'Collecting data,' Hawk said.
'That's all?'
'Un-huh.'
'What you going to do when you get enough data?' Rimbaud said.
'Depend on what the data tell us,' Hawk said. 'Tha's why we gathers it.'
Rimbaud leaned back in his chair.
'I guess we're after the same thing,' he said. He took a cigar from the leather humidor and began to trim the end with a small penknife.
Expansive.
Hawk nodded.
'Give him a card,' Hawk said to me, 'case he care to call us.'
'Sure,' I said.
I stood, took a card from my card case, and bent over the desk to put it in front of Rimbaud. Rimbaud was too cool to look at it while we were there.
'I have anything,' he said, 'I'll let you know.'
Hawk stood.
'Have a nice day, bro,' Hawk said.
Then we turned and went out the front door.
'Bro?' I said as we walked across the street.
'You heard him,' Hawk said. 'He say he black inside.'
'Rimbaud isn't anything inside,' I said.
Hawk grinned.
'You honkies always badmouth a brother,' he said.
34
SUSAN SAT WITH Hawk and me at the downstairs bar in a restaurant Susan liked, called Upstairs on the Square.
'Do you guys have any plan at all?' she said.
Hawk smiled at her.
'Was thinking of getting drunk,' he said. 'First time since I got shot.'
'I've never seen you drunk,' Susan said. 'Do you get witty and elegant, like my honey does?'
'Never been that drunk,' Hawk said.
In honor of the conversation, I took another swallow of my Blue Label and soda.
'Well,' Susan said, 'before you are, tell me a little more about Marshport.'
Hawk's grin widened.
'You gonna help us?'
Susan had returned to drinking white wine. Her favorite was now Riesling. She drank a very small amount of it. We were at one end of the bar, sitting at the turn, with Susan between us.
'You think you have to be some sort of big ugly thug to think about things like this?' Susan said.
Hawk studied his champagne cocktail for a moment.
'Big handsome thug,' Hawk said, without looking up.
'That's what I meant,' Susan said. 'As far as I can tell, you know what you want to do up there. But have no idea how to do it.'
Hawk looked at me. I shrugged.
'You know how to do it?' I said.
'No,' Hawk said. 'You?'
'No.'
I looked at Susan.
'Step right up, little lady,' I said.
'What if I actually help you?' Susan said.
'Be humiliated,' Hawk said. 'But we work through it.'
'All right,' she said. 'Bear with me, while I review.'
