Hawk sipped his drink. He seemed to be listening to his body as the drink went down.
'Okay?' I said.
Hawk nodded.
'Pretty good,' he said.
Susan took a couple of grapes off the platter and ate them and sipped some vodka. Hawk shuddered.
'You will be all the way back sooner or later,' Susan said.
'I will,' Hawk said.
'And then what?'
Not a lot of people said 'then what?' to Hawk. But Susan was one who could. Hawk looked at the manila envelope I had put aside. He shrugged.
'Business as usual,' he said.
'You're going to find those men,' Susan said.
'Yes.'
'You're going to kill them.'
'Yes.'
'Five people.'
'Four,' Hawk said. 'Old Bohdan will be dead long before we ready.'
Susan nodded toward me.
'You will want him to help you.'
'Up to him,' Hawk said.
'Are you going to help him kill four people?' Susan said to me.
'I'm going to help him find them, and I'm going to help him not get killed. He'll kill who he kills,' I said.
'Isn't that sort of a fine line?' Susan said.
'Very fine,' I said. 'But it's a line.'
Susan nodded.
'That troubling to you?' Hawk said.
'Yes,' she said. 'It is very troubling.'
'He don't have to.'
'Yes,' Susan said. 'He does.'
She looked at Hawk, holding her warm vodka in one hand and a green grape in the other. I knew she had forgotten both.
'He does have to,' she said.
We were quiet. I put my hand on her thigh and patted softly. She never disappointed. She always knew.
'Ain't happening for a while,' Hawk said.
Susan ate her grape and sipped more vodka.
'I know,' she said brightly. 'Want some chicken?'
8
HAWK WASN'T RUNNING yet. But he could walk a ways. So, in the week before Thanksgiving, we were walking with Pearl along the river in back of where I lived. Actually, Hawk and I were walking. Pearl was tearing around, looking for something to hunt or eat or sniff or bark at.
'Like you,' I said. 'Dark, slick, and full of energy.'
'I still dark and slick,' Hawk said.
It hadn't been cold enough long enough for the river to freeze, and the gray surface was ruffled with small whitecaps.
'Two out of three,' I said.
We weren't passing a lot of people, but Hawk wasn't bent over anymore, and he didn't move anymore like an elderly man with bad feet.
'The blood count is creeping up,' I said.
'Slow bastard,' Hawk said.
Two young women ran by in luminescent tights and wool hats pulled down over their ears. They both glanced at Hawk as they passed.
'That's a good sign,' I said.
