Cold Service

38

WHEN HAWK AND I came down the long escalator from the second level, Ives was sitting on a circular bench near Bloomingdale's, on the first floor of the Chestnut Hill Mall, eating roasted cashews from a small bag.

"Ah," he said when we reached him, "the Nubian warrior."

"My people from Natal," Hawk said. "Ah is of Zulu extraction."

Ives smiled vaguely.

"Cashew?" he said.

I took a couple; they were still warm. Hawk shook his head.

"Spenser say you might be more interested in Boots Podolak than you letting on," Hawk said.

"Oh?"

"Say maybe you not as helpful as you seem," Hawk said. "Giving us the Gray Man."

"I didn't actually give him to you," Ives said.

His eyes were following a young woman in high heels and a short skirt who was heading down the mall toward Filene's.

"Lochinvar came to me, you'll recall, looking for a translator. The Gray Man seemed suitable."

"He work for you?" Hawk said.

Ives was wearing a tan summer suit with a blue oxford shirt and a green-and-blue striped tie. A snap-brimmed straw hat tilted forward over his narrow forehead. The wide hatband matched his tie. He studied the young woman for a moment as she receded down the mall. He ate a couple more cashews and offered me some. I shook my head.

"Currently?" Ives said. "He does."

"So what's he doing for us?" Hawk said.

"I assume he's helping you translate."

"And what's he doing for you?"

The young woman went into Filene's. Ives shook his head slightly in sorrow.

"Oh, my," Ives said. "Tight young ass."

Hawk didn't say anything.

"All ass is good," Ives said. "But these young housewives with their personal trainers… visions of sugarplums."

I said, "We're after the same thing, Ives."

"Tight young ass?"

"Besides that," I said. "You want something from Boots Podolak, and since officially you are supposed to work on foreign stuff only, you want something that has to do with the Afghan connection."

"Afghan connection?"

"You know he's got an Afghan connection, and I know you know it, and now you know I know it."

"I've always admired your ability, Lochinvar, to construct and speak complicated sentences without confusion."

"Yeah, it's special, isn't it?" I said.

"You know we after Boots," Hawk said.

Ives nodded.

"And you put the Gray Man in with us to see what we up to," Hawk said. "You didn't plan it that way maybe, but when Spenser come to you for translator help, there it was."

"Sometimes you have to let the game come to you," Ives said.

"Whassup," Hawk said. "With the game?"

"You show me yours," Ives said, "I'll show you mine."

Hawk looked at me.

"How much you tell him?"

"Just that I needed a tough guy who could speak Ukrainian. He knows it's about you getting shot."

"Or something," Hawk said.

I nodded.

"We trust him?" Hawk said.

"No," I said.

Ives smiled in self-deprecation and ate the last of his cashews.

"But I think you can tell him about this. He doesn't care who killed who?"

"Whom?" Ives said.

"Okay," Hawk said. "Got hired to protect a bookie named Luther Gillespie…" He told it all, without emotion, without slant, as if he were giving somebody directions to Anaheim. Ives listened without any expression. As he listened, he got a meerschaum pipe out of his coat pocket and filled it from an old-fashioned oilskin fold-over tobacco pouch, and lit it with a Zippo. The pipe tobacco smelled sweet.

When Hawk finished, Ives contemplated his pipe smoke for a time and then said, "So you are going to destroy his entire enterprise to get even."

"Ah'm going to destroy his entire enterprise," Hawk said.

"And Lochinvar?"

"What are friends for," I said.

Ives nodded. He glanced aimlessly around the mall. There were enough shoppers so that it was not discouraging. But it was an upscale mall, and it was rarely jammed on a weekday morning.

"Do you know what the Gray Man is currently calling himself?" Ives said. "Kodi McKean."

"C-O-D-Y?" I said.

Ives shook his head and spelled it.

"His cover name, when he needs to reach me, is the Kodiak Kid."

"The Kodiak Kid," I said.

"He finds it amusing," Ives said.

Ives blew a smoke ring. I waited. Hawk had enough dealings with Ives to know that waiting was part of the dance. He waited, too.

"As you clearly know, Mr. Podolak is the farthest eastern outpost of a criminal enterprise with its roots in Afghanistan, under the entrepreneurial direction of an Afghani named Haji Haroon. Mr. Haroon is what the press would describe as a warlord. I find the phrase a little too Kiplingesque."

"What would be your phrase?" I said.

"Haji Haroon is an independent ruler of a collection of his own tribesmen in Afghanistan," Ives said. "He has no allegiance beyond that. If asked his nationality, he would specify the tribe."

"Which is?"

"Alaza."

"Big tribe?" Hawk said.

"No, but cohesive and very vigorous on its own behalf. The Russians were terrified of them."

"So why do you care?" Hawk said.

"Well, of course, our government is opposed to heroin."

"Good to take a position," Hawk said.

"Yes," Ives said, watching the smoke drift up from his pipe in a small spiral. "We're clear on that. And, further, we believe that some of the profits from the heroin trade are used in support of terrorism."

"By Mr. Haroon."

"We believe so," Ives said.

"Be good to know who the supervisor is," Hawk said.

"He is the key figure. We surmise, though we as yet don't know, that the skag goes to Podolak through him, and the money goes back to Haroon through him. He's the valve, so to speak, in the pipe. It would be satisfyingly disruptive to the system if he could be turned off."

"And why us?" I said.

Ives smiled.

"Because you're here," he said. "You are already involved."

He took the pipe out of his mouth and set it down in a big glass ashtray, with the stem carefully clear of the rim.

"And," he said, "in truth you are not just anybody. Nothing seems to frighten you, or at least frighten you sufficiently to deter you. And you are immensely formidable."

"Formidable," I said to Hawk.

"Immensely," Hawk said.

"I am hopeful that the Kodiak Kid can sufficiently ingratiate himself with Podolak and friends, that, perhaps, he can find the supervisor."

"And?"

Another young woman walked past us, wearing tight lowrider pants and a cropped T-shirt that stopped several inches shy of the pants. She had a small blue-and-red tattoo in the small of her back. Ives studied the tattoo for a while as the woman passed us toward Bloomingdale's. Then he turned back to us and smiled and made a sharp gesture with his hand and wrist as if he was turning off a valve.