lawyer, I heard. He'd probably know somebody.'
' `Her,' meaning Jeanette Ronan,' I said.
'Sure.'
'Why her rather than, say, Olivia Hanson, or Marcia Albright, or Penny Putnam?'
'By golly, Miss Molly,' Sterling said, 'you are a detective, aren't you?'
I thought about getting up and going home. I could almost see myself standing and walking off down Newbury Street. I knew if I really could have seen myself walking away I would have looked happy. But I wasn't walking away. I was sitting here trying not to inhale the smoke that spiraled my way from his large cigar.
'How come you focused on Jeanette?' I said. 'She's the one with the husband,' Sterling said. 'I mean, the other three are currently single, I believe.'
He had described them originally, I thought, as the wives of rich husbands. I filed that for future consideration.
'These bad buys actually rough you up?' Sterling said.
'No.'
'But they threatened to.'
'Yes.'
'And they didn't say who they were, ah, representing?'
'No.'
'It's got to be Ronan.'
'We'll see,' I said. Sterling glanced over at Hawk across the street.
'Why doesn't he join us?' Sterling said.
'I thought you might be more at ease talking alone.'
'You're a considerate pilgrim, aren't you.'
'Yeah, you want to meet him?'
'Love to.'
I gestured to Hawk to join us, and he walked across the street. Hawk always walked in a straight line from where he was to where he was going, and people always got out of his way. He pulled out a chair from another table, turned it around, and sat. He looked at me and shook his head once. No one was following Sterling. I introduced them.
'Good to see ya,' Sterling said. 'Didn't want you getting lonely over there by yourself.'
Hawk looked at Sterling without expression, then looked at me.
'Lonely,' he said.
'Want a libation?' Sterling said.
'Champagne be nice.'
Sterling gestured at the waiter and ordered. The waiter brought Sterling another Chartreuse, me another beer, and Hawk a bottle of Perrier Jouet in an ice bucket. He poured Hawk a glass and left the bucket handy.
'Seen any bad guys sneaking around Newbury Street?'
I didn't smile, but I wanted to. Hawk was as close to conflicted as he could get. He liked Susan nearly as much as I did, and he knew we were doing this for her and he was determined to be pleasant.
'Just him,' Hawk said, pointing at me with his chin.
'He a bad guy?'
'Depends,' Hawk said, 'if he on your side or not.'
'But he's pretty dangerous?'
Hawk smiled. It was an expression of real pleasure. He did his upper class WASP accent where he sounds a lot like James Mason.
'Brad, my man,' Hawk said, 'you simply have no idea.'
'When I was playing football,' Sterling said, and I watched Hawk's face go blank again as his attention closed down, 'we had some pretty good battles…'
Hawk finished his champagne, pulled the bottle from the ice bucket, poured another glass, and drank most of it in a swallow.
chapter thirteen
HAWK'S CURRENT GIRLFRIEND had a town house in the South End, off Clarendon Street close to the Ballet. Susan and Hawk and I were there with her, and maybe fifty of her closest friends, milling about in too little space. The talk was mostly medical, because Andrea was a cardiologist and most of her friends were doctors.
'It's a natural fit,' I said to Hawk. 'They need patients, you supply them.'
'She love me 'cause ah is sensitive,' Hawk said.
