'Sure.'
'They find out I let you roust me, it won't do me no good.'
I waited. Behind him one of the swan boats drifted under the little bridge. The ducks glided behind it.
'Marty told me to see who you talked to,' the Big Guy said.
'Marty who?'
'Marty Anaheim,' he said. There was surprise in his voice that there could be another Marty.
'Works for Gino Fish,' I said.
Again the guy looked startled.
'He don't work for him, man. Marty's his number-one guy,' he said.
'Awesome,' I said.
'You know why he wanted me followed?'
'Naw. I'm just a fucking laborer, you know. Grunt work. They don't tell me shit.'
'When did Marty tell you to start following me?'
'Sent me out this morning.'
'How long were you supposed to stay on me?'
'Till he told me to stop.'
'Okay, here's what you do. Tell him I made you, and you decided the wisest course was to bail out on the tail. You got that?'
'The wisest course…?'
'Ad lib if you want to.'
'Yeah, but Marty'll put somebody else on you.'
'Tell him not to,' I said.
'I can't tell Marly Anaheim what to do.'
'Anyone else follows me around I'm going to speak to Marty direct.'
'Jesus, you can't do that, he'll know I told you.'
I shrugged and turned and walked away from him. I crossed Arlington Street at the light. Down at the corner of Newbury Street people were going into the Ritz, probably having lunch in the cafe.
The bar would be open. I wondered if they served New Amsterdam Black & Tan these days. I looked back at the Big Guy. He was still standing there beside Washington. Next to the monumental sculpture he looked small.
CHAPTER 6
I was sitting at my desk with my feet up, reading the Globe, when Hawk came into my office with a bag of donuts and two large cups of coffee. My windows were open behind me and the sound and scent of morning traffic drifted up, along with the smell of bacon cooking somewhere, and beneath it, the smell from the river five blocks away. Even though it was September, it still smelled like summer.
'Got you some delicious decaffeinated,' Hawk said.
'You drinking real coffee?' I said.
'Guatemalan dark roast,' he said.
'Keep drinking that stuff you'll be bouncing around like one of the Nicholas Brothers.'
Hawk set out the coffee for each of us and put the bag of donuts between us. He hooked one of my client chairs over near the desk where he could reach the donuts and sat down. He was wearing a dark blue suede jacket made to look like denim, over a white silk tee-shirt. His jeans were pressed and his black cowboy boots were hand tooled from the skin of some reptile I didn't recognize.
'Just up tempo my natural rhythm,' he said.
'What we going to do about Marty Anaheim?'
'Sort of a problem,' I said.
'I told the slugger I wouldn't spill the beans.'
'That you made him, and he told you who sent him?'
'Yeah.'
Hawk stared at me for a time. Then he shook his head.
'… obedient, cheerful, thrifty,' he muttered, more to himself than to me, 'brave, clean, and reverent.'
'I'm not too obedient,' I said.
'You ain't too fucking reverent either,' Hawk said, 'but you still a goddamned Eagle Scout.'
'I told him I wouldn't,' I said.
