'Guess the deal with Tony is void,' I said.
'Hear anything from the Gray Man?' Leonard said.
Hawk shook his head.
'So what are we gonna do?' Leonard said.
Hawk chewed some pepperoni pizza, which seemed like such a good idea that I took another slice. Hawk looked sort of thoughtfully at Leonard while he chewed. Then he swallowed and drank some iced tea, and patted his mouth carefully with a paper napkin.
'Leonard,' he said. 'You got to decide something.'
Leonard waited.
'You either with us or with Tony.'
'I'm with Tony,' Leonard said.
'We probably with Tony, too,' Hawk said. 'But if it worked out that we wasn't, I'd need to know where you stood.'
'Be sort of depending,' Leonard said.
'Yeah,' Hawk said, 'it would. I ain't got no problem with Tony. I don't want to kill him or hurt his business.'
Leonard was quiet, watching Hawk.
'I am going to put this town out of business and kill Boots and the two Ukrainians.'
'What you going to do about Tony's son-in-law?' Leonard said.
'Nothing,' Hawk said.
'I ain't afraid of you, Hawk,' Leonard said.
'You should be,' Hawk said. 'You should be afraid of me and you should be afraid of this slick-talking haddock with me.'
'Aw, hell,' I said.
Vinnie seemed totally immersed in the coffee experience. I wasn't sure Vinnie paid attention to anything he wasn't paid to pay attention to.
Leonard shook his head.
'Tony told me to stay with you,' he said, 'and help out any way you needed, and let him know what was going on.'
'And if we got something going on we don't want him to hear about?'
'Be depending again,' Leonard said.
'Sometimes not letting him know might in the long run be helping out the best way you could.'
'That what it might be depending on,' Leonard said.
Hawk looked at me. I looked back. He shrugged. I nodded.
'Well, we deal with it when it comes up,' Hawk said.
Leonard was a hard case.
'If you can,' he said.
'Oh, hell, Leonard,' Hawk said. ' 'Course we can.'
47
'IT'S GOING TO go down today,' Leonard told us in the parking lot of a donut shop on Route 1A. 'Tony say he like you in it, but if that don't work for you, stay the fuck out the way.'
'It work for us,' Hawk said.
'Gray Man working in City Hall?' Leonard said.
'Yes.'
'Might tell him not to,' Leonard said.
'When does it start?' I said.
'You'll know,' Leonard said and got out of Hawk's car and walked to his own. Vinnie sat in the backseat, listening to his iPod. There was no way to tell if he'd even known Leonard was there.
'Tony going right for it,' Hawk said.
'Seems so,' I said.
'Going right after Boots,' Hawk said.
'We want that?' I said.
Hawk shook his head.
