Looking down at the empty pond bed, Tony nodded yes.
"And," Hawk said, "maybe you and Boots can designate who gets the short straw in your neighborhoods."
Tony nodded again.
"And Luther Gillespie gets aced."
Tony nodded again. We were all quiet.
After a time, Hawk said, "Known you a long time, Tony."
"Yeah."
"Don't want to give you more trouble than you got."
Tony nodded.
"But I got to even up for Luther Gillespie and his family, you understand that."
"And I got to look out for my daughter," Tony said.
"I got no interest in hurting her," Hawk said.
"She wants something, I do what I gotta do to get it for her," Tony said. "Right now she wants her husband to be a player in Marshport."
"I can work around you on this," Hawk said, "I will."
"I'll do the same," Tony said.
"If I can't…" Hawk said.
"You can't," Tony said.
"So we know," Hawk said.
"We know," Tony said.
28
HAWK AND I walked in the rain up Boylston Street to my office. I broke out the Irish whisky and poured us two generous shots.
"So how do you want to do this?" I said.
"Gonna go right at the Ukes," Hawk said. "Leave Rimbaud to do whatever he gonna do."
"Ukes probably don't make fine distinctions," I said. "They have trouble on their end, they'll make trouble at Brock's end."
"Which means maybe we have trouble with Tony," Hawk said.
"I don't think Clauswicz was in favor of fighting a two-front war," I said.
"Got no choice," Hawk said.
The whisky was warm and pleasant in my throat. The rain came steady against the office window.
"You think Brock's going to settle for the little piece of Marshport that Boots will give him?"
"Too stupid," Hawk said.
"You bet," I said.
"So he'll keep taking more from Boots," Hawk said. "And Boots be taking more from Tony."
"Which isn't going to work in the long run."
"No."
"So sooner or later there will be a war," I said. "With us or without us."
"Less we take out the Ukes," Hawk said.
"Then the kid gets Marshport," I said.
"Not for long," Hawk said.
"No," I said. "He's too stupid."
"And he don't know it," Hawk said. "And he ain't tough. And he don't know that, either."
"Deadly combination," I said.
"Tony's only hope would be to take it away from him," Hawk said.
"Or hope the daughter gets over him."
"Be easy to do," Hawk said.
"Maybe not for her," I said.
"Gonna have a lot of people mad at us," Hawk said.
"We'll get over it," I said.
"Ain't really your fight," Hawk said.
We each drank another swallow of whisky. The rain came steady on the black window.
"Yeah," I said. "It is."
Hawk was quiet for a time, then he nodded his head slowly.
"Yeah," he said. "It is."
I got up and looked out my window. Berkeley Street was dark and shiny wet and empty. A few cars went by on Boylston Street. And once in a while there was somebody walking, bent forward, hunched against the rain, hands in pockets. Genderless in the dark weather.
"Can't let it go," Hawk said.
"I know."
"Gonna be a bad mess any way it plays," Hawk said.
"Certainly will," I said.
"So, I guess we may as well do what we gonna do and not think too much 'bout what everybody else gonna do," Hawk said.
"Isn't that what we always do?" I said.
"It is," Hawk said.
29
WE TOOK MY car this time, which no one would recognize, and sat in it, up the street from the Ukrainian fortress on Market Street in Marshport. The rain had gone, and the cold that had come in behind it was formidable. My motor was idling and the heater was on high. The outside temperature registered six on my dashboard thermometer.
"Why is it again we live 'round here?" Hawk said.
"We like the seasonal change," I said.
The street was nearly empty. A stumblebum in many layers of cast-off clothing inched his way up Market Street. He stopped to stare down into a trash barrel and then moved on. Several windows in the three-deckers on both sides of the street were boarded over. There were no dogs, no children. Just the solitary bum shuffling numbly along.
"Think it's colder in the poor neighborhoods?" I said.
"Yes," Hawk said.
"Because God favors the rich?"
"Why they rich," Hawk said.
"It is easier," I said, "for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than…"
"Here they come," Hawk said.
Two men wearing overcoats and watch caps came out of the stronghold and got into a Chevrolet Suburban. We saw the plume of exhaust from the tailpipe as the car started up. We all sat for a time while the defroster cleared the windows on the Chevy. Then it rolled forward and went toward Marshport Road. We let them get far ahead and cruised out after them. There were some cars on the road, and when we turned onto Route 1A there were more. On open highway, it's easy to stay with the car you're tailing but harder to avoid being seen. In the city it's easy to stay unseen, but more difficult not to lose the tailee. Fortunately I was nationally ranked in both modes, and when the Ukrainians pulled up in front of a used-furniture store on Blue Hill Ave, they thought they were alone.
The store was in the first floor of a three-story wooden building with peeling gray paint. There was a liquor store on one side, and an appliance repair shop on the other. The store looked as if it had once sold groceries. The big windows in the front were frosted with the cold. A big sign pasted inside the half window of the front door read USED AND NEW FURNITURE: BUY OR RENT. An old maroon Dodge van was parked on the street in front of the store. It had no hubcaps. The Ukes double-parked their Suburban beside it and walked to the store, leaving the motor running. As they walked toward the store, one of the two men absently beeped the remote door lock device on his key chain. The taillights flashed once. The men went into the furniture store.
"We need to be pretty close behind them," Hawk said. "They don't look like they planning to stay long."
Hawk got out of the car. He had his big.44 Mag in his right hand. I got out my.38. There appeared to be only two guys, and I was sentimental about the little revolver. Hawk walked through the front door as if he was walking onto a yacht. The big.44 hung straight down by his right side. I glanced in both directions before I went in after him. Inside, behind the counter, a short, plump black man holding a sawed-off baseball bat was trying to keep his body between his wife and the two big white men. As we came in, one of the white men gestured at the baseball bat and laughed, and patted his leather coat over the belt area. He said something to his partner in a language not my own.
A small bell jingled on the door as it closed behind us, and both white men turned. I moved away from Hawk. Two targets are harder than one. The four of us stood looking at each other.
"S'happenin'?" Hawk said.
No one spoke. Hawk looked at the short black man.
"My name's Hawk," he said. "I'm on your side."
"Man says we sign this store over to him or he gonna kill us both. Her first."
The two white men looked at us with contempt. The one with the leather coat said to us, "Go way," and gestured toward the door. Hawk looked closely at both the big white men.
"Danylko Levkovych?" he said.
The man in the leather coat said, "Ya."
Without a word, Hawk raised the.44 Mag and shot him in the forehead. The man fell backward and lay dead on the floor with his head propped against the dirty green wall of the little store. The only sound was the silent resonance of the recent explosion and the woman, still shielded by her husband, whimpering softly. Hawk had already shifted the gun onto the second white man before the one in leather had hit the floor. The second man stared at Hawk with no expression. Most people are afraid of dying. If this guy was, he gave no sign.