Tony had two on a paper plate in front of him. He picked one up and took a bite out of it, the way you’d eat an apple.
“So what you need?” he said around the mouthful of muffin.
“Gang of kids running drugs out of a housing project at Twenty-two Hobart Street,” I said. Tony nodded and chewed on his muffin. “Couple people been killed,” I said.
Tony shook his head. “Fucking younger generation,” he said.
“Going to hell in a handbasket.” I said. “Tenants at Double Deuce hired Hawk and me to bring order out of chaos there…”
Marcus looked at his bodyguard. “You hear how he talks, Billy? `Order out of chaos.‘ Ain’t that something?”
“And the most successful local television show in the country is doing a five-part investigative series on the whole deal.”
It got Tony’s attention. “What television show?”
“Marge Eagen, Live,” I said.
“The blonde broad with the big tits?”
I smiled. Hawk smiled.
“What do you mean, an investigation?” Tony said.
“What’s wrong in the ghetto,” Hawk said. “Who’s selling drugs, how to save kids from the gangs, how to make black folks just like white folks.”
Marcus was silent for the time it took him to eat the rest of his second muffin.
When he finished he said, “You in on that?”
“Sorta parallel,” I said.
Tony pursed his lips slightly and nodded, and kept nodding, as if he’d forgotten he was doing it. He picked up his coffee cup and discovered it was empty. Billy got him another one. Tony stirred three spoonfuls of sugar carefully into the coffee and laid his spoon down and took a sip. Then he looked at me.
“So?” he said.
“The investigation is centered on the project,” I said. “And”-I looked at Billy-“while I don’t wish to seem immodest here, Bill, the investigation, so called, will go where we direct it.”
Billy continued to conceal his amusement. “So?” Marcus said.
“Any drugs moving in the ghetto are yours,” I said.
Marcus rolled back in his chair and widened his eyes. He spread his hands.
“Me?” he said.
“And if there is a thorough investigation of the drugs trade in and around Double Deuce, then you are going to be more famous than Oliver North.”
“Unless?” Tony said.
“Voilб,” I said.
Tony said, “Don’t fuck around, Spenser. You want something, say what.”
“Move the operation,” I said.
“Where?”
“Anywhere but Double Deuce.”
“Hawk?” Marcus said.
Hawk nodded.
“Say I could do that? Say I could persuade them to go someplace else?”
“Then you would be as famous as John Marsh.”
“Who the fuck is John Marsh?” Tony said.
“My point exactly,” I said.
Behind us a train came in, an hour and a half late, from Washington, and people straggled wearily through the bright station.
“Okay,” Marcus said.
“Good,” I said. “One thing, though.”
Marcus waited.
“Kid named Major Johnson,” I said. “He’s going to have to go down.”
“Why?”
“Killed three children,” I said.
Marcus shrugged.
