"He said they expected to be acquitted. He said we should do what Boots said for us to do."
"That's all."
"That's all, I swear on my mother, I don't know anything else. I promise."
"Where's Duda," Hawk said.
"He's in Miami. Took a week off. He'll be back next week."
"When he get back," Hawk said, "I want to see him. Have him call my faithful ofay."
I took a business card out and put it on Husak's desk.
"He call me and we all have a civilized discussion. He don't call me, you go out the window, and so does he."
"Yeah. He'll call. Honest to God he'll call, I know he will."
Hawk went around the desk and closed the window. Husak's face pinched and unpinched.
"Don't tell anyone it was me that talked," Husak said.
Hawk nodded as though his mind was elsewhere.
"You have no idea what these people are like. They aren't like other people. They find out I talked to you, they'll chop me up into pieces."
"Who'll do the chopping," Hawk said.
"Some Ukrainian," Husak said. "They're like from the fucking Stone Age, you know? I wish I never seen any of them."
"I find out you're lying to me," Hawk said, "I'll make sure they know you was talking."
"Everything I told you is the truth, so help me God."
"The whole truth?" Hawk said.
"So help me God," Husak said.
Hawk looked at me.
"Got a nice legal sound, don't it," Hawk said.
15
WE WALKED ALONG Boylston Street toward the new parking garage in Millennium Place. Traffic had become so desperate in Boston during the Big Dig that even the good hydrants were taken.
"Would you have dropped him?" I said.
"Don't have to decide now," Hawk said. "Who's Boots Podolak?"
"The mayor of Marshport," I said.
"Didn't know they had a mayor," Hawk said.
"City of eighty thousand," I said.
"Knew it was big enough," Hawk said. "Didn't know it was civilized."
"Boots isn't much of a civilizing influence," I said. "Mayor is just the official title. Actually, he's the owner."
"Eighty thousand," Hawk said.
"Yep."
"How many white?"
"Boots and his management team," I said. "And a small immigrant Ukrainian population."
"Rest of the plantation?"
"African and Hispanic," I said.
"How Boots pull that off?" Hawk said.
"Marshport used to be mostly middle European. Boots is a holdover."
"What kind of name is that?" Hawk said. "Marshport?"
He flattened the a and dropped the r 's in parody of the local accent.
I said, "Named after some prominent family, I think."
"Why you suppose Boots hiring lawyers for Ukrainians?" Hawk said.
"Podolak might be Ukrainian," I said.
"Or Polish," Hawk said.
"Didn't parts of Ukraine used to be Polish?" I said. "Or vice versa?"
"You asking me?" Hawk said. "You the one sleeping with a Harvard grad."
"And Cecile?" I said.
"The med school," Hawk said. "They just know 'bout corpuscles and shit. Susan got a damn Ph.D."
"You seen Cecile lately?" I said.
"Yes," Hawk said.
We were waiting now for the elevator down to our parking level. There were things you pressed Hawk on, and things you didn't. They didn't belong to categories. One had to sense subtleties of tone and posture to know which was which. Cecile was a no press.
"Maybe Boots is in on it with the Ukrainians," I said. "Moving in on Tony."
"Expand the plantation?" Hawk said.
I shrugged.
"Think it be more like the other way around, wouldn't you," Hawk said.
"Tony moving in on a black city?"
"Un-huh."
"You would think that," I said.
" 'Cept far as we can tell it ain't so."
"Far as we can tell," I said.
"You know Boots?" Hawk said when we were in his car.
"Yes."
"He remember you?"
"He would," I said.
"Fondly?" Hawk said.
"No," I said.
"You know where we can find him?" Hawk said.
"Yep."
"Then let's go see him."
"Okay," I said.
Hawk pulled onto the last block of Boylston Street.
"Think we can get there from here?"
"Just barely," I said.
16
MARSHPORT CITY HALLwas one of those handsome, ornate civic buildings that people built in the nineteenth century out of brownstone and brick. It had the affluent, satisfied look of the upper middle class it was built for and was probably the best-looking thing in the city… except for me and Hawk, and we were only temporary. Inside was a lot of curving staircase, and dark wood, and heavy oil paintings of the city's ancestry, who for all I knew could have been the entire Marsh dynasty. The mayor's office was on the second floor, facing the big stairwell. We went in and announced to the several blue-haired staff ladies that we wanted to see the mayor. I gave my name. Hawk smiled warmly, which seemed to fluster the closest staff member a little.
She got up and went into the mayor's office and came out shortly with Boots Podolak behind her.
"Spenser," he said loudly, "you son of a bitch."
"Nice to be remembered, Boots."
"You still on the cops?"
"Nope. Private now."
"Then get the fuck out of my building," Podolak said.
He looked at Hawk.
"And take Sambo the fuck with you."
"Sambo," Hawk said to me.
The blue-haired staff pretended he hadn't said that. All of them appeared to have typing to do.
"We've come to discuss Duda and Husak," I said. "Esquire."
"I think they both Esquire," Hawk said.
"You think I should have said Esquires?"
"I dunno," Hawk said.
He looked at Podolak.
"You think, does one Esquire cover both lawyers?" Hawk said to Podolak.
"What the fuck are you talking about."
"Your attorneys," I said. "Duda and Husak."
Podolak was a tall, bony man with a sparse gray crew cut, and a thin gray 1930s movie villain moustache. He wore rimless glasses, and his arms were long. He was narrow and hard-looking. He wore no coat, and under his tan cardigan sweater an incongruous potbelly pressed out, as if he was hiding a soccer ball.
"In the office," he said, and stepped aside so Hawk and I could walk through the door. Podolak shut the door behind us and walked the length of the vast office and sat behind a vast desk. There were four other men sitting around at the near end of the office. Podolak didn't say anything to them, nor did he introduce anyone. He took a long, thin cigar from a leather humidor and got it lit, turning it slowly in the flame of a pigskin-covered desk lighter. Hawk and I sat in a couple of chairs near his desk and watched the operation. When he was happy with the way it was burning, Boots looked at us through the cigar smoke.
"So what's this shit about Duda-dooda?" he said.
"You hired him and Husak to represent some Ukrainians with names I can't pronounce," Hawk said. "If I could remember them. And you tell them, make sure nobody rolls on nobody."
"You think so, huh."
"We do," Hawk said. "And we want to know why."
Boots puffed his cigar for a moment, looking at Hawk, then at me.
"Where'd you get him?" Boots said to me.
"Bought him from a guy in Louisiana," I said. "Then came emancipation and I'm stuck with him."
If Boots thought I was funny, he didn't show it. Which happens to me a lot.
"So who told you I hired Duda and whatsis?" Boots said.
The four men in the far corner of the room had stood up and were watching us.
"Whatsis," Hawk said.
"Well, he's full of shit, whoever he is. I need a lawyer, I don't need to go into Boston."
"Why you think they from Boston?" Hawk said.
Boots pulled on his cigar for a moment. Then he took it out and admired it. Then he looked straight at Hawk.
"What I don't need," he said, "is some smart-ass fucking nigger coming in here and talking to me like he's white."
Hawk smiled at him warmly.
"Ah know," he said. "Ah know… and yet, here ah is. You got something going with Tony Marcus?"