Pastime (15 page)

Hawk was still in his chair. Susan had pulled a straight chair near the bed and sat in it. She was reading a copy of Metropolitan Home. Squinting a little, turning the magazine as she read, trying to catch the light. I lay quietly for a little while watching her.

"Hey," I said.

She raised her head from the magazine and smiled at me, and leaned forward and kissed me on the mouth.

"Hey," she said.

I fumbled for the remote and found it and pushed the button and raised myself up in the bed.

"How are you?" Susan said.

"Fit as a fiddle and ready for love. I could jump over the moon up above."

Susan smiled. "How nice," she said, "that your ordeal has not aged you."

I put my hand out and she took it and we were quiet, holding hands.

Felicia came back in. "Well," she said, "I see we're awake again."

"Felicia identifies with me," I said to Susan.

"Dr. Good will be in to see you in a little while."

"Is his first name Feel?" I said.

"No," Felicia said, "I think it's Jeffrey. He's the chief resident."

Felicia took my temperature and my blood pressure and pulse. She had me lean forward while she smoothed the sheets and plumped the pillows. While this was going on a guy in a white coat came in with a stethoscope hanging loosely from his neck.

"Hi," he said. "I'm Jeff Good. I was in the ER when you came in."

I introduced Susan and started to introduce Hawk.

"I met this gentleman when he brought you in," Dr. Good said. "A very strong guy, it would appear. He carried you in like you were a child."

"He's childlike in many ways," Susan said.

Dr. Good smiled without really paying much attention and pulled back the sheet to look at my leg. He touched it lightly here and there, nodding to himself. The place was full of people who nodded to themselves. Everybody knew stuff. Nobody was saying.

"What's the diagnosis?" I said.

"Blood loss and infection, both the result of a single gunshot wound in your left thigh. Exhaustion. We're pumping you full of antibiotics now, and

I think we've got the infection under control. We gave you some blood already."

"When can I go home?"

Good shrugged. "Another day, probably, if your fever stays down, and you promise to see someone in Boston, and stay off the thing for a while."

"Sure," I said.

"Got everything you need?"

"I could use something to eat besides chicken broth and Jell-O."

"Is that what they're feeding you?" Good shook his head. He looked at

Felicia, who stood worshipfully aside, gazing at him. "Can we get him a real meal?"

"Of course, Doctor. No restrictions?"

"No."

He nodded at me and went out. Felicia hurried after him.

"I'd say your chances with Felicia aren't as good as they looked," I said to Hawk.

Hawk shrugged. "It's 'cause I'm not trying," he said. "Would you care to tell me how you came to be 269

here in the hospital?" Susan said. "I've had some high points from Hawk, but

I'd like the full treatment if you're not too tired."

"Certainly," I said. "It's a compelling story, which I tell elegantly."

Hawk stood up from his chair. He seemed to do this without effort. In fact without movement. One moment he was sitting and then he was standing.

"I've already heard the story," Hawk said. "I think I'll go walk Pearl.

Gun's in the drawer. Round in the chamber."

I opened the night-table drawer as he left and saw my gun. Hawk had reloaded it. I left the drawer open.

Susan looked at the gun and at me and didn't say anything.

"We found Patty," I said. "And Rich. And Gerry Broz found us."

"How?"

"Patty told somebody," I said.

"God, she must feel awful."

"Maybe," I said. "I think she's so needy, and so desperate, that she can't feel anything but the need."

Susan nodded. "So what happened?"

I told her. She listened quietly. I always loved it when I had a story to tell her, because her attention was complete and felt like sunlight. Hawk came back just before the end.

"Pearl actually killed and ate a groundhog?" Susan said.

"Showed that soup bone no mercy, either," Hawk said.

"Let's not spread this around Cambridge," I said. "The Vegetarian

Sisterhood will picket her."

"And you let Gerry Broz go?" Susan said.

"Had to. I didn't know how long I was going to stay on my feet. If I passed out while he was there, he'd have shot me with my own gun."

"Could have shot him," Hawk said.

I shrugged.

