CHAPTER 35
“Isn’t that fascinating,” Susan said. “They wouldn’t budge.”
We were sitting at the counter in the kitchen. I was drinking some Catamount beer, and Susan, to be sociable, was occasionally wetting her bottom lip in a glass of Cabernet Blanc. Pearl sprawled on the floor, her four feet out straight, her eyes nearly closed, occasionally glancing over to make sure no food had made a surreptitious appearance.
“They were scared,” I said. “Hawk could scare Mount Rushmore. But they wouldn’t give in.”
“It’s interesting, isn’t it. These kids have many of the same virtues and vices that other kids have, misapplied.”
“They’re applied to what’s there,” I said.
Susan nodded. “And the consequences may be fatal,” she said.
Across the counter, in the small kitchen, there was evidence that Susan had prepared a meal… or that the kitchen had been ransacked. Since there was a pot of something simmering on the stove, I assumed the former.
“The thing is,” I said, “we all knew Major did the killing. They knew it; we knew it; they knew we knew it; we knew they knew-”
“You admire their loyalty,” Susan said.
She was wearing black spandex tights and a leotard top. The outfit revealed nearly everything about her body. I looked at her eyes, and, felt as I always did, that I could breathe more deeply when I looked at her, that the air was oxygen rich, and that we would live forever.
“Windows of the soul,” I said. She grinned at me.
“Augmented with just a touch of eye liner,” she said.
“What’s in the pot?” I said. She glanced back at the stove.
“Jesus,” she said and jumped up and dashed around the counter. She picked up a big spoon and jostled the pot lid off with it. She looked in and smiled.
“It’s okay,” she said.
“Maybe Christmas,” I said, “I’ll buy you a potholder.”
“I’ve got some, but I couldn’t find it right away and I was afraid it would burn.”
She was trying to balance the pot lid on her big spoon and put it back on the pot. It teetered, she touched it with her left hand to balance it, and burned her hand, and flinched and the lid fell to the floor.
“Fuck,” she said.
Pearl had leapt to attention when the lid hit the floor and now was sitting behind the legs of my stool and looking out at Susan with something that might have been disapproval. Susan saw her.
“Everyone’s a goddamned critic,” she said.
“What is it?” I said neutrally.
“Brunswick stew,” Susan said. “There was a recipe in the paper.”
She found one potholder under an overturned colander and used it to pick up the pot lid and put it back on the pot.
“One of my favorites,” I said.
“I know,” Susan said. “It’s why I made it.”
“I’ll like it,” I said.
“And if you don’t,” she said, “lie.”
“It is my every intention,” I said. She set the counter in front of us, got me another beer, and ladled two servings of Brunswick stew into our plates. I took a bite. It was pretty good. I had some more.
“Do I detect a dumpling in here?” I said.
“No,” Susan said. “I tried to thicken the gravy. What you detect is some flour in a congealed glump.”
“What you do,” I said, “is mix the flour in a little cold water first, then when the slurry is smooth you stir it into the stew.”
“Gee, isn’t that smart,” Susan said.
I knew she didn’t mean it. I decided not to make other helpful suggestions. We ate quietly for a while. The congealed flour lumps had tasted better when I thought they were dumplings. When I finished I got up and walked around Pearl to the stove and got a second helping.
“Oh, for Christ sake don’t patronize me,” Susan said.
“I’m hungry,” I said. “The stew’s good. Are we saving it for breakfast?”
“The stew’s not good. You’re just eating it to make me feel good.”
“Not true, but if it were, why would that be so bad?”
“Oh, shit,” Susan said, and her eyes began to fill.
I said, “Suze, you never cry.”
“It’s not working,” she said. Her voice was very tight and very shaky. She got up and left the kitchen and went in the bedroom and closed the door.
I stood for a while holding the stew and looking after her. Then I looked at Pearl. She was focused on the plate of stew.
“The thing is,” I said to Pearl, “she’s right.” And I put the plate down for Pearl to finish.
CHAPTER 36
Tony Marcus agreed to meet us at a muffin shop on the arcade in South Station.
“Tony like muffins?” I said.
“Tony likes open public places,” Hawk said.
“Makes sense,” I said. “Get trapped in a place like Locke-Ober, you could get umbrella’d to death.”
South Station was new, almost. They’d jacked up the old favade and slid a new station in behind it. Where once pigeons had flown about in the semidarkness, and winos had slept fragrantly on the benches, there were now muffin shops and lots of light and a model train set. What had once been the dank remnant of the old railroad days was now as slick and cheery as the food circus in a shopping mall.
The muffin shop was there, to the right, past the frozen lo-fat yogurt stand. Tony Marcus was there at a cute little iron filigree table, alone. At the next table was his bodyguard, a stolid black man about the size of Nairobi. The bodyguard’s name was Billy. Tony was a middle-sized black guy, a little soft, with a careful moustache. I always thought he looked like Billy Eckstine, but Hawk never saw it. We stopped at the counter. I bought two coffees, gave one to Hawk, and went to Tony’s table.
Tony nodded very slightly when we arrived. Billy looked at us as if we were dust motes. Billy’s eyes were very small. He looked like a Cape buffalo. I shot at him with a forefinger and thumb.
“Hey, Billy,” I said. “Every time I see you you get more winsome.”
Billy gazed at me without expression. Tony said, “You want a muffin?” Hawk and I both shook our heads. “Good muffins,” Tony said. “Praline chocolate chip are excellent.”
Hawk said, “Jesus Christ.”
Tony had two on a paper plate in front of him. He picked one up and took a bite out of it, the way you’d eat an apple.
“So what you need?” he said around the mouthful of muffin.
“Gang of kids running drugs out of a housing project at Twenty-two Hobart Street,” I said. Tony nodded and chewed on his muffin. “Couple people been killed,” I said.
Tony shook his head. “Fucking younger generation,” he said.
“Going to hell in a handbasket.” I said. “Tenants at Double Deuce hired Hawk and me to bring order out of chaos there…”
Marcus looked at his bodyguard. “You hear how he talks, Billy? `Order out of chaos.‘ Ain’t that something?”
“And the most successful local television show in the country is doing a five-part investigative series on the whole deal.”
It got Tony’s attention. “What television show?”
“Marge Eagen, Live,” I said.
“The blonde broad with the big tits?”
I smiled. Hawk smiled.
“What do you mean, an investigation?” Tony said.
“What’s wrong in the ghetto,” Hawk said. “Who’s selling drugs, how to save kids from the gangs, how to make black folks just like white folks.”
Marcus was silent for the time it took him to eat the rest of his second muffin.
When he finished he said, “You in on that?”
“Sorta parallel,” I said.
Tony pursed his lips slightly and nodded, and kept nodding, as if he’d forgotten he was doing it. He picked up his coffee cup and discovered it was empty. Billy got him another one. Tony stirred three spoonfuls of sugar carefully into the coffee and laid his spoon down and took a sip. Then he looked at me.