Walking Shadow

CHAPTER 4

Most people having dinner Upstairs at the Pudding had never seen anyone who looked like Hawk. At 6' 2" he weighed 210 and had a 29-inch waist. He was monochromatic tonight. Black skin, black eyes, black suit, black shirt, black tie, black boots. His head was clean-shaven.

"This place is so Cambridge," Susan said, "it gives me goose bumps."

"Cambridge give you goose bumps?" I said to Hawk.

"Hives," Hawk said.

The main dining room had a thirty-foot ceiling, and the dark green walls were decorated with posters advertising Hasty Pudding Club productions dating back to the early nineteenth century. We sat at a table outside on the patio deck.

"Think maybe I'm integrating the place?" Hawk said.

"You're so sensitive," Susan said.

"There was a Kenyan diplomat in here just last year."

Hawk grinned.

"Don't smile," I said.

"Ruins the look."

Susan was busily waving at people.

"You're like the Mayor here," Hawk said.

"And rightly so," Susan said.

The waitress came and took our order.

"Well, nobody following your Greek," Hawk said.

"I been on his tail since you called me."

"You think the shadow saw you?" Susan said.

Hawk stared at Susan as if she'd spoken in tongues.

"I beg your pardon," Susan said.

"Sure," Hawk said.

"Could mean the shadow heard about me."

"Which would make him likely part of the theater company, or at least someone in Christopholous' circle," I said.

"Un huh. Or the murder stirred everything up and scared him off," Hawk said.

"Or?"

"Or Christopholous made him up," Hawk said.

"Or her," Susan said.

Hawk and I both smiled, and nodded.

A young couple with a baby stopped at our table.

"This is my friend, Diane," Susan said.

"And her husband, Dennis. And their daughter, Lois Helen Alksninis."

Hawk put his finger out and the baby grabbed it.

"Name's bigger than the kid," Hawk said.

"What kind of name is that?"

"A hard one," Dennis said and Hawk grinned. Lois Helen let go of his finger. And they moved on to their table.

"Did you speak to that policeman?" Susan said.

"DeSpain? Yeah. I went over this morning."

"DeSpain?" Hawk said.

"State cop? Big blond guy, stone eyes?"

"Yeah," I said.

"Except now he's Chief in Port City."

"Port City a tough town," Hawk said.

"I know."

"DeSpain a tough guy," Hawk said.

"What a coincidence," I said.

A lean, outdoors-looking man in a blue blazer passed us on his way to the door. He saw Hawk and nodded slightly. Hawk nodded back.

"Who's that?" Susan said.

"Hall Peterson," Hawk said.

"Do some investments for me."

"Investments, Hawk?" Susan said.

"You never cease to amaze."

"Never," Hawk said.

"Victim's name was Craig Sampson," I said for Hawk's benefit.

I looked at Susan.

"What do we know about him?"

"He was forty-one, forty-two," Susan said.

"Single. Poor family. Never went to college. He went to acting school at night on the GI Bill, or whatever they call it now, and waited on table, and worked for a caterer, and for a home cleaning service, and painted apartments, and lived in hideous little one-room walkups downtown in New York, and all the other awful stuff you do if you want to be an actor, and finally he auditioned for the Port City Company last year and made it."

"That's all?"

"Doesn't seem like much, does it," Susan said.

"Not going to be more," Hawk said.

Susan nodded. Hawk and I were quiet. There were trees growing up around the patio dining room, and plants along the railing.

There was no roof. The effect was of dining in a private treehouse in a lush garden, although we were twenty feet up from Harvard Square. Overhead, small lights strung along the beamed superstructure twinkled like captive stars, above them the darkness ascended infinitely. I looked at Susan across the table. Her eyes seemed as deep as space; and I felt, as I always did when I looked at her, as if I were staring at eternity. I half expected Peter Pan to cruise in and make me young again.

"You want me to stay on the Greek?" Hawk said.

"Christopholous, yes."

"And if I see a shadow you want me to grab him.. he looked at Susan… "or her?"

"It would be nice if we could chat with him… or her."

"What you going to do?" Hawk said.

"Susan and I are going to a reception and board meeting at the theater," I said.

"What could be better," Hawk said.

"How about getting whacked in the nose with a brick?" I said.

"Well, yeah," Hawk said.

"That would be better."

Susan gazed up at the night sky.

"One and a half billion males on the planet and I'm having dinner with Heckel and Jeckel," she said.

The entrees arrived. Susan cut her tuna steak in two and put one half of it aside on her butter plate. Hawk watched her.

"Trying to lose some weight?" Hawk said in a neutral voice.

"Yes. I have three or four pounds of disgusting fat that I want to get rid of."

Hawk said, "Un huh."

"I know, maybe you can't see it, but it's there."

Hawk looked at me.

"I've missed it too," I said.

"And I'm a trained detective."

"Remember where we are," Susan said.

"I could have you both arrested for sexual harassment."

"I counter with the charge of racial insensitivity," Hawk said.

"Yes," Susan said.

"That would be appropriate. Then we join forces against our common oppressor."

They both turned and gazed at me.

"The white guy," I said.