"Could you do that?" Susan said. "Just shoot him like that?"

I shrugged again.

"Gerry could," Hawk said. "Spenser keels over, Gerry shoots him while he's laying there."

"Will he…" Susan stopped. "I don't know how to say it. Will he be less dangerous to you because you let him go?"

"Pretty to think so," Hawk said.

Susan looked at me. I shook my head.

"Hawk's right," I said. "Gerry will have to come for me. He can't stand to have been-the way he would think of it-humiliated in front of his people.

"Maybe then you should have shot him," Susan said.

"As a practical matter," I said.

"Yes," Susan said.

"I love you when you're bloodthirsty," I said.

"Don't patronize me," Susan said. "You know I'm not bloodthirsty, but I love you. I can be very practical about you if I must be, very bloodthirsty if you prefer."

"I know," I said. "I take back bloodthirsty. But…" I spread my hands.

"Before all this happened I talked to Joe."

"Joe Broz?"

"Yeah. Gerry's father. He's worried about the kid. It's his only kid and he's no good and Joe knows it."

"He ought to know it," Susan said. "What chance did his son have being the child of a mobster?"

"Joe doesn't mind that he's a mobster too," I said. "Joe likes that. What kills Joe is that he's such a crapola mobster."

"He feel sorry for Joe," Hawk said.

We were all silent.

Finally Susan said, "Would you have killed him, Hawk?"

"Absolutely," Hawk said.

"He's dangerous still?"

"He gonna come for us," Hawk said.

At which point the ineffable Felicia came in with my supper.

"Daisy or Cindy?" Hawk said. "They both from Harvard."

"Well, tell me about both of them," Susan said. "I didn't realize you had this passion for intellectuals."

"I'se here with you, missy."

"True," Susan said. "Which one was Daisy?"

I probed the sliced turkey with my fork. It was densely blanketed with a dark gravy.

"Daisy is the redhead, taught black studies." Hawk's face was without expression. Susan raised her eyebrows.

"Yeah," Hawk said. "This a while ago. Everybody teaching black studies.

Red-haired broad with freckles, grew up in Great Neck, Long Island. Only black people she ever saw were from the Long Island Expressway driving through Jamaica."

"I assume her emphasis tended toward the more theoretical aspects of the black experience," Susan said.

I ate some turkey. It was pretty tender, but the gravy was hard to chew.

"She'd read Invisible Man six times," Hawk said. "Everything Angela Davis ever wrote. Told me she ashamed of being white. Told me she thought maybe she black in another life."

I tried some mashed potatoes. They were chewy, too.

"An African princess perhaps?" I said. It came out muffled because I was still gnawing on the mashed potatoes.

"Amazing you should guess that," Hawk said.

"Funny, isn't it," I said-and paused and tried to swallow the potato, and succeeded on the second try-"how people almost never seem to have been four-dollar whores in a Cape Town crib in another life."

"Anyway, me and Daisy used to go to The Harvest for dinner," Hawk said.

"The Harvest?" Susan said.

"Un huh," Hawk said.

I put a forkful of lukewarm succotash in my mouth, chewed it aggressively and swallowed it, hoping to tamp down the potatoes a bit.

"My God," Susan said. "The thought of you at The Harvest."

"Un huh," Hawk said.

"People in The Harvest talk about Proust," Susan said. "And Kierkegaard."

"Daisy talk about my elemental earthiness," Hawk said.

"And they talk about whether they have a date for Saturday night," Susan said. "And sometimes they discuss your sign."

"You been going there without me?" I said.

"Certainly. While you're out waltzing through the woods with your faithful dog, I'm at the bar in The Harvest, wearing a beret, reading Paris-Match, sipping white wine, and smoking imported cigarettes with my hand turned the wrong way."

"Waiting for Mister Right?" I said.

"Yes. In a seersucker jacket."

"Mister Right don't wear no seersucker jacket," Hawk said.

"Sandals?" Susan said.

Hawk shook his head.

"Chinos and Bass Weejuns?"

"Nope."

