Double Deuce

CHAPTER 21

Jackie and Hawk and I were savoring some chicken fajita subs that Hawk had bought us on Huntington Ave., when Marge Eagen rolled up in a NewsCenter 3 van with her driver, her secretary, a soundwoman, and a cameraman. Two Housing Authority cops parked their car behind the van. A car from the Boston Housing Authority with three civilians in it parked behind the cops.

“Marge always likes to make a site visit,” Jackie said to us. “She’s very thorough.”

“Inconspicuous, too,” I said.

The Housing Authority cops got out and looked around. The civilians got out and grouped near the van. The driver got out and opened the van doors. The secretary got out of the back. The cameraman and the soundwoman got out of the front. And then Marge Eagen stepped out into the sunlight. The civilians stood a little straighter. The cops looked at her. One of them said something under his breath to the other one. They both looked like they wanted to laugh, but knew they shouldn’t. Marge stopped with one foot on the ground and one foot still in the van. A lot of her leg showed. The cameraman took her picture.

“Good leg,” I said to Hawk.

“From here,” Hawk said.

“Her legs are very good,” Jackie said. “And she wants the world to know it. Don’t you ever watch?”

“No,” I said.

Hawk shook his head.

“It’s the trademark opening shot every day. Low shot, her with a hand mike, sitting on a high stool, key lit, legs crossed. Tight skirt.”

The cameraman finished. Marge Eagen finished stepping from the van and strode across toward us. Everyone in Boston knew her. She was a television fixture. Blonde hair, wide mouth, straight nose, and an on-camera persona that resonated with compassion. I had never actually watched her show, but she was legendarily intense and caring and issue-oriented. Jackie got out of the car. Hawk and I didn’t.

“Jackie,” she said. “How bleak.”

Her voice had a soft husky quality that made you think of perfume and silk lingerie. At least it made me think of that, but Susan had once suggested that almost everything did.

“Her voice make you think of perfume and silk lingerie?” I said to Hawk.

He shook his head. “Money,” he said.

“Everything makes you think of that,” I said.

“Are these the two centurions?” Marge Eagen said. She bent forward and looked in the car at us. She had on a black silk raincoat open over a lowcut ruffled blouse that looked like a man’s tuxedo shirt. While she was bent over looking in at us, I could see that she was also wearing a white bra with lace trim, probably a C cup.

Jackie introduced us.

“Step out,” Marge said, “so we can get a picture of you.”

“No picture,” Hawk said.

“Oh come on, Hawk,” Marge said. “We need it for interior promo. This is going to be the biggest series ever done on local.”

Hawk shook his head. Marge pretended not to see him. With a big smile she opened the car door.

“In fact I suspect it’s going to show up on network. Just the idea circulating has got the network kiddies on the horn already. Don’t be shy.”

she said. “Crawl out of there. Let’s get that handsome punim on film.”

Hawk stepped lazily out of the car. He looked past Marge Eagen to the cameraman.

“If you take a picture of me,” he said, “I will take your camera away and hit you with it.” He looked steadily at the cameraman, who was a friendly-looking little guy with receding hair which he concealed by artful combing. He stepped back a full step under the impact of Hawk’s stare and glanced quickly at the two Housing cops.

“Oh, stop the nonsense,” Marge Eagen was saying. “Don’t be-”

Hawk shifted his gaze to her. There was something in his eyes, though his face seemed entirely still. She stopped in midsentence, and while she didn’t step back, she seemed somehow to recede a little. Jackie stepped slightly between them as if she weren’t aware she was doing it.

“We want pictures of Marge really, Harry. That’s the big thing. Against the background of the buildings, looking at them, gazing down an alley. Pointing maybe, while she talks with Mr. Albanese.”

Harry nodded and began looking at the light. Marge Eagen sort of snorted and walked away with him. The soundwoman followed.

“Why couldn’t you let him take a picture, for God’s sake?” Jackie said under her breath.

