Back Story

20

I sat with Hawk and Vinnie Morris on a bench in Quincy Market, where we could keep track of the young female tourists. We had coffee in big paper cups. Vinnie had a jelly donut. Hawk shook his head slowly.

"Don't know anybody sounds like your man," he said. "Like the diamond earring, though. You sure he's white?"

"Whiter than Christmas," I said. "Vinnie?" Vinnie leaned forward a little so he wouldn't get jelly on his shirt.

"Vinnie," I said, "jelly donuts are the single uncoolest thing a man can eat."

"I like them," Vinnie said.

"Honkie soul food," Hawk said.

"You know anybody sounds like the guy I described?" I said to Vinnie.

"Yeah."

"So why didn't you say so?"

"I'm eating my donut," Vinnie said.

I looked at Hawk. Hawk grinned.

"Vinnie got a lotta focus," Hawk said.

Vinnie finished his donut and drank some coffee. There was no sense of hurry, but all his movements were very quick. And exact. He patted his mouth with a paper napkin.

"Sounds to me like a guy named Harvey," he said.

"First name or last?"

"Don't know. He's from Miami," Vinnie said. "Comes up here sometimes, does gun work for Sonny Karnofsky."

"You know him?"

"I met him."

"How?"

Vinnie looked at me.

"I mean 'how?' in general," I said.

"I'm still with Gino," Vinnie said. "Him and Sonny was doing something. Harvey was walking behind Sonny."

"He any good?" I said.

"Yes."

"Better than you?" Hawk said.

"No," Vinnie said.

"As good as you?" I said.

"No."

Hawk grinned.

"Anybody good as you?" he said.

"Maybe that Mex from L.A."

"Chollo," I said.

"He's pretty good," Vinnie said.

Hawk looked at me. "Sonny took over what Joe Broz left behind," Hawk said.

"Which is pretty much everything," I said.

"Except for Gino," Vinnie said.

"And Tony Marcus," Hawk said.

"Talk to me a little more about Harvey," I said.

Vinnie watched a youngish woman walk by in shorts and a cropped tank top. "Fucking broads got no shame," Vinnie said.

"It's one of the many things I like about them," Hawk said.

"Talk about Harvey," I said.

"He's good, but he's got no soul," Vinnie said. "He'll shoot anything."

"He like it?" I said.

"Yeah."

"Could he be working for anybody else?" I said.

"Up here? No. You work here for Sonny, you don't work for anybody else."

"You ever work for Sonny?" I said to Hawk.

"I don't like him," Hawk said.

"Is that a no?"

"It is."

"So why is Sonny Karnofsky worried about a counterculture murder that went down twenty-eight years ago?" I said.

"We criminals," Hawk said. "We don't know stuff like that."

"I don't either," I said. "I guess I'll have to talk with Sonny."

"That would suggest to him that you ain't leaving the case alone."

"It would," I said.

Hawk nodded. "I'll come along," he said.

"When we going to do it," Vinnie said.

"No reason to wait," I said.