“Goddamn,” Major said. “I sure pretty enough to be on TV.”
He turned his head in profile.
“You want to know ‘bout my sad life?” he said.
“Anything you’d care to tell me,” Jackie said.
“I don’t care to tell you nothing, sly,” Major said.
“I’m sorry you feel that way,” Jackie said.
“I don’t know no better, you understand. I is an underprivileged ghet-to youth.”
“Mostly you are an asshole,” Hawk said. He was looking at Major now. His voice had no emotion in it, just the usual pleasant inflection.
“Not a good idea to dis me, Fro,” Major said. “You in my crib now.”
“Not anymore,” Hawk,said. “Belongs to me.”
“The whole Double Deuce, Fro? You been smoking too much grain. You head is juiced.”
Hawk smiled serenely.
“Why you think you and the flap can shut the Deuce down? Five-oh can’t do it. Why you think you can?”
“We got nothing else to do,” Hawk said.
Major grinned suddenly and patted the roof of the Jaguar.
“Like your ride,” he said.
Jackie wasn’t a quitter. “Can you tell me anything about being a gang member?” she said.
“Like what you want to know?”
“Well,” Jackie said, “you are a member of a gang.”
“I down with the Hobarts,” he said.
“Why?”
Major looked at Jackie as if she had just questioned him about gravity.
“We all down,” he said.
“Who’s we?”
Again the look of incredulity. He glanced at Hawk.
“All the Homeboys,” he said.
“What does membership in the gang mean?”
Major looked at Hawk again and shook his head.
“I’ll see you all again,” he said and turned and sauntered off into one of the alleys between the monolithic brick project buildings and disappeared. Hawk watched him until he was out of sight.
“I’m not sure it was fatherly to call him an asshole,” I said.
“Honest, though,” Hawk said.
“What was that all about?” Jackie said. “You guys are like his mortal enemy. Why would he come talk to you?”
“Ever read about Plains Indians?” Hawk said. “They had something called a coup stick and it was a mark of the greatest bravery to touch an enemy with it. Counting coup they called it. Not killing him, counting coup on him. That’s what they’d brag about.”
“Was that what Major was doing? Was he counting coup on you?”
Hawk nodded.
“More than that,” I said. “To a kid like Major, Hawk is the ultimate guy. The one who’s made it. Drives a Jag. Dresses top dollar-I think he looks pretty silly, but Major would be impressed-got a top-of-the-line girlfriend.”
“Me? How would he know I was Hawk’s girlfriend?”
“All you could be,” Hawk said. His eyes were still resting on the alley where Major had disappeared. “In his world there aren’t any women who are television producers. There’s mothers, grandmothers, sisters, aunts, and girlfriends.”
“For crissake-that defines women only in reference to men,” Jackie said.
“Ain’t that the truth,” Hawk said.
CHAPTER 16
It was quarter to nine when I came into the house on Linnaean Street in Cambridge. Susan had her office and waiting room on the first floor; and she, and now I, lived upstairs. Pearl capered about and lapped my face when I came in, and Susan came from the kitchen and gave me a peck on the lips.
“Where you been?” she said.
“Double Deuce,” I said.
