27
SUSAN AND I MET for supper at Scampo, which was located in the recently rehabbed building that had once been the Charles Street Jail.
'You must feel at home here,' Susan said, looking around.
'Anywhere you are is home,' I said.
'You silver-tongued devil,' Susan said.
She ordered a martini. I asked for scotch and soda. The waitress went eagerly off to get it. While she was gone, I brought Susan up-to-date on the Jumbo Nelson affair.
'You think the threat is real?' Susan said.
'Probably,' I said.
'And Z's going to--how do they say it on TV?--watch your back?'
'That's 'bout the size of it, little lady,' I said.
'The Indian,' Susan said.
'Yes,' I said.
'Whom you are attempting to rescue?'
'Exactly,' I said.
The waitress returned with our drinks, and told us about the specials and left us to decide. We touched glasses. I took a swallow. Susan took a sip.
'Well,' she said. 'He's not Hawk.'
'No,' I said.
'On the other hand, Hawk has had his whole life to perfect being Hawk,' Susan said.
'True.'
'Z's only had a little while.'
'He may never be Hawk; no one else is, either. But he'll get to a place where he'll do.'
'Unless the booze gets him,' Susan said.
'Unless that,' I said.
'How is his drinking?'
'Seems to have cut back,' I said.
'You don't talk about it?'
'Not much.'
Susan looked at me thoughtfully for a time. My drink was gone. Our waitress spotted that and came and asked if I would like another. I tried not to tear up.
'I would,' I said.
'You still okay, ma'am?' the waitress said to Susan.
Susan said she was okay. Her glass was down a sixteenth of an inch, but it could have been evaporation.
'You're not trying to resolve his drinking, are you?' Susan said.
'No.'
'You are trying to turn him into a man who can resolve it himself,' she said.
'That's not quite the way I thought about it,' I said. 'But yeah. That's about it.'
'And you think he's up to it?'
'In the long run,' I said.
'But he's supposed to be watching your back in the short run,' Susan said. 'Can he?'
'We'll find that out,' I said.
'It's not like you don't have people,' Susan said. 'Vinnie would walk around behind you as long as was needed.'
'True,' I said.
'And Tedy Sapp would come up from wherever he lives in Georgia.'
I nodded.
'And Chollo, or Bobby Horse.'
'I guess.'
'Quirk, Belson, Lee Farrell?'
