"We gonna make sure that kid get his money," Hawk said every hour or so.
"We'll do that," I said every hour or so. "We just gotta figure out whose money he is going to get."
"We'll figure it out," Hawk said.
"We will," I said.
We both badly wanted a plan. I wanted one even more badly because Susan had suggested it, and I wanted it to work. In the middle of the afternoon on our second day of deliberations, the Gray Man came silently into the office and closed the door carefully behind him.
"I am in," he said, and sat down on the couch.
"In?" I said.
"The Boots Podolak organization," the Gray Man said. "I am now a member, and have already done them a service which ingratiates me."
"You kill somebody for them?" Hawk said.
The Gray Man nodded.
"They like that," Hawk said. "Nothing like scragging somebody, make people trust you."
"I know," the Gray Man said.
For a moment I felt it. A thing the Gray Man shared with Hawk.
"There's a balcony outside the window of Podolak's office in City Hall," the Gray Man said. "Somebody, some street soldier that's skimming, needs to be punished, Podolak goes out on the balcony. Somebody hands him a.22 target pistol. Podolak sticks it in his belt. Down below, they shove the miscreant out of a cellar door, onto the street, and tell him to run for it. Podolak lets him get halfway up the block and draws, and just before he's going to make it to the corner, shoots him dead center between the shoulder blades at a good hundred yards. Miscreant goes down and Podolak shoots him several more times to be sure. He never misses, I'm told."
"He demonstrated this to you?" I said.
"Yes. It's supposed to impress me," the Gray Man said, "and, of course, to frighten me."
Hawk nodded. He had no expression.
"How far up you think you can get."
"Just below the Ukrainians," the Gray Man said.
"What happen if the Ukrainians go away?" Hawk said.
"I'd be just below Podolak."
"And if he went away," Hawk said.
"I believe I could replace him."
Hawk nodded. He walked to my desk and picked up my yellow pad and stared at the names and notes I had written and crossed out. I'm not sure he saw them.
"Boots doesn't suspect you," I said.
"No. Podolak is not a worldly man. I tell him stories of my adventures in countries he has never been to."
"They true?" I said.
The Gray Man smiled.
"Of course," he said. "Podolak has never traveled. He is very impressed."
"Neither worldly nor smart," I said. "Boots is living testimony to what simple meanness can achieve."
Hawk put the yellow pad down and looked out the window.
"And good aim," the Gray Man said. "But he is more than mean."
"More?"
"He enjoys cruelty and the power that comes from being able to inflict it."
"You know him that well already?" I said.
"I have known him most of my life," the Gray Man said.
Hawk turned back from the window.
"Okay," he said, "we in business."
"You have a plan?" I said.
"I do," Hawk said.
42
SUSAN AND PEARL and I were in bed together. I loved Pearl, but my preference had always been a mйnage а deux.
"At least she wasn't in here during," I said to Susan.
"It would not be decorous," Susan said.
"How about postcoital languor with a seventy-five-pound hound on my chest. How decorous is that?"
"We don't wish to exclude her," Susan said.
"We don't?"
"No."
Pearl's head was on my chest, and her nose was perhaps an inch from mine. I gazed into her golden eyes. She gazed back.
"Not a single flicker of intelligence," I said.
"Shhh,"Susan said. "She believes she's smart."
"She's wrong," I said.
"Sometimes illusion is all we have," Susan said.
"Couldn't she settle for being beautiful," I said, "the way I have?"
"Apparently not," Susan said.
We were, all three of us, quiet then. The ceiling in Susan's bedroom was painted green. The walls were burgundy. Her sheets were sort of khaki-colored, and the pillowcases had a small gold trim. I reached around Pearl and held Susan's hand. She turned her head and smiled at me across the dog.
"Shall we have a big Sunday breakfast," she said, "while you tell me what's bothering you?"
"What makes you think something's bothering me?" I said.
Susan tilted her head a little.
She said, "You're dealing with a pro here, pal."
I let go of her hand and patted her belly.
"That's for sure," I said.
"I didn't mean that," Susan said.
I shrugged. Not an easy thing with a dog on your chest.
"What would you like for grub?" I said.
"Could we have apple fritters?"
"If you have the ingredients," I said.
"I have apples."
"Excellent start," I said.
"I don't know what else you need," she said.
"I'll check," I said, and struggled out from under Pearl and on to my feet.
"And put some pants on," Susan said. "I don't want the pity of my neighbors."
"They'd be green with envy," I said.
"Confidence is a good thing," Susan said. "But humor me."
I put on a pair of gym shorts that I kept at Susan's especially for postcoital leisurewear. She had managed to salvage just enough top sheet from Pearl to avoid being nude. I flexed at her.
"Dashing," she said.
I reached over and flipped the sheet off.
"Back at ya," I said.
I think she blushed very slightly, though I'm not sure. I turned and went to the kitchen.
She had apples and bananas and flour, and, amazingly, cornmeal and some oil. I made coffee and started assembling the fritters. I peeled the apples and skinned the bananas and sliced them and tossed each separately in some orange juice to keep them from turning brown. Then I mixed two small bowls of a flour-and-cornmeal batter, put the sliced apples into one and the bananas into the other. If there's plenitude, you may as well exploit it.
Susan came out of the bedroom with some lipgloss on and her hair brushed. She was wearing a short orange silk kimono-looking thing. I was prepared to eat at the counter, or standing up over the stove for that matter, but Susan had other plans. She put a tablecloth on the dining-room table and set it for two, complete with a glass vase of tulips that she brought in from the living room.
"Powdered sugar, honey, or maple syrup?" she said.
"I like syrup," I said.
"I like powdered sugar."
"Put out both," I said.
"God, you're decisive," she said.
I let the oil heat in the pot until it spattered when I sprinkled in water. Then I dropped the fritter batter in carefully, a few at a time, and cooked until I had stockpiled a significant serving of each. Susan drank coffee while I cooked.
When we settled in to eat, Susan said, "So, tell me about it."
"You shrinks are always so cocksure," I said.
"Nice word choice," Susan said. "In the current context."
I shrugged. Susan ate a bite of fritter.
"Wow," she said. "Banana, too?"
"Never a dull moment with Spenser," I said.
"Never," she said.
I had one each fritter with maple syrup and drank some coffee.
"Hawk's got a plan," I said.
Susan nodded and didn't speak.
"It's complicated, and requires people to react as we expect them to, and it will take some doing," I said. "But it's not a bad plan. It might work."
"Can you think of a better plan?" Susan said.
"I can't think of one as good," I said.
"Care to share?" Susan said.
I smiled.
"Sure," I said. "But you have to pay close attention."
"You'll help me with the hard stuff," Susan said.
"Count on me, little lady."
She didn't do anything while I told her but listen. She didn't drink coffee or eat or tap her fingertips together, or frown or smile or move. Susan could listen the ears off a brass monkey. When I got through, she was quiet for a moment.