Cold Service

34

SUSAN SAT WITH Hawk and me at the downstairs bar in a restaurant Susan liked, called Upstairs on the Square.

"Do you guys have any plan at all?" she said.

Hawk smiled at her.

"Was thinking of getting drunk," he said. "First time since I got shot."

"I've never seen you drunk," Susan said. "Do you get witty and elegant, like my honey does?"

"Never been that drunk," Hawk said.

In honor of the conversation, I took another swallow of my Blue Label and soda.

"Well," Susan said, "before you are, tell me a little more about Marshport."

Hawk's grin widened.

"You gonna help us?"

Susan had returned to drinking white wine. Her favorite was now Riesling. She drank a very small amount of it. We were at one end of the bar, sitting at the turn, with Susan between us.

"You think you have to be some sort of big ugly thug to think about things like this?" Susan said.

Hawk studied his champagne cocktail for a moment.

"Big handsome thug," Hawk said, without looking up.

"That's what I meant," Susan said. "As far as I can tell, you know what you want to do up there. But have no idea how to do it."

Hawk looked at me. I shrugged.

"You know how to do it?" I said.

"No," Hawk said. "You?"

"No."

I looked at Susan.

"Step right up, little lady," I said.

"What if I actually help you?" Susan said.

"Be humiliated," Hawk said. "But we work through it."

"All right," she said. "Bear with me, while I review."

The bar was crowded. There was a small space next to Hawk, but no one crowded into it. An attractive woman stopped to speak to Susan. Susan introduced us. The woman's name was Chris Lannum.

"We do Pilates together," Susan said.

"The rest of us just struggle to keep up with Susan," Chris said.

She smiled and moved on toward her table. As she went she gave Hawk a fast appraisal. On the Cambridge bar scene, Hawk is somewhat atypical.

"You want to kill the Ukrainian men who shot Luther and his family."

"And me," Hawk said.

"And you wish to destroy the entire Ukrainian mob structure in Marshport. Root and branch, so to speak."

"So to speak," Hawk said.

"In addition," Susan said, "you wish to provide a lifetime of financial security for Luther's surviving child."

"Yes."

"Currently," Susan said, "you are in an uneasy alliance with Tony Marcus, who, on behalf of his daughter and son-in-law, is in an uneasy alliance with… what's that man's name?"

"Boots," I said. "Boots Podolak."

She nodded.

"Do you wish to kill Boots?" she said to Hawk.

"Yes."

"If you kill Boots, would you eliminate one candidate to fund the Gillespie boy's trust fund?"

"Yes," Hawk said.

"Is there any other source?" Susan said.

"Tony got jing," Hawk said.

"Would he or Podolak voluntarily invest it in the child?"

"No."

"You'll have to force it."

"Yes."

Susan paused to drink some wine. At her table across the room, Chris Lannum threw her head back and laughed at something. The room was quite amazing, with a vast, high ceiling, a fireplace, and elegantly over-the-top dйcor. Good place to drink. On the other hand, there were few bad places to drink.

"Some of what you want you can accomplish with relative ease, of course. We all know you can kill the Ukrainians and Podolak."

"Anybody can kill anybody," Hawk said.

"But that wouldn't eliminate the Marshport mob, and it wouldn't do anything for the Gillespie child."

"Name's Richard," Hawk said.

"Richard," Susan said.

She looked at me.

"The Gray Man is involved," she said.

I nodded.

"Do you trust him?"

"No."

"Do you think he's up to something?"

"I have no idea," I said. "It would just be foolish to trust him."

"And you have established contact," Susan said, "with the man married to Tony's daughter."

"Brock Rimbaud," I said. "Daughter's name is Jolene."

"Brock Rimbaud is his real name?"

"Don't know," I said. "My guess would be he invented it. He's that kind of guy."

"And how can he help you?" Susan said.

"Don't know," Hawk said. "Just keep poking around, see if something flies out."

"And the police are no use to you," Susan said.

"No," Hawk said.

"This has to be you," Susan said.

"Maybe a few friends," Hawk said.

Susan nodded. She drank more Riesling.

"Of course you know I hate this whole enterprise," she said.

Hawk and I both nodded.

"But you'll do what you're going to do," she said, "so I might as well help as best I can." She paused. "I know far too much about shrinkage and life to try psychotherapy at the bar, drinking white wine."

"Oh, good," Hawk said.

Susan smiled.

"But you need to understand that you are in unfamiliar territory here. You have always in the past known what to do. It may have been a hard, dangerous thing. But you're good at that, and you alone had to accept the consequences of doing it or not doing it."

Hawk nodded at me.

"Ain't so different than him," he said.

"There are similarities," Susan said. "But here you have Cecile to think about, and Richard Gillespie, and Tony Marcus and his daughter are in here somewhere, and one thing you want to do contradicts another thing."

"I hate when it do that," Hawk said.

"And no one," Susan said. "Not even you, can go through being shot and nearly dying and spending days in the ICU and weeks in the hospital without being affected. You're smart enough to know that."

Hawk and I looked at each other. It had happened to both of us and we both knew she was right… about both of us.

"So, how that affect my plans?" Hawk said.

"More than anything, it makes it harder for you to have one. For maybe the first time in your, ah, professional life, you are being pushed by emotion."

"Spenser ain't got no plan, either," Hawk said. "He ain't being pushed by emotion."

"But he won't impose. You know him nearly as well as I do. He will stay with you, let you run it, go where you want to go."

Hawk nodded.

"He do that," Hawk said.

"He do that with me, too," Susan said. "It drives me fucking crazy."

"Gee," I said, "I was liking it better when we were talking about Hawk's problems."

Susan smiled.

"Of course," she said. "And it's very decent to be that way, but sometimes it's not useful. You need to know what you know, what you don't know, and what you have to know. And you need to have it in mind. You need to know what part of what you want to do can be done now, and what needs to wait, and what it needs to wait for. Is there anything you don't understand in this situation? Anything missing?"

I drank some scotch. Susan looked at me. Hawk looked at me. The bartender looked at me. I gestured for another round. No one said anything. I looked at Chris Lannum over at her table, having a nice time. The bartender came with the fresh drinks. I finished my first scotch just in time.

"Okay," I said. "Thing's been bothering me from the moment his name popped up. Boots Podolak. He's nasty. But he's got no stature. And he's dumber than a candlepin."

"You wonder why he's the big boss in Marshport," Susan said.

"Yeah. Boss Tweed he ain't."

"You think maybe somebody proppin' him up?" Hawk said.

"Be something to find out," I said.

"I been so busy thinking 'bout killing him…"

"Be a place to start," I said.

"Would," Hawk said. "Might be nice to find out for sure what happened to that lawyer, Duda, that went to Miami."

"Would," I said. "Might be wise to talk with Rita Fiore, know what arrangement we could actually make for Luther's kid."

Hawk nodded and grinned at Susan.

"See, tole you we could help you," he said, "we put our mind to it."

Susan smiled back at him and put her hand on top of his.

"I'm very grateful," she said.