“Bobby in town to see about how we doing with his kid,” Hawk said.
I nodded, thinking about the corn bread.
“And I got some things you don’t know ‘bout yet.”
“Would everybody like me to open the corn bread up while the coffee’s brewing?” I said.
“Sure,” Hawk said. “Okay with you, Bobby?”
‘“Course,” Nevins said.
His voice came from deep in his chest and seemed to resonate in his barrel body before it emerged. I unwrapped the corn bread and set it on the unfolded foil in the middle of my desk. It smelled good. From my desk drawer I got a large switchblade knife, which I had once taken away from an aggressive but clumsy drug dealer, and now used as a letter opener. With it I cut three squares of corn bread. Hawk brought over the coffee. I took some corn bread. And chewed it carefully and swallowed it and drank some coffee.
“My compliments to the chef,” I said.
“Always liked to cook a little,” Nevins said. “Now I gotten older got more time. Hawk says this thing about my boy is turning into a hair ball.”
“Hawk’s right,” I said. “Thing is I still don’t know quite why he was jobbed on the tenure thing. It seems like the only thing I can’t find out. Meanwhile I’ve got a murder and some blackmailing – which, as far as I know, has nothing to do with your kid.”
“Anybody paying you for this?”
“Corn bread will do,” I said.
“Ain’t right, you not getting paid.”
“I owe Hawk a favor.”
Hawk snorted.
“
“A favor or two,” I said.
Nevins nodded. He ate some more corn bread and drank some more coffee. Hawk got up and took Nevins’ cup and refilled it, pouring in a little milk from the mini-refrigerator, stirring in two spoonfuls of sugar. He brought the cup back and set it in front of Nevins on the corner of my desk. Nevins picked it up and took a sip and held the cup.
“Thank you, Hawk,” he said.
Hawk nodded. Nevins looked at me.
“You think Robinson is queer?”
“Don’t know,” I said.
“I don’t either. Hard thing for a boy to tell his father, I imagine.”
I nodded.
“He’s forty years old,” Nevins said, “ain’t never been married.”
“Hawk and I have never been married either,” I said.
“How you know about me?” Hawk said.
“Who would marry you?”
“Okay,” Hawk said. “You got a point.”
Nevins paid no attention.
“Thing is it don’t matter much,” he said. “Still my son.”
“Yes,” I said.
“I was forty-two when he was born,” Nevins said. “Coulda been his grandfather. His mother was only twenty- three, schoolteacher, fresh out of college. I coulda been her daddy.”
Hawk and I were silent, drinking coffee, listening to Nevins. There was no age in Nevins’ voice, no weakness in him.
“She left when she was thirty.”
“Another man?” I said.
“Another one and another one,” Nevins said. “Probably still going on.”
There was no resentment in Nevins’ voice either, nor remorse, nor anger, nor self-pity, only the sound of retrospection.
“Always sent her money for Robinson, and, I say this for her, she never kept me from seeing him on the weekend. But I know she didn’t like boxing, and I pretty sure she didn’t like me, and I don’t believe she kept quiet ‘bout it to Robinson. So be hard for Robinson to feel real close to me. He was a real smart little kid. He loved to read. He was kind of scared of the fighters. I used to take him to the museum and the public library and places, never read much myself, but I knew that was where his life was going to go. Too bad I didn’t know more about things like that. We could never talk much. Spent a lot of money getting him through Harvard College and all those other schools he went to so he could be a professor, and I think he knows that. Probably could tell his mother he was queer, but I don’t think he could tell me.”
“You want us to find that out?” Hawk said.
