Margie looked at Quirk. Quirk nodded.
'Be my guess,' Quirk said.
Margie looked at me.
'And what is your role in all of this?' she said.
'Comic relief.'
'Besides that.'
'My friend dodders,' I said. 'I have to hold his arm.'
'Don't I know you from someplace?' Margie said.
'I swept you off your feet about fifteen years ago, insurance fraud case, with a shooting?'
'Ah,' Margie said. 'That's when. You remember that as sweeping me off my feet?'
'I like to be positive,' I said.
Margie nodded slowly. Then she looked at Hawk.
'I've heard about you,' she said. 'You may want to deal with this problem on your own.'
Hawk smiled.
'And I can't say that I'd blame you,' she said. 'But if you do, and we catch you, I will be sympathetic, and I will do everything I can to put you away.'
'Everybody do,' Hawk said.
'Meanwhile, we'll stay on this thing,' Margie said. 'It's a horrific crime. But honestly, I'm not optimistic. What we had was the witness.'
'And now you don't,' Hawk said.
'And now we don't,' Margie said.
'And they been acquitted.'
'Yes.'
'And double jeopardy apply.'
'Yes.'
Hawk stood slowly. I stood with him.
'When they kill him,' Hawk said. 'Maybe you can get them for that.'
'We'll try to prevent that,' Margie said.
'No chance,' Hawk said.
He turned slowly toward the door, one hand holding the back of his chair.
'We'll catch them sooner or later for something,' Margie said. 'These are habitual criminals. They aren't likely to change.'
'Thanks for your time,' Hawk said.
'I'll have coffee with you,' Quirk said. 'Margie, we'll talk.'
She nodded, and the three of us went out. Slowly.
6
WE WALKED SLOWLY to a coffee shop on Cambridge Street. If Quirk noticed that Hawk was shuffling more than he was walking, he didn't comment.
All he said was, 'You back in the gym yet?'
'Nope,' Hawk said. 'But Ah has started to brush my own teeth.'
'Step at a time,' Quirk said.
We got coffee. Quirk took a thick manila envelope out of his briefcase and put it on the table.
'If I go before you do and forget this, and leave it lying here on the table, I want you to return it to me immediately. I only got two other copies. And under no circumstances do I want you to open the envelope and read its contents.'
'Where my man, Bohdan?' Hawk said.
'In jail awaiting trial,' Quirk said.
'Suffolk County?' Hawk said.
'Yep.'
'Think he'll last till his trial?' Hawk said.
'He thinks so,' Quirk said. 'He thinks everything's hunky-dory with the other Ukrainians.'
