"And you authentic Africans don't welcome converts."
Leonard was looking at me silently.
"What the fuck he talking about?" Leonard said to Hawk.
"I never do know," Hawk said.
"Just hoping to bridge the racial divide," I said.
"Oh, that's what you doing," Hawk said.
"Rimbaud got any following at all?" I asked Vinnie.
"He's got a straggle-ass Puerto Rican street gang. Thinks he's gonna take over the city."
"How many."
"Varies, mostly kids, not reliable. People he can count on? Maybe eight."
"So Boots could swat him like a fly," I said.
"Sure," Vinnie said. "He don't have the deal with Tony."
"And maybe he ain't got that no more," Leonard said.
"Storefront where he was doing business burned yesterday," Vinnie said. "Somebody torched it."
"Whole building?" I said.
"Yep."
"Tenants?"
"Couple Marshport cops came through; herded them all out before the fire started."
"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.
"Gotta get the trust-fund money first," Hawk said. "And Boots be all we got for that."
I drank some coffee.
" 'Less we can find somebody else to endow the kid's future," I said.
"Vinnie?" Hawk said.
I looked at Vinnie, leaning his head against the leather upholstery in the backseat of Hawk's Jaguar. His eyes were closed as he listened to the music.
"I see your point," I said. "So, we gotta rescue him."
"Is that a bitch?" Hawk said.
"It is," I said.
Hawk smiled and did a flawless Stan Laurel.
"A fine mess I've got us into this time, Ollie."
"Well," I said, "unless Leonard had a hidden agenda when he warned us about getting the Gray Man out of harm's way, we can assume it'll start at City Hall."
"Agreed," Hawk said.
"So there should be a lot of diversionary activity."
"Should," Hawk said.
"Which might work for us," I said.
"Always see the glass half full, don't you," Hawk said.
"A cockeyed optimist," I said.
"We engineered this sucker," Hawk said. "We can't just warn Boots ahead of time. We blow the whole deal."
"Hoist on our own petard," I said.
From the backseat, holding his earphones away from his ears, Vinnie said, "You know a petard is a land mine?"
Hawk and I looked at each other.
"I did know that," I said.
Vinnie shrugged slightly and put the earphones back in his ears.
"Hard to plan anything," Hawk said, "till we know what Tony going to do."
"We know he's starting at City Hall," I said. "Let's call the Gray Man."
"Okay," Hawk said. "You in, Vinnie?"
Vinnie opened his eyes for a moment.
"Sure," he said and closed his eyes.
48
THE GRAY MAN met us in the parking lot of a bait-and-tackle shop near the marina on Ocean Way, a few blocks east of City Hall. He got into the backseat of Hawk's car with Vinnie. Neither one paid any attention to the other.
"Tony Marcus gonna try for Boots," Hawk said.
"Where?" the Gray Man said.
"Probably City Hall."
"When?"
"Don't know," Hawk said. "Soon."
"Are you participating?" the Gray Man said.
"We gonna get Boots out," Hawk said.
"Out?"
" 'Fore he dies," Hawk said, "Boots gonna give me money for Luther Gillespie's kid."
"Ah," the Gray Man said. "Yes. You want it all."
"Un-huh."
"Do you need me to shoot, or can I help you better by remaining covert."
"Need you to get us in to Boots, or Boots out to us," Hawk said.
The Gray Man nodded.
"Without revealing myself," the Gray Man said.
"Exactly," Hawk said.
The Gray Man looked past Hawk at the boats in the marina slip. It wasn't much of a marina, and the few boats seemed to be mostly perches for herring gulls.
"Do we know the timing," the Gray Man said.
"No," Hawk said. "Boots got a private exit?"
The Gray Man nodded. He continued to look out past the shabby marina at the dirty harbor. From here you couldn't see the open ocean. You would have thought Vinnie was asleep in the backseat beside the Gray Man, except that his head bobbed very gently in time to the music only he could hear. Probably emblematic of us all, bopping to the tunes only we could listen to. I smiled to myself. Crime buster/ philosopher.
"When the shooting starts, you think he'll use it?" I said.
"Boots don't scare easy," Hawk said.
"He doesn't," I said. "But he's not stupid."
"We need not decide," the Gray Man said. "I'll show you the route. You wait outside. When the shooting starts, I'll urge him. If he comes out, you take him. If he doesn't come out, you come in."
"You staying?" I said.
"Yes."
"You're more useful to us alive."
"I have been alive a long time," the Gray Man said. "And I have heard bullets fly quite often."
"Okay," Hawk said. "Tell us about the entrance."
"Have you writing materials?"
Hawk nodded. He took a pad and a ballpoint pen from the glove compartment and handed them back to the Gray Man, who drew silently for a few moments.
"This is the main entrance," he said.