'Mourn for an appropriate time…' I said.
'And buy another brown German shorthair,' Susan said, 'and name her Pearl.'
'Reincarnation,' I said.
'Maybe I'm not just thinking about Pearl,' Susan said.
'Is it Margaret that you mourn for?' I said.
'No,' Susan said.
'Does it have anything to do with me leaving for Potshot tomorrow?'
'Yes.'
'Would drinking and eating and making love ease your concerns?' I said.
Susan smiled at me.
'Oddly enough,' she said, 'it would.'
It made me feel pretty good, too.
Chapter 35
HAWK HAD ACQUIRED a black Ford Explorer, properly registered with a new inspection sticker. I didn't ask him about it. He and I and Vinnie, with gear, were on the road the next day by 8:00 in the morning. Hawk was driving. Vinnie was in the back seat. The sun was shining directly into our faces. I was drinking coffee and eating two donuts. Donuts make excellent travel food.
'We coulda flown,' Vinnie said. 'Take us four or five hours.'
'With a bunch of infernal devices?' Hawk said.
'You mean guns?' Vinnie said.
'Sho 'nuff,' Hawk said.
'Hell,' Vinnie said. 'You coulda driven the guns out, and I coulda flown out next week, first class, and met you there.'
'We may all wish you did,' I said. 'An hour out of Boston and you're already bitching.'
V'mnie almost smiled.
'We there yet?' he said.
I had a CD in the player. Carol Sloane and Clark Terry.
'She can sing for a white broad,' Hawk said.
'The best,' I said.
'Keeps right up with the black guy,' Hawk said.
'Astonishing isn't it?' I said.
We turned off the Mass Pike at Sturbridge and went west on Route 84. We weren't in a hurry. We drove through Connecticut, which was low and green and suburban. We went across New York state and crossed the Hudson River near Fishkill. We crossed the Delaware near Port Jervis and after awhile picked up Route 81 at Scranton. The country had grown hillier. We played CDs: Carol Sloane, and Sarah, and Bob Stewart, and Sinatra, Mel Torme, and Ella, and some Clifford Brown. Hawk insisted on a couple of Afro-Cuban CDs that gave me a stomachache, but I tried to stay open-minded. We talked about sex and baseball, and food and drink, and the days when Hawk and I were fighters. When we exhausted that topic we talked about sex, and basketball, and the days when we were soldiers. We stopped along the way for more coffee, and more donuts, and peanut butter Nabs, and prewrapped ham sandwiches, and pre-condimented cheeseburgers, and chicken deepfried in cholesterol.
'We got to find better chop,' Hawk said. 'We keep eating this crap we'll be dead before we get there.'
'Maybe the next place will have a salad bar,' I said.
'With some of that orange French dressing,' Hawk said.
'Which is also excellent for slicking your hair back.'
'My hair?' Hawk said.
'If you had some.'
'Used to have an Afro,' Hawk said.
'I remember,' I said. 'You looked like a short Artis Gilmore.'
'Handsome,' Hawk said, 'and distinguished, but too easy to get hold of in a scuffle. My present do is more practical.'
In the back Vinnie looked out the window and said very little. Vinnie wasn't much for small talk.
We stopped the first night at Hagerstown, Maryland, near the Antietam battlefield, and slept in a Holiday Inn. We drove south. We listened to Tony Bennett and Carmen McRea, Anita O'Day, Stan Kenton, Bobby Hackett and Johnny Hartrnan.
Going through West Virginia, near Martinsburg, Vinnie said, 'You guys ever listen to anything recorded this century?'
Hawk said, 'No.'