"Does he wear his sweater draped over his shoulder like a shawl?"

"Positively not," Hawk said.

"He wears blue blazers with brass buttons," I said. "And has a nose that's encountered adversity."

"And an eighteen-inch neck?" Susan said.

"That's the guy," I said.

"Yes, it is," Susan said.

"Other woman was Cindy Astor," Hawk said. "Taught at the Kennedy School.Only female full professor they had when I was with her. Specialized in LowCountry politics. Had a law degree, a master's in English, a Ph.D. in Dutch history. Used to work for the StateDepartment, spent some time at the American Embassy in Brussels. Smart."

I worked on the turkey with gravy some more. In a little paper cup next to it was some pink applesauce-maybe.

"Smarter than you?" Susan said.

"No."

"And did you and she dine at The Harvest?"

Hawk shook his head.

"Her place mostly. Sometimes we'd go to the Harvard Faculty Club, get some boiled food."

"Were you impressed with the Harvard Faculty Club?" Susan said.

I knew she knew that Hawk was never impressed with anything, and I knew how much she was enjoying the image of Hawk eating haddock and boiled potatoes among the icons of Harvard intellection.

"Man asked me once what I did for a living," Hawk said. His voice sank into a perfect mimic of the upper-class Yankee honk.

" `What exactly is it you do, sir?' man say to me. I say, `I'm in security and enforcement, my good man.' And the man say to me `How fascinating.' And

I say, `More fascinating if you the enforcer than if you the enforcee.' And he look at me sort of strange and say, `Yes, yes, certainly,' and he hustle off to the bar, order a double Manhattan. Two cherries.

I ate the dessert. It might have been vanilla pudding.

"But you weren't in love with these women?"

"No."

"Think you'll ever fall in love?"

"Probably not," Hawk said.

"You might," Susan said.

"Maybe I can't," Hawk said.

My eyes were heavy and I leaned back against the pillow. I heard Susan say, "I hadn't thought of that." And then I was asleep.

"Can you get Pearl to settle down?" Paul said.

"I could speak to her, but she'd continue to do what she wants, and I'd look ineffectual. My approach is to endorse everything she does."

Susan said, "Come here, Pearl." And Pearl went over to her, and Susan gave her a kiss on the mouth, and Pearl wagged her tail, and lapped Susan's face, and turned and went back and sniffed at Patty.

"Isn't that cute," I said.

"Never mind about the damn dog," Beaumont said. "We got a problem here and we need to solve it.

He had helped himself to one of my shirts, which was too big for him, and he hadn't shaved. He looked a little seedier than he had in Stockbridge. He glanced once, uneasily, toward Hawk, leaning on the wall near the front hall entry. Hawk smiled at him cheerily.

"I mean, we can't stay here forever," Beaumont said.

"I thought of that too," I said. "What's your plan?"

"I don't know," Beaumont said. "Can you help us out?"

"He already did that," Paul said.

"Yeah," Beaumont said. "Yeah, sure. I know. I mean, shit, you got yourself shot helping us out. It's not like I don't know that and appreciate it."

"We both do," Patty said. She was sitting beside Beaumont on the couch, holding his hand. "We both appreciate it so much."

"I was you I'd go to the cops," I said.

"Cops?"

"Yeah. You must have enough to trade them for protection."

"Christ-the stuff I got is on the cops. Who we paid, when, how much. I wouldn't last a day."

"I'll put you in touch with cops you can trust," I said.

"And they'll have me guarded by cops they can trust, and so on. Sure. But what if they're wrong, or what if you're wrong?"

"I'm not wrong."

"It's a big world," Beaumont said. "We got money to go anywhere in it. All you got to do is get us out of this city." "How about you, Mom?" Paul said.

Patty shook her head and clutched onto Beaumont's hand.

"You want to go anywhere in the world with him?"

Patty glanced around the room; nobody said anything. She pressed her face against Beaumont's shoulder.

"Sure she does," Beaumont said. "She loves me."

"A crook, Mom? A guy that carries a gun and steals money and is a fugitive from the damned mob?"

