Now and Then

She walked back to her table and sat down. I walked on to the bar.

“Fella wanted your seat,” Hawk said. “I told him it was taken.”

“He give you a hard time?” I said.

Hawk smiled. I nodded.

“Probably thought he was brave to ask,” I said.

“Was,” Hawk said.

We sat looking at the handsome room, full of handsome people, most of whom were handsomely dressed. No one appeared dangerous, which didn’t mean that nobody was. Especially us.

“Susan mentioned that Perry Alderson seemed to have some experience with psychotherapy,” I said.

“She did,” Hawk said.

“Red told me that he met Perry when he was down and out in Cleveland and Perry did some street counseling,” I said.

“He say who Perry worked for?” Hawk said.

“No.”

“FBI got any info on him in Cleveland?” Hawk said.

“No. “

“Don’t mean there is no info,” Hawk said.

“It don’t,” I said.

“Do mean somebody got to go get it,” Hawk said.

“It do,” I said.

We both watched Susan in animated conversation with three other women. They were all attractive women, but they all seemed pallid in Susan’s penumbra.

“Here’s how I fi gure,” Hawk said.

“Uh-huh?”

“You a detective and I’m not. I don’t detect as well as you. Could be a detective, a course, if I wanted. But I don’t. On the other hand I can bust somebody’s ass, ’bout as well as you, maybe better.”

“So I should go to Cleveland,” I said.

“Yes.”

“I’m not buying the equality-of-ass-busting argument,” I said. “But you are certainly in the top two.”

“We know that one of us be the best,” Hawk said. “Just don’t agree on who.”

“You have to be with her every day, all day, every night, all night. You can never be any further away from her than you areright now. Vinnie and Chollo do wonderful work. But they are backup. You’re the one.”

“I know,” Hawk said.

We both looked at her. She finished a story with her arms out and raised toward the ceiling. The table burst into laughter. Hawk smiled.

“I’ll stay as close as you do,” he said.

“Almost as close,” I said.

“Almost make all the difference,” Hawk said. “Don’t it?”

“It does,” I said. “But I suppose if I were truly enlightened I’d say that would all be pretty much up to her.”

“But you not that enlightened,” Hawk said.

“No,” I said.

“Me either,” Hawk said.

We were quiet again, watching the table of women. Women seemed so much more at ease in social groups than men did. Men were okay in project groups, where they had a common goal and vocabulary. Sports teams. Combat units. Construction crews. Guarding Susan. But six guys all dressed up having dinner together was usually a sorrowful sight.

“I know we talked ’bout it before,” Hawk said. “And I know you not going to go for it. But . . . any one of us, Vinnie, Chollo, me, be happy to clip Alderson for you. Chollo could do it and be back in Bel Air for cocktails before the cops found the body.”

“I gotta do it,” I said.

“Clip him?”

“No, I gotta even this up.”

“Nothing says even like two in the head,” Hawk said.

“Not my style.”

“’Less you has to,” Hawk said.