I said.
'You know the parking garage by the Aquarium?' Dwayne said.
'Yes,' I said. 'On Milk Street.'
'I be on the top level at six thirty,' Dwayne said. 'You come in your car and I'll get in.'
'Six thirty,' I said.
'Don't tell nobody,' Dwayne said and hung up.
I said, 'Dwayne wants me to meet him on the top level of the parking garage on Milk Street by the Aquarium.'
'When?'
'Six thirty. Says he's changed his mind about me being a honkie motherfucker.'
'He actually say that?' Hawk said.
'Well, he implied it,' I said.
'Hm,' Hawk said. 'What you think?'
'Could be true,' I said. 'Or he could be doing what he's told and when I get there whoever Deegan hired instead of you will jump out of a Cutlass Supreme and shoot a hole in me.'
