"Positively not," Hawk said.
"He wears blue blazers with brass buttons," I said. "And has a nose that's encountered adversity."
"And an eighteen-inch neck?" Susan said.
"That's the guy," I said.
"Yes, it is," Susan said.
"Other woman was Cindy Astor," Hawk said. "Taught at the Kennedy School.Only female full professor they had when I was with her. Specialized in LowCountry politics. Had a law degree, a master's in English, a Ph.D. in Dutch history. Used to work for the StateDepartment, spent some time at the American Embassy in Brussels. Smart."
I worked on the turkey with gravy some more. In a little paper cup next to it was some pink applesauce-maybe.
"Smarter than you?" Susan said.
"No."
"And did you and she dine at The Harvest?"
Hawk shook his head.
"Her place mostly. Sometimes we'd go to the Harvard Faculty Club, get some boiled food."
"Were you impressed with the Harvard Faculty Club?" Susan said.
I knew she knew that Hawk was never impressed with anything, and I knew how much she was enjoying the image of Hawk eating haddock and boiled potatoes among the icons of Harvard intellection.
"Man asked me once what I did for a living," Hawk said. His voice sank into a perfect mimic of the upper-class Yankee honk.
" `What exactly is it you do, sir?' man say to me. I say, `I'm in security and enforcement, my good man.' And the man say to me `How fascinating.' And
I say, `More fascinating if you the enforcer than if you the enforcee.' And he look at me sort of strange and say, `Yes, yes, certainly,' and he hustle off to the bar, order a double Manhattan. Two cherries.
I ate the dessert. It might have been vanilla pudding.
"But you weren't in love with these women?"
"No."
"Think you'll ever fall in love?"
"Probably not," Hawk said.
"You might," Susan said.
"Maybe I can't," Hawk said.
My eyes were heavy and I leaned back against the pillow. I heard Susan say, "I hadn't thought of that." And then I was asleep.
CHAPTER 31
PEARL was hurrying around my apartment, sniffing everything, including RichBeaumont and Patty Giacomin, which neither of them liked much.
"Can you get Pearl to settle down?" Paul said.
"I could speak to her, but she'd continue to do what she wants, and I'd look ineffectual. My approach is to endorse everything she does."
Susan said, "Come here, Pearl." And Pearl went over to her, and Susan gave her a kiss on the mouth, and Pearl wagged her tail, and lapped Susan's face, and turned and went back and sniffed at Patty.
"Isn't that cute," I said.
"Never mind about the damn dog," Beaumont said. "We got a problem here and we need to solve it.
He had helped himself to one of my shirts, which was too big for him, and he hadn't shaved. He looked a little seedier than he had in Stockbridge. He glanced once, uneasily, toward Hawk, leaning on the wall near the front hall entry. Hawk smiled at him cheerily.
"I mean, we can't stay here forever," Beaumont said.
"I thought of that too," I said. "What's your plan?"
"I don't know," Beaumont said. "Can you help us out?"
"He already did that," Paul said.
"Yeah," Beaumont said. "Yeah, sure. I know. I mean, shit, you got yourself shot helping us out. It's not like I don't know that and appreciate it."
"We both do," Patty said. She was sitting beside Beaumont on the couch, holding his hand. "We both appreciate it so much."
"I was you I'd go to the cops," I said.
"Cops?"
"Yeah. You must have enough to trade them for protection."
"Christ-the stuff I got is on the cops. Who we paid, when, how much. I wouldn't last a day."
"I'll put you in touch with cops you can trust," I said.
"And they'll have me guarded by cops they can trust, and so on. Sure. But what if they're wrong, or what if you're wrong?"
"I'm not wrong."
"It's a big world," Beaumont said. "We got money to go anywhere in it. All you got to do is get us out of this city." "How about you, Mom?" Paul said.
Patty shook her head and clutched onto Beaumont's hand.
"You want to go anywhere in the world with him?"
Patty glanced around the room; nobody said anything. She pressed her face against Beaumont's shoulder.
"Sure she does," Beaumont said. "She loves me."
"A crook, Mom? A guy that carries a gun and steals money and is a fugitive from the damned mob?"
Patty sat up straight and rested her clenched fists on her thighs. "It's not so easy for a girl to be alone, Paulie."
Paul said, "You don't go off with a goddamned gangster because it's hard to be alone. If you can't be alone, you can't be anybody. Haven't you ever found that out? To be with somebody first you got to be with you."
"Oh, Paulie, all that psychobabble. I never thought you should have gone to that shrink in the first place."
"And where do you get off calling me a gangster, kid?" Beaumont asked.
"You don't like `gangster'? How about `thief'? That better?"
"I don't have to take that shit," Beaumont said.
"Please," Patty said. "Please. Paulie, I can't make it alone. When your father left me I thought I'd die. I have to be with somebody. Rich loves me. There's nothing wrong with being loved. Rich would stand on his head for me."
"Jesus Christ, Ma," Paul said. "My father leaving you was the best chance you had. You didn't love him. He was a creep. You had a chance and instead you went to another creep, and then another. Get away from this guy, be alone for a while. I'll help you. Find out who you are. You could have a decent guy someday if you got your goddamned head together."
"Who you calling a creep?" Beaumont said. He leaned forward as if he were going to stand. Leaning on the wall, Hawk cleared his throat. Beaumont looked at him and froze, then sank back on the couch.
Patty pounded both fists on her thighs. "Goddamn you! I found a man who loves me. I won't let him go. Not for you and all your highfaluting shrink ideas. You don't know what it's like to be abandoned."
Paul was silent for a moment. No one else spoke. Pearl got up from where she had been sitting near Susan and walked over to sniff at Hawk's pants leg.
"Well, not like I mean," Patty said. "I mean, sure, you had a tough time when you were a kid maybe, but we took care of you. You went to good schools. Now, you turned out fine, see that. How bad a mother could I be?
Look at you. Got a career, got a girlfriend. I must have done something right."
Pearl seemed to have, found out whatever she wanted to find out by sniffing
Hawk's pants leg. She turned and came back across the room and sat down next to me and leaned against my leg. Unerringly she leaned against the bad one. I flinched a little and shifted.
"What I got, Ma," Paul said, "is me. And I didn't get that from you. I got that from him." He nodded toward me.
"Oh, God, it makes me tired to listen to you. It's all words. I don't know what they all mean. I know that Rich loves me. If he goes, I'm going with him. You don't know, none of you do, what it's like being a woman."
"Some of us do," Susan said.
"Yes-and you've got a man," Patty said.
"We have each other," Susan said.
"Well, I've got Rich."
"Happy as a fish with a new bicycle," I said softly.
Paul was silent. He stared at his mother; nobody said anything. Beaumont stirred a little on the couch.
"It's kind of no-class, kid," he said, "to wash the family linen in front of strangers like this, you know?"
Paul paid no attention to him. He was still looking at his mother. She had linked her arm through Beaumont's and was pressing her cheek, defiantly, this time, against his shoulder. She looked back at him unflinchingly. They held the stare, and as they held it Paul began to nod slowly.
"Okay," he said. "That was my last shot. I've been talking to you for two days. You do what you need to do. You are my mother, and I love you. If you need something from me, you know where I am."