“Rather not,” Hawk said pleasantly.

“That’s no reason,” Jackie said and turned as the suits from the Housing Authority approached. “Sam Albanese, Jim Doyle,” she said and introduced us. “I’m afraid I don’t know your name,” she said to the third guy.

“John Boc,” he said. “Authority Police Force.” He didn’t offer to shake hands.

“Oh, sure.” Jackie was jollier than the hostess at a sock hop. “You’re the Chief, of course.”

“This isn’t the time,” Albanese said. “But we don’t appreciate a couple of hired thugs trying to do our job for us. It’s vigilante-ism.”

“Actually,” I said, “vigilante-ism would be if the residents banded together to do your job for you. This is more like consulting-ism, I think.”

“We the Arthur D. Little,” Hawk said, “of hired thugdom.”

“Go ahead,” Albanese said, “be funny. I’ve asked our counsel”-he nodded at Mr. Doyle, who was looking at us sternly-“to see if there may not be some violation of statute here.”

Jackie clicked her tape recorder on very quietly while Albanese was talking. But he heard it. He was the kind of guy who spent his life listening for the click of tape recorders and the hum of a television camera.

Without breaking stride he said, “I think what Ms. Eagen is doing will be a major television event, and I can tell you here and now that every resource of my office will be at your disposal. Gangs are the scourge of public housing. The few bad kids give a lot of decent hardworking citizens a bad name.”

“And drank rapidly a glass of water,” I said.

“Excuse me?” Albanese said.

“A literary allusion,” I said, “e.e. cummings.”

“Don’t know him,” Albanese said.

I smiled politely.

We all stood without anything to say for a while and watched Marge being filmed. When they were through, she came back over to us. Harry took some film of her with Albanese. The soundwoman followed along behind although no one was talking and as far as I could see there was no sound to record.

Then it was our turn again. Marge was going to charm us. She gave us a very big smile and the full force of her large blue eyes.

“Now,” she said, “what are we to do with you gentlemen?”

“We could go bowling,” I said. “And maybe pizza after?”

She shook her head the way a parent does to willful child.

“We’d like you to be in this piece,” she said. “Both of you.”

Hawk and I remained calm.

“This series will make a real contribution to the most disadvantaged among us,” she said. “I’d like to get your slant on it, two men who have bridged the racial gulf and are teamed up to try and help others bridge it.”

Hawk turned his head and looked over his shoulder. Then he looked back at Marge Eagen. “You reading that off something?” he said.

“You don’t believe in what you’re doing?” she said.

Up close I could see the small crowsfeet around her eyes. It didn’t hurt her appearance. In some ways I thought it helped, made her look like a grown-up.

“I don’t believe much,” Hawk said, “and one of the things I don’t believe is that some broad in a Donna Karan dress gonna do much to liberate the darkies.”

“Well,” Marge Eagen said, “there’s no need to be offensive.”

“Hell there ain’t,” Hawk said.

Marge Eagen said, “Jackie,” and jerked her head at the van, did a brisk about-face, and marched away. Everybody except Boc, the Authority Police Chief, hustled after her. Hawk and I watched them silently.

“Don’t pay attention to Albanese,” Boc said. “We need all the help we can get down here, and if you can keep these fucking maggots quiet, you’re not going to get any shit from us.”

Hawk nodded. He was still looking after Marge.

“Good to know,” he said.

Boc turned and went after the rest of them.

After maybe five minutes Jackie came back from the van. Her face was very tight.

“You asshole,” she said to Hawk. “She’s yanking me out of here. I don’t even know if we’re going to do the series.”

Hawk nodded. Jackie got her purse out of Hawk’s car, put her tape recorder in it, and went back to the van. She got in the van. It started up and pulled away. The Housing Authority car and the police car followed and Hawk and I were alone again in the middle of Double Deuce.

We looked at each other.

“How’d you know it was a Donna Karan dress,” I said.