Robert B. Parker’s Someone to Watch Over Me

38

Grace Bennett was so thrilled to see me, she tried to slam her big industrial door in my face.

Always prepared, I stuck a Red Wing steel-toed boot in the frame to stop it.

“Hero’s welcome,” Hawk said.

I tried to talk sense and logic through the door, with little success. Grace threatened to call the cops if I didn’t leave. I looked to Hawk and shrugged.

“Man,” Hawk said. “She do love you.”

“Who’s that with you?” Grace said.

“Woody Strode,” I said.

Hawk grinned. I winked at him. He’d always admired Woody Strode.

“What do you want?” she said.

“I want to know who threatened you.”

“What does it matter?”

“Because my friend Woody and I are prepared to stop them.”

Hawk began to whistle “You’ve Got a Friend in Me.”

I looked to him. “Really?”

Hawk shrugged again. The door slowly rolled back. Grace Bennett was wearing short navy shorts and a V-neck white T-shirt. Her curly hair pulled back into a loose ponytail. Her chest sweating with a light sheen.

Hawk stepped up. “Well, well, well.”

“Who are you?” she said, looking up at him.

“Let us in, babe,” Hawk said. “I’d be happy to tell you all about myself.”

Grace walked away but left the door wide open. We stepped into her warehouse apartment and studio. A radio played some classical music from somewhere in the open space. If I’d been a much more cultured man, I might have named that tune.

“Rachmaninoff,” Hawk said.

“I was just about to say that.”

“Mm-hm,” Hawk said. He moved on into her studio as if he’d been invited. He found one of her larger paintings and studied it for a while. He had yet to remove his sunglasses and stood as still as a mountain, taking it all in.

“He doesn’t look like an art lover,” Grace said.

“Maybe,” Hawk said. “But I know you dig you some Préfète Duffaut.”

Grace moved up closer to talk, standing a good head shorter than Hawk. She looked him up and down. Hawk was wearing a tight black T-shirt, form-fitting black pants, and cowboy boots. He was looking decidedly Hawkish today.

“Who the hell are you?” she said.

“The man of your damn dreams.”

Grace began to smile. She had a very nice smile.

I stood by her open kitchen area and leaned against the counter, feeling like a stranger in a strange land. I took off my ball cap and shook the rain off the brim. “What did they tell you, Grace?”

Grace looked over to me and then back at Hawk. Hawk hadn’t moved, still staring at her big painting of a colorful city of little shacks, palm trees, and a wide starry sky. I could spot the Caribbean influence and some religious themes, but that was all I had.

“Only one man,” she said. “And he threatened to kill me.”

“He say anything else?” I said.

“He gave me the address where my mother and Bri live in Roxbury,” he said. “Told me to let sleeping dogs lie.”

“Poetic,” I said.

Hawk stepped away from admiring the art and glided over to where we stood. Like everything Hawk did, the move was effortless and smooth. The muscles in his big arms shiny with rainwater, looking contained and ready at any moment.

“You promised to keep this between us,” Grace said.

“I did.”

“You promised everything I said was confidential.”

“It was.”

“Then how the hell did they know?”

I shook my head. I leaned against the granite counter. The rain intensifying outside, falling hard on her windows and down onto the street between the two warehouses. I played with the hat in my hand for lack of an answer.

“I pulled open the door,” she said. “The man grabbed me by the throat and put a gun to my head. He walked me back here and made me kneel on the ground as he told me what would happen to my entire family. How does that sound to you?”

“Did he say who sent him?” I said.

“We both know goddamn well who sent him,” she said.

“Did he say anything about me?” I said.

Grace swallowed. She looked to me and Hawk and then slowly shook her head. “I told you everything he said. He threatened me and then left.”

I nodded.

“Miami Blues,” Hawk said.

Something about the efficient and direct threat reminded me of someone I knew all too well. Hawk stood close by, hands resting on his hips. I could hear him breathing, smooth and cool, waiting for the answer.

“He was a white man,” she said.

“Always fucking things up,” Hawk said.

“About y’all’s age,” she said. “He was dressed in gray.”

I glanced to Hawk. Behind the sunglasses, he was still and impassive. It didn’t even appear he was breathing.

“All gray,” she said. “Suit was gray, shirt was gray, tie was gray.”

“Notice anything else?” I said.

“Face had a weird look to it,” she said. “Reminded me of a dead man. Like he wasn’t getting the right circulation. And he had a ruby stud in his left ear.”

Hawk didn’t say a word. I looked at him again. We both knew but neither of us were about to say it.

“You look like that’s someone you know,” Grace said.

I nodded.

“Will he do as he says?” she said.

I nodded again.

“Who is he?”

“A man who almost killed me,” I said. “But I had other plans.”

Hawk took off his sunglasses and tucked them into the neck of his shirt. He gave me a long, hard look. “I thought you and Ruger had an understanding.”

“Me, too.”

“That man not like you and me,” Hawk said. “Man like Ruger doesn’t have a code to live by.”

“Certainly seems that way,” I said.

Hawk looked over at Grace and smiled. Susan said Hawk’s smile could turn most women’s knees to jelly. Grace looked a bit unstable as she smiled back. Hawk turned to me. “If it is him,” Hawk said. “This time, you’re gonna have to finish it.”

I nodded again.

“Ain’t no other way, babe.”