decrepit. Simply low-end urban housing that looked like any of the other neighborhoods in the city, except everyone was black. Except me.
'No,' Hawk said. 'She lives with her sisters.'
'She work?' I said.
'Yes.'
'Sisters take care of the kid?'
'Yes. Kid's great-aunts. One of them is twenty-nine.'
'The aunts okay?' I said.
'Think so,' Hawk said. 'They ain't, I'll see about it.'
I nodded.
'They'll be okay. What was all the conversation about?'
'I telling her how much she get and when it would come and who to call if it don't.'
'You,' I said.
'Un-huh,' Hawk said. 'Or you.'
'Me,' I said. 'Anything I should know?'
'Kid's name is Richard Luther Gillespie,' Hawk said. 'I tole him, tole his grandmother really, that he ain't got a father and he ain't got a grandfather. But he got me.'
'Jesus,' I said.
'I know. Little surprised myself. And I say to them, if something happen to me, he got you.'
'He ain't heavy…' I said.
'Yeah, yeah,' Hawk said.
He handed me a small index card.
'Grandmother's name is Melinda Rose,' he said. 'It's all on there. Address. Phone number. She got yours.'
I nodded.
'I don't want him calling me Grampy,' I said.
'Probably won't,' Hawk said.
57
IT WAS7: 30 on a chilly overcast Tuesday. We were at a table at Excelsior, with windows on two sides. We had a table in the back, away from everybody else. Cecile in the middle, Susan on one side, me on the other. Hawk across from Cecile.
'This is my way of a good-bye, I guess,' Cecile said.
Hawk was watching the bubbles drift up in his champagne glass.
'I've taken a job at the Cleveland Clinic,' Cecile said.
The menu had a gentleman's steak and a lady's steak listed. The lady's steak sounded better to me.
'An offer you couldn't refuse?' Susan said.
'Sort of,' Cecile said.
She glanced at Hawk.
'And I… needed a change of scenery, I guess,' Cecile said.
I knew Susan was fighting it, and I knew she was going to lose. She couldn't help herself. She had to try to help.
'Hawk?' Susan said.
'Yes?' Hawk said.
'I assume you are not moving to Cleveland,' Susan said.
There was a glitter of self-mockery in Hawk's look.
He said, 'My work be here, Susan.'
Cecile was studying the menu. I wondered what she thought about the gentleman's and lady's steaks.
'So many to kill,' Cecile said softly without looking up. 'So little time.'
Hawk looked at me.
'What that line about honor?' Hawk said. 'From a poem?'
'Richard Lovelace?' I said. ' 'I could not love thee half as much, loved I not honor more?' '
Hawk nodded.
