CHAPTER 42
I woke up the next morning knowing exactly what I had to do. And I did it. I got out of bed and took two aspirin. Then I went into the kitchen. Paul and Paige had opened the sofa bed in the living room and were asleep in a tangle of bedclothes. Not neat sleepers. I made coffee and sat at the counter and drank it. I turned on the CBS morning news so I could watch Diane Sawyer. Maybe I should write her a letter. If it didn't work out with Susan, or Linda . . . I raised my coffee cup to her. "Music beyond a distant hill," I said. Diane ignored me. The phone rang. It was only 7:15. Too early for Susan to be calling from San Francisco. Maybe Diane Sawyer.
I said, "Hello."
It was Hawk. He said, "You want to rescue what's left of your body 'fore it's too late?"
"You just getting in?" I said.
"No way, babe. Something in the genes, got to git up and git to choppin' that old cotton."
"And lifting that barge," I said, "and toting that bale."
"And beating my feet on de mud."
I said, "You want to run?"
"Yeah, I want to pump some iron too. You busy?"
"No," I said. "There's things I should do but I don't know what they are or how I should find out."
"You ought to be used to that," Hawk said. "I be by,"
I took a shower and put on sweat clothes and went down to the street. Hawk's Jaguar pulled into the curb as I came out. He left it there on a crosswalk and we set out along the river.
"Want to go long," Hawk said. "You look like you got stuff to sweat out."
I nodded. We made the big circle, up along the Charles to the Western Avenue Bridge, then across the river and down the CamIwidge side along Memorial Drive to the Charles River Dam and back up along the Mississippi esplanade to my apartment. It took us a little more than an hour. But when we got back I was loose and sweat-soaked and the hangover had gone.
"Lemme get a change of clothes," I said, and we'll go over to the health club."
Upstairs I put jeans and loafers and a clean shirt into my gym bag, along with a gun. The shower was running. And Paige was alone in the sofa bed with a long exposure of naked thigh sticking out from under the covers. Hawk came out of my kitchen with a glass of orange juice and pulled the spread over her. She stirred but didn't wake up. I got some orange juice too and was drinking it when Paul came out of the shower wearing a towel.
Hawk said, "You looking pretty good for a fag dancer."
Paul said, "A fag dago dancer."
Hawk nodded and grinned and put a hand out and Paul gave him a low five.
"Sherry Spellman called you," Paul said to me. "And said for you to call her as soon as you got in. I wrote the number on the edge of the Globe there. It looks like Tommy's studio number. She said be sure and call, it's very important."
He went into the living room and began to rummage in his dance bag. I called Sherry. Sherry answered on the first ring.
"We're all here at Tommy's studio," she said. "Tommy wants you here too."
"Who's we all, " I said.
There was a sound of mild confusion at the other end of the phone and then Banks's voice replaced Sherry's.
"I got Winston and her," he said. "You get over here and they'll tell you what's been going on. You bring any cops and I'll kill them both."
"Fifteen minutes," I said.
"No cops," Banks said, and hung up.
I put on a warm-up jacket and took my gun out of the gym bag. I put the gun in the righthand pocket of the warm-up jacket and said to Hawk, "Banks has Winston and Sherry Spellman as hostages. You want to come along?"
Hawk grinned happily. "Sure."
We went in Hawk's Jaguar. As he drove he unlocked the glove compartment and took out a 9-millimeter automatic and put it in his lap.
"You could tuck it in your jock," I said.
"No room," Hawk said. "You want to tell me who to shoot?"
"Christ," I said, "I don't know. Everybody but me, I think."
Hawk went straight up Commonwealth and turned left onto Mass Ave. I told him my speculations on Sherry and Winston and the heroin business.
Hawk pulled the jag up along the curb in front of Symphony Hall. Tommy's studio was around the corner.
"Banks is expecting me," I said. "If he sees you, he may panic."
Hawk said, "I wait till you go on in and then I'll drift along up and hang around outside the door, see if I can hear what's happening. It don't sound good, I come in."
"What wouldn't sound good," I said. "You think I need back-up for a middle-aged choreographer?"
Hawk shrugged. "You ain't right yet, babe, you still ain't all you was."
"Okay," I said, "just remember I don't know who the good guys are yet."
"Maybe there ain't any," Hawk said.
"Maybe there never will be," I said, and got out of the jag.
Hawk got out of his side and leaned his forearms on the roof and watched me walk toward the corner.
"You learning," he said. I turned the corner.