'Hawk hasn't said.'
'And you have no theory?'
'Well, maybe a small one,' I said.
I put the scrapple slices on a platter with the fried eggs and poured the coffee and sat down.
'My guess is that Hawk intends to get the whole Ukrainian thing out of the black community.'
'Does he care that much about the community?'
'No. Hawk has no community. I think his pride has taken a huge hit, and he has to do that to rectify his pride.'
'Defeat them totally,' Susan said.
I nodded.
'So the four men are not enough,' she said.
'No.'
She nodded to herself quietly.
'So he has to be sure who actually did what,' she said. 'And he has to know everything and everyone in the- what shall we call it-Ukrainian conspiracy?'
'Yes.'
'And you are to help him.'
'I will help him.'
Susan concentrated on stirring Equal into her coffee.
'The two of you are going to root out a whole ethnic criminal enterprise,' she said.
'I think that's the plan,' I said.
She stirred some more.
'That sounds daunting.'
'It certainly does,' I said.
Susan was looking at the small, circular movement she had stirred up in her coffee cup. Then she looked up at me with the full force of herself. The force was almost physical.
'On the other hand,' she said, 'if the Ukrainians knew the both of you as I do, they might find it a little daunting themselves.'
'I hope so,' I said.
14
THE LAW FIRM of Duda and Husak was on the tenth floor of an office building on Boylston Street near Tremont. We parked in the garage at the Millennium Center and walked back. The lobby of the old building was narrow and trimmed with tarnished gilt. The gray marble floor was cracked and faded. The elevator was a mesh cage. It rose as though it had lost all interest years ago. It eased to a clumsy stop on the tenth floor. We walked down another narrow corridor with a worn marble floor. The marble was cracked and faded, and the once even marble threshold to Duda and Husak dipped in the center, rounded with use.
A nasty-looking gray-haired woman with a hint of facial hair sat in an armless swivel chair behind an old conference table, reading the Boston Herald. The table held a phone and a computer and not much else. She looked at us with contempt. Probably most of the clients that sought the services of Duda and Husak were contemptible. Not us.
'Can I help you?' she said.
'We here to see either Duda or Husak,' Hawk said. 'Don't matter which.'
'Mr. Duda is not in,' she said.
There were two doors on the other side of the secretary. One of the doors was open, and we could see a man at the desk with his coat off, talking on the phone. The other door was closed.
'Then we'll see Mr. Husak,' Hawk said.
We walked toward the open door.
'Hey,' she said.
We ignored her and went on into the office. She followed us in, saying, 'Hey, hey, hey.'
Husak said 'Hold on' into the phone and looked at us.
'What's going on?' he said.
'We come to talk Ukrainians,' Hawk said.
Husak said, 'Then maybe you should have made an appointment.'
Hawk sat in one of the client chairs. The office was small and no better looking than the rest of the building. It smelled of desperation accumulated over years. Behind Husak's desk was a dirty window that overlooked an air shaft.
