“Lives on the fourth floor front,” Hawk said.
“Learned anything else about him?” I said.
“Stops by the packie on Boylston, couple times a week, and buys two, three bottles of wine,” Hawk said. “Usually before Willie comes calling.”
“Anybody else come calling?”
“Almost every day,” Hawk said. “Young men. Any race. Look like students. Most of them are one time only.”
“You think he’s tutoring them in the formulaic verse of the North African Berbers?”
“Be my guess,” Hawk said, “that they exchanging BJ’s.”
“Yeah,” I said, “that’s another possibility.”
“He went away last weekend.”
“Where?”
“Took a cab to Logan to one of those private airways service areas, walked out onto the runway, got in a Learjet and…”
Hawk made a zoom-away gesture with his hand.
“Came home Monday morning, went to class.”
“Private jet?”
“Yep.”
“You have any idea where?”
“Nobody I asked knew,” Hawk said. “Plane was a Hawker-Sibley, left at two thirty-five last Friday from in front of the Baxter Airways building. Some numbers printed on the tail.”
Hawk handed me a slip of paper.
“Somebody has to know,” I said. “They have to file a flight plan.”
“You know who to ask?” Hawk said.
“Not right off the top of my head.”
“My problem exactly,” Hawk said. “I bet Amir will know.”
“Of course,” I said. “Let’s ask him.”
“He’s teaching a late seminar,” Hawk said. “Doesn’t get home until about seven.”
“Good,” I said. “Give us time to break into his apartment.”
“You think he might not let us in if we knocked nice and said howdy doo Mr. Abdullah?” Hawk said.
“I hate your Uncle Remus impression,” I said.
“Everybody do,” Hawk said happily.
We left the car in a no parking zone and walked across to the Vendome. Hawk said hello to the good-looking black woman at the security desk and pointed at the elevator. She smiled and nodded us toward it.
“Isn’t she supposed to call ahead and announce us,” I said.
“Un huh,” Hawk said.
“Been busy,” I said.
“Never no strangers,” Hawk said, “only friends you haven’t met.”
“That’s so true,” I said, and pushed the call button for the elevator.
“You know,” Hawk said as we were waiting for the elevator, “I suppose Amir got the right to go off on a weekend without us coming in asking him where and why.”
“Absolutely,” I said.
“But we going to ask him anyway.”
“Absolutely,” I said.
“‘Cause we don’t have anything else to ask,” Hawk said.
“Exactly,” I said and got into the elevator.
Hawk got in with me and pushed the button for the second floor.
“You ever think of getting into a line of work where you knew what you was doing?” Hawk said.
“Why should I be the one,” I said.
“No reason,” Hawk said. “Just a thought.”
The elevator stopped. We got out. Hawk pointed left and we walked down the corridor to the end door. I knocked, just to be sure. No one answered. I bent over to study the lock.
“You want to kick it in?” Hawk said.
