Paper Doll

chapter twenty-seven

HAWK WAS SKIPPING rope in the little boxing room that Henry Cimoli kept in the otherwise updated chrome and spandex palace that had begun some years back as the Harbor Health Club. It was a gesture to me and to Hawk, but mostly it was a gesture to the days when Henry had boxed people like Sandy Saddler and Willie Pep.

Now Henry had a Marketing Director, and a Fitness Director, and a Membership Coordinator, and an Accountant, and a Personal Manager, and the club looked sort of like Zsa Zsa Gabor’s hair salon; but Henry still looked like a clenched fist, and he still kept the boxing room where only he and I and Hawk ever worked out.

“Every move a picture,” I said.

Hawk did some variations, changed speeds a couple of times.

“Never seen an Irish guy could do this,” he said.

“Racism,” I said. “We never got the chance to dance for pennies.”

Hawk grinned. He was working out in boxing shorts and high shoes. He was shirtless and his upper body and shaved head gleamed with sweat like polished onyx.

“Susan need watching anymore?”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “Who’d you use?”

“Me, mostly. Henry sat in once in a while, and Belson did one shift.”

“Belson?”

Hawk nodded. From the rhythm of the rope, I knew that “Sweet Georgia Brown” was playing in the back of Hawk’s head.

“She caught on,” I said.

“Never thought she wasn’t smart,” Hawk said. “But I wasn’t trying hard as I could.”

“Know anything about the case?” I said.

“Nope, Quirk just called and said Susan needed minding.”

I nodded and went to work on the heavy bag, circled it, keeping my head bobbing, punching in flurries-different combinations. It wasn’t like the real thing. But it helped to groove the movements so that when you did the real thing, muscle memory took over. Hawk played various shuffle rhythms on the speed bag, and occasionally we would switch. Neither of us spoke, but when we switched, we did it in sync so that the patter of the speed bag never paused and the body bag combinations kept their pattern. We kept it up as long as we could and then sat in the steam room and took a shower and went to Henry’s office where there was beer in a refrigerator.

Henry was stocking Catamount Gold these days and I had a cap off a bottle, and my feet up. Hawk sat beside me, and I talked a little about the Olivia Nelson case. Through Henry’s window, the surface of the harbor was slick, and the waves had a dark, glossy look to them. The ferry plowed through the waves from Rowe’s Wharf, heading for Logan Airport.

“You know anything about Robert Stratton, the Senator?” I said.

“Nope.”

Hawk was wearing jeans and cowboy boots and a white silk shirt. He had the big.44 magnum that he used tucked under his left arm in what appeared to be a snakeskin shoulder holster.

“Know anything about a woman named Olivia Nelson?” I said.

“Nope.”

“Me either,” I said.

“I was you,” Hawk said, “and I had to go back down there to South Carolina, I’d talk to some of our black brothers and sisters. They work in the houses of a lotta white folks, see things, hear things, ‘cause the white folks think they don’t count.”

“If they’ll talk to me,” I said.

“Just tell them you a white liberal from Boston. They be grateful for the chance,” Hawk said.

“And, also, I’m a great Michael Jackson fan,” I said.

Hawk looked at me for a long time. He said, “Best keep that to yourself.”

Then we both sat quietly, and drank beer, and looked at the evening settle in over the water.