Everyone was quiet.
Then Boo said, “Mr. Jackson, you want me to take one of these clowns apart, you just say so.”
Tony turned and looked at him with mild amusement. Zel shook his head sadly and stepped away from Boo, his gaze fixed on Ty-Bop, who was still nodding to whatever music he was hearing in the spheres, but he was as focused on Zel, and Zel was on him.
“Boo took too many to the head,” Zel said, “when he was fighting.”
“Screw you, Zel,” Boo said. “We ain’t hired to let people push our boss around.”
Beth’s eyes seemed even brighter, and I noticed her tongue moving along her lower lip again. Tony was incredulous.
“You think you gonna take Junior apart?” Tony said, tilting his head in Junior’s direction. It was an easy tilt, because Junior occupied most of the room.
“Anybody in the room,” Boo said.
His eyes still steady on Ty-Bop, Zel shook his head sadly.
“Boo,” he said softly.
“You heard me,” Boo said.
Behind his desk, Chet looked blankly at the scene. He very likely had no idea what he was supposed to do.
Boo was staring at Junior.
“How ’bout you, boy? You want to try me?”
Junior looked at Tony. Tony nodded. Junior smiled.
I said, “How ’bout me, Boo?”
And he turned toward me.
“You, wiseass?” he said. “Be a pleasure.”
I slipped out of my jacket. Boo came at me in his fighter’s stance. He threw a left hook to start, and I saw right away why his face was so marked up. He dropped his hands when he punched. I blocked his hook with my right and put a hard jab onto his nose. It didn’t faze him. He kept coming. He faked a left and tried an overhand right. I took it on my forearm and nailed him with a right cross, and he went down. He got right back up, but his eyes were a little unfocused, and his hands were at his waist. I hit him with my right forearm and then torqued back and hit him with the side of my right fist. He went down again. He tried to get up and made it to his knees, and wobbled there on all fours. Zel squatted beside him.
“Nine, ten, and out,” he said to Boo. “Fight’s over.”
Boo stayed where he was, his head hanging. Some stubborn vestige of pride that he wouldn’t let go and be flat on the floor. Zel stayed with him.
“Come on, big guy,” Zel said. “Let’s get out of here.”
Boo made a faint gesture with his head that was probably an affirmative, and Zel got an arm around him and helped him up. Boo was more out than in, but his feet moved.
As they passed, Zel said to me, “Thanks.”
I nodded.
And they went out.
“So much for your muscle,” Tony said.
Chet nodded.
“I thought he was tougher than that,” Chet said.
“He was,” I said.
“Probably been beating up loan-shark deadbeats too much,” Gary said, and grinned. “Or guys like me.”
Beth was staring at me silently. Her face was a little flushed. Her tongue was still on her lower lip, but it wasn’t moving.
“What about it, Chet?” Tony said.
Chet looked at me and back at Tony. Then he looked at Beth.
“Okay,” he said. “I lay off Gary Boy.”
“Right choice,” Tony said.
“But”-Chet turned to Beth-“it stops here. I am not going to be your patsy.”
“Meaning?” Beth said.
“You drop Gary Boy here, or I’ll throw you out without a dime.”
“You’d divorce me?”
“I would.”
She looked at Gary.
“You got no case,” Gary said. “He wouldn’t have to give you anything.”
“And if I give him up?” she said to Chet.
“And keep your knees together,” Chet said. “We walk into the sunset together.”
“That’s my choice?”
Chet looked at her as if they were alone in the room.
“I love you,” Chet said. “But I can’t be out of business. If I was, you’d leave me anyway, soon as the money ran out.”
“You think that of me?” Beth said.
“I know it of you,” Chet said. “But it’s okay. I knew it when I married you. I made the deal. I’ll live with it. But I’m not giving up both you and the money.”
Beth looked at Tony Marcus.
“This man can actually put you out of business?” she said.
“Yes,” he said. “He can.”
Beth looked at Gary.
“What should I do?”
“I was you,” Gary said, “I’d dump me and go for the dough.”
Beth nodded.
“Okay,” she said.
Tony grinned and stood up.
“Our work here is done,” he said.
Chapter 37
NOW THAT HE didn’t have to babysit Gary Eisenhower anymore, Hawk was at leisure, so he rode up to Wickton College with me.
“So how come you didn’t let Boo have a go at Junior?” he said.
“Junior would have killed him,” I said.
“So?”
“No need for it,” I said.
Hawk shrugged.
“And how come we going up to talk to these people ’bout Gary Eisenhower? Ain’t that all wrapped up?”
“Told her I would,” I said.
“Who?”
“Director of counseling at the college,” I said.
We were on Route 2, west of Fitchburg. Mostly bare winter trees to look at.
“You a bear for cleaning up loose ends,” Hawk said.
“I’m a curious guy,” I said.
“You sho’ nuff are,” Hawk said.
We turned off Route 2 and headed north on 202 toward Winchendon. We stopped for coffee, and in another half-hour we were at Wickton College.
“Don’t see a lot of African-Americans ’round here,” Hawk said.
“You may be the first,” I said.
“At least I the perfect specimen.”
“You want to come in with me, Specimen?” I said.
“Naw,” Hawk said. “I think I sit here and see if I attract the attention of some college girls.”
“I don’t want to discourage you,” I said. “But no one paid any attention to me when I was here last time.”
Hawk looked at me silently for a while.
Then he said, “What that got to do with me?”
I left him and went in to see Mary Brown.
“Your recommendations support you,” she said when I was seated. “Particularly your honey bun.”
“Good to know,” I said.
“I obviously cannot break confidence with Mr. Pappas,” she said. “But I can tell you things that are on the public record.”
I waited.
“Our campus security officers do not have full police powers, so if there’s an incident we ask the local police to step in,” she said.
I waited some more.
“Mr. Pappas had a penchant for women who were with other men,” she said. “This precipitated several fights. Often with alcohol involved. On one occasion our security officers had to call local authorities to stabilize the situation.”
“And Mr. Pappas got busted?” I said.
“Yes.”
“And booked?” I said.
“Yes.”
“So if I were to speak to the local cops, I might learn something.”
“Yes.”
“Do you know what I might learn?” I said.
“I believe so,” she said.
“I don’t wish to compromise your ethics,” I said. “But if I’m going to know it anyway, why not save me a trip to the fuzz.”
She thought about that for a time.
“He was released without penalty under the condition that he seek counseling from a psychotherapist.”
“There’s one around here?”
“One,” she said. “He has offices in the medical center.”
“Name?” I said.
She hesitated.
“His name is Paul Doucette,” she said. “I’ve alerted him that you might visit.”
“Hot damn,” I said. “So you were going to tell me this before I even arrived.”
“I thought I might,” she said.
“So it wasn’t my clever questioning,” I said.
“No.”
“How about charm,” I said.
“Well,” she said, and smiled. “That was certainly part of it.”