'Hawk's black. He's been outnumbered all his life. I don't know, and probably can't know, quite what that's like.'
'Or what it took for him to become Hawk,' Susan said.
'And to keep being Hawk,' I said. 'He didn't choose a Hawk that's easy to maintain.'
'But if he doesn't maintain,' Susan said, 'he'll disappear.'
'He'd laugh at you for saying that.'
'Yes,' Susan said. 'But it doesn't mean it's not true.'
'Besides,' I said. 'You have a doctorate from Harvard and you live in Cambridge.'
'So I'm used to being laughed at,' Susan said.
10
THE WEEK AFTER Christmas, Hawk and I were at the Harbor Health Club. Hawk had been doing twenty-pound curls and hundred-pound bench presses. And resting a lot between sets. Now he was on the bicycle, with the resistance set low and the sweat running down his face.
'After the Gray Man shot you,' Hawk said, 'how long before you was a hundred percent?'
'A year,' I said.
Hawk nodded. Henry Cimoli came over with a bottle of water and gave it to him.
'Thin and flabby at the same time,' Henry said. 'Reminds me of my first wife.'
Henry walked over to me. His small body bulged out of his white T-shirt.
'I could probably kick his ass now,' Henry said. 'Be my chance.'
I nodded.
'Be wise to kill him if you do,' I said.
'I know,' Henry said. 'Eventually he'll get better.'
Hawk kept pedaling.
'You so little,' Hawk said, 'you be punching me in the knee.'
'You're so scrawny,' Henry said, 'that would probably drop you.'
Hawk was struggling to keep his breathing normal.
'You… ever knock… anybody down… when you… fighting?' Hawk said.
'I knocked Willie Pep down once,' Henry said.
'He stay down?' Hawk said.
'Not for long,' Henry said. 'It was the last punch I landed.'
Hawk got off the bike and sat on a bench, taking in air.
'Doctor say you okay to work out?' Henry said.
Hawk nodded.
'He say do anything I can.'
'Which ain't much,' Henry said.
'Yet,' Hawk said.
Henry nodded.
'Yet,' he said.
Henry went away. I finished my set and sat down beside Hawk.
'I have been collecting data,' I said.
Hawk wiped his face with a hand towel and nodded.
'I have addresses for our four Ukrainians and for the two lawyers we know about.'
'Talk to any of them?'
'No.'
'Good,' Hawk said.
'We could, though, if you want to,' I said.
'Ain't ready yet,' Hawk said.
'I could sort of protect you,' I said. 'Unless you annoyed me.'
Hawk shook his head.
'Got to wait,' Hawk said.
