“Never thought she wasn’t smart,” Hawk said. “But I wasn’t trying hard as I could.”
“Know anything about the case?” I said.
“Nope, Quirk just called and said Susan needed minding.”
I nodded and went to work on the heavy bag, circled it, keeping my head bobbing, punching in flurries-different combinations. It wasn’t like the real thing. But it helped to groove the movements so that when you did the real thing, muscle memory took over. Hawk played various shuffle rhythms on the speed bag, and occasionally we would switch. Neither of us spoke, but when we switched, we did it in sync so that the patter of the speed bag never paused and the body bag combinations kept their pattern. We kept it up as long as we could and then sat in the steam room and took a shower and went to Henry’s office where there was beer in a refrigerator.
Henry was stocking Catamount Gold these days and I had a cap off a bottle, and my feet up. Hawk sat beside me, and I talked a little about the Olivia Nelson case. Through Henry’s window, the surface of the harbor was slick, and the waves had a dark, glossy look to them. The ferry plowed through the waves from Rowe’s Wharf, heading for Logan Airport.
“You know anything about Robert Stratton, the Senator?” I said.
“Nope.”
Hawk was wearing jeans and cowboy boots and a white silk shirt. He had the big.44 magnum that he used tucked under his left arm in what appeared to be a snakeskin shoulder holster.
“Know anything about a woman named Olivia Nelson?” I said.
“Nope.”
“Me either,” I said.
“I was you,” Hawk said, “and I had to go back down there to South Carolina, I’d talk to some of our black brothers and sisters. They work in the houses of a lotta white folks, see things, hear things, ‘cause the white folks think they don’t count.”
“If they’ll talk to me,” I said.
“Just tell them you a white liberal from Boston. They be grateful for the chance,” Hawk said.
“And, also, I’m a great Michael Jackson fan,” I said.
Hawk looked at me for a long time. He said, “Best keep that to yourself.”
Then we both sat quietly, and drank beer, and looked at the evening settle in over the water.
chapter twenty-eight
THE CALL WAS from Senator Stratton himself. It was ten-twenty in the morning, and the fall sun was warm on my back as it shone down Berkeley Street and slanted in through the window behind my desk.
“Bob Stratton,” he said when I answered. “I think I’ve got some explaining to do to you, and I’d like to do it over lunch today if you’re free.”
“Sure,” I said.
“Excellent. How about Grill 23, twelve-thirty. I’ll book a table.”
“Sure,” I said.
“Just the two of us,” Stratton said. “You and me, straight up, check?”
“Sure,” I said.
“I’ll have my driver pick you up,” Stratton said.
“My office is two blocks from the restaurant,” I said.
“My driver will stop by for you,” Stratton said.
I said, “Sure.”
“Looking forward to it,” Stratton said.
We hung up. I dialed Quirk and didn’t get him. I dialed Belson.
“Quirk back yet?” I said.
“Nope.”
“You talk to him?”
“Yeah. The old black guy, Jefferson, doesn’t say anything he didn’t say to you. The old man doesn’t say anything at all. Quirk agrees with you that Jefferson’s lying about Cheryl Anne Rankin, but he can’t shake him. The old lady at the track kitchen seems not to work there anymore. Nobody knows where she is. Nobody ever heard of Cheryl Anne Rankin. If he can’t find the old lady from the track kitchen today, he’s coming home. Travel money gives Command Staff hemorrhoids.”
“Thanks,” I said and hung up and sat and thought. Stratton had called me himself. That meant a couple of things. One, he wanted to impress me. Two, he didn’t want other people to know that he had called or that we were lunching. So what did that mean? Why had Cheryl Anne’s mother disappeared? Why would Jefferson, who was so forthcoming about everything else, lie about knowing Cheryl Rankin? Since Jumper Jack seemed to be his life’s purpose, Jefferson probably was lying for him. Which meant that Jumper had something to do with Cheryl Anne.
I finished thinking because Stratton’s driver was knocking on my door. I didn’t know anything I hadn’t known before, but at least I didn’t know less.
The driver was a polite guy with blow-dried hair, wearing a gray gabardine suit, and a pink silk tie.