Patty sat up straight and rested her clenched fists on her thighs. "It's not so easy for a girl to be alone, Paulie."

Paul said, "You don't go off with a goddamned gangster because it's hard to be alone. If you can't be alone, you can't be anybody. Haven't you ever found that out? To be with somebody first you got to be with you."

"Oh, Paulie, all that psychobabble. I never thought you should have gone to that shrink in the first place."

"And where do you get off calling me a gangster, kid?" Beaumont asked.

"You don't like `gangster'? How about `thief'? That better?"

"I don't have to take that shit," Beaumont said.

"Please," Patty said. "Please. Paulie, I can't make it alone. When your father left me I thought I'd die. I have to be with somebody. Rich loves me. There's nothing wrong with being loved. Rich would stand on his head for me."

"Jesus Christ, Ma," Paul said. "My father leaving you was the best chance you had. You didn't love him. He was a creep. You had a chance and instead you went to another creep, and then another. Get away from this guy, be alone for a while. I'll help you. Find out who you are. You could have a decent guy someday if you got your goddamned head together."

"Who you calling a creep?" Beaumont said. He leaned forward as if he were going to stand. Leaning on the wall, Hawk cleared his throat. Beaumont looked at him and froze, then sank back on the couch.

Patty pounded both fists on her thighs. "Goddamn you! I found a man who loves me. I won't let him go. Not for you and all your highfaluting shrink ideas. You don't know what it's like to be abandoned."

Paul was silent for a moment. No one else spoke. Pearl got up from where she had been sitting near Susan and walked over to sniff at Hawk's pants leg.

"Well, not like I mean," Patty said. "I mean, sure, you had a tough time when you were a kid maybe, but we took care of you. You went to good schools. Now, you turned out fine, see that. How bad a mother could I be?

Look at you. Got a career, got a girlfriend. I must have done something right."

Pearl seemed to have, found out whatever she wanted to find out by sniffing

Hawk's pants leg. She turned and came back across the room and sat down next to me and leaned against my leg. Unerringly she leaned against the bad one. I flinched a little and shifted.

"What I got, Ma," Paul said, "is me. And I didn't get that from you. I got that from him." He nodded toward me.

"Oh, God, it makes me tired to listen to you. It's all words. I don't know what they all mean. I know that Rich loves me. If he goes, I'm going with him. You don't know, none of you do, what it's like being a woman."

"Some of us do," Susan said.

"Yes-and you've got a man," Patty said.

"We have each other," Susan said.

"Well, I've got Rich."

"Happy as a fish with a new bicycle," I said softly.

Paul was silent. He stared at his mother; nobody said anything. Beaumont stirred a little on the couch.

"It's kind of no-class, kid," he said, "to wash the family linen in front of strangers like this, you know?"

Paul paid no attention to him. He was still looking at his mother. She had linked her arm through Beaumont's and was pressing her cheek, defiantly, this time, against his shoulder. She looked back at him unflinchingly. They held the stare, and as they held it Paul began to nod slowly.

"Okay," he said. "That was my last shot. I've been talking to you for two days. You do what you need to do. You are my mother, and I love you. If you need something from me, you know where I am."

Patty got up. "Oh, Paulie," she said and put her arms around him and pressed her face into his chest. She cried quietly, and he held her tight and patted her back, but his gaze over her shoulder was deeply silent and focused on something far down a dwindling perspective.

I looked at Beaumont. "No cops?" I said.

"No cops."

"Does it bother you at all that if you take off I'm going to have to deal with Broz?"

"You could take off, too," Beaumont said. "You need some money, I can pay you for what you did."

I shook my head.

"Then I can't help you," Beaumont said. "I got to take care of my own ass."

"And hers," I said.

"Of course," Beaumont said.

"I'd have to deal with Gerry anyway," I said. I looked at Hawk.

"Where you want to go?" he said to Beaumont.

Beaumont hesitated and looked at me, and then at Hawk. He decided.

"Montreal," he said.

Hawk nodded. "Get your things," he said.