Playmates (7 page)

"I'm feeling offensive, Dr. Roth. I am sitting here being bullshitted in patronizing tones, and we both know you know he's illiterate."

"I'm afraid that's enough, Mr. Spenser. You'll have to leave." Madelaine spoke with as much dignity as one could who was blushing scarlet.

"That's silly, Madelaine," I said. "This is a testable hypothesis. Kicking me out won't protect you from embarrassment when Dwayne's illiteracy becomes public knowledge and people ask you how come you're writing these rave reviews of his academic performance."

"I feel no embarrassment in trying to help a poor black boy to stay in school. Would you have me send him back to the ghetto?"

"So you know he can't read," I said.

"I know his skills are not, perhaps, what they should be, granted, but would he be better off back in that environment? The boy has a future here."

"He'd probably rather be called a man," I said.

"I know about calling black people 'boy,"' Madelaine said. "But he is a boy."

"Not on a basketball court," I said.

"But otherwise," Madelaine said. "He's not a grown man. He's a boy."

"Why do you say so?" I said.

"For God's sake," Madelaine said. "He can't even read."

I smiled. Madelaine looked at me, puzzled; why was I smiling? I smiled some more. The room was quiet. Madelaine frowned. Then the light went on. Had she not been flushed she would have flushed.

"Well, not just because he can't read," Madelaine said. It was weak, and she knew it, but like a lot of academics I had met she kept chewing at it. She was so used to manipulating meaning with language that both became relative. As if you could make falsehood true by richly said restatement. Academics are not first rate at saying I was wrong.

"What are the other aspects of his boy-ness?" I said, finally.

Madelaine opened her mouth, closed it, took a long breath. "This is pointless," she said. "I do not have the time to sit here and argue with some redneck detective."

"We're not arguing, Dr. Roth. I'm trying to educate you, and you're resisting. We can't just let Dwayne's illiteracy go," I said, "because we think he won't need to be able to read or because we think he can't or won't learn. Those assumptions, Doc, are racist, and it's what's wrong with this whole deal. This kid has gone through sixteen years of education, public and private, and he can't read, and no one has bothered about that."

"You just called him a kid," Madelaine said. She was sullen now