Bernard J. Fortunato wasn't as badly hurt. The bullet had gone through his thigh without breaking any bone. It had destroyed some of the tissue around the entry hole, and it would take awhile to heal. Bernard had Percocet too, and its effect was to make him more talkative. Between him and Bobby Horse, they averaged out about normal.
'So what I wanna know,' Bernard said, sitting sideways at the table with his injured leg sticking out toward the stove, 'didn't we ambush those Dell guys and shoot them up pretty good?'
'We did,' I said.
I put an omelet on a plate with some biscuits. Chollo took it to Bobby Horse.
'You need me to feed you?' Cholio said.
Bobby Horse shook his head.
'So if we was going to ambush the fuckers anyway,' Bernard said, 'how come we didn't do it first, climb up there and shoot them down right in the canyon?'
'They hadn't come for us then,' I said.
'That's why I got fucking shot,' Bernard said.
I nodded. I was at the stove again, making another omelet. You have to make omelets in small batches or they don't work. And the pan needs to be cured, and the heat needs to be right. You don't just break a bunch of eggs.
'I don't get it,' Bernard said.
'You get used to it,' Vinnie said.
'But we did the same fucking thing,' Bernard said. 'And I got fucking shot doing it, and so did Bobby Horse.'
The current omelet had firmed up just enough. I folded it over, shook it around in the pan a minute, and slid it onto a plate. I gave it to Bernard.
'Are you going to explain it?' Bernard said to me.
'Just eggs and some pan-fried onions,' I said.
'I'm not talking about the fucking omelet, for crissake,' Bernard said. 'Vinnie, you know what I'm talking about.'
Vinnie shrugged.
'You get it?' Bernard said to Vinnie.
'Yeah.'
'And?'
'You get used to it,' Vinnie said.
'Well it's fucking crazy,' Bernard said.
Hawk put his coffee cup down and rested his forearms on the table.
'No,' he said. 'It's not crazy.'
Bernard looked a little scared. Most people were afraid of Hawk, but there was heat in Hawk's voice that Bernard had never heard before. A lot of people hadn't.
'It's what makes him different than you,' Hawk said, 'or me or Vinnie, or Chollo or Bobby Horse.'
'What about Tedy?' Bernard said.
Bernard had the attention span of a hummingbird.
'Don't know about Tedy,' Hawk said. 'Might be more like Spenser.'
'Except for the queer part,' Sapp said.
''Cept that,' Hawk said. 'The rest of us, we see something that needs to be done, we do it. We don't much care how we do it. Spenser thinks that how you do it is as important as what you do.'
I realized what had startled Bernard. There was no mockery in Hawk's voice. None of his usual up-alley, self- amused, ghetto bebop. Bernard stared at him. They all did, except me. I was working on a new omelet.
'Why?' Bernard said.
Hawk grinned suddenly.
'So he be different than us.'
I don't think Bernard got it. But everyone else seemed to, and Bernard, Percocet-addled though he was, sensed it and shut up. The rest of breakfast conversation was devoted to women we had known.
After breakfast I sat on the front porch with Hawk and drank more coffee.
'I don't need to sleep at night, anyway,' I said.
Chollo came out helping Bobby Horse. He got him arranged in the back seat of the car, with one leg out straight, and came back up the steps.
'You got everything?' I said.
'Guns are in the trunk, jefe.'
