a straight chair to the left of my desk, turning the chair so that his back was not to Vinnie or Leonard… or the door. The coffee brewed. We all had some. I put the donuts in the middle of my desk, and people helped themselves at will.
'Do you have any scones?' the Gray Man said.
I shook my head. The Gray Man had a moment of disapproval and then had a donut instead.
'So how many buttons we gotta push,' Vinnie said, 'to put these people out of business.'
'Don't know yet,' Hawk said. 'Tony got any thoughts, Leonard?'
'No,' Leonard said pleasantly.
He was wearing a light-blue suit with a lavender shirt and tie. The tie probably cost more than my full attire. His neck was muscular above the Windsor collar.
'Spenser?' Hawk said.
'The town is locked up tight,' I said. 'There's a newspaper, the Marshport Call. Boots owns it. There's a radio station, WMAR, which is owned by a woman named Lucille Davidoff. Lucille is Boots's sister. Boots has run unopposed in the last four mayoral elections. There is no police union, the cops belong to Boots. Everywhere Boots goes, some Marshport cops go with him. The inner circle is Ukrainian, most of them Ukrainian nationals.'
'Which be where Mr. Gray Man be useful,' Hawk said.
The Gray Man looked vaguely self-effacing. It was a little hard to tell what he was thinking without close observation. His expression rarely changed.
'We could pop them one at a time,' Vinnie said.
'We gonna pull the whole thing down,' Hawk said. 'We may pop some and we may pop them all, and we may do it one at a time, and we may do it all at once. But we gonna pull it down and they gonna know it was me that done it and they gonna know why and they gonna leave behind a trust fund for Luther Gillespie's kid.'
'You have a plan?' I said.
'I just gave you the plan.'
'Besides that,' I said.
'No.'
'Swell,' I said. 'How about we spray-paint UKRAINIANS SUCK on prominent buildings?'
'If I may,' the Gray Man said. 'The strategy is sound-take over the city. What we need are'-he glanced at me and smiled faintly-'additional tactics to accomplish the strategy.'
The Gray Man's smile was as substantial as a wisp of fog on a windy night.
'I understand that they are short at least two Ukrainians,' he said.
'They shot one,' Hawk said, 'and I shot one.'
'Perhaps they would welcome a replacement.'
'You?'
'Perhaps I could join them,' the Gray Man said.
'You Ukrainian,' Hawk said.
'I am a citizen of the world,' the Gray Man said. 'I am fluent in Ukrainian.'
'What do we do for a translator?' I said.
'One does not necessarily preclude the other.'
'Why?' I said.
'Why am I willing to help you?'
'Yeah.'
'I tried to kill you and almost succeeded. Maybe it puts me in your debt.'
'You think that's it?' I said.
'Possibly.'
'You are a strange dude.'
Again, the wispy, short-lived smile.
'We are all strange dudes,' he said. 'In what we do, there are no rules. We have to make some up for ourselves.'
'Can you get in there?' Hawk said.
'Yes.'
'Sure?'
'I have lived a various if desperate life,' the Gray Man said. 'I know a lot of people… and a lot of tricks.'
Hawk nodded. The Gray Man looked carefully at Leonard.
'I commend you on your suit,' he said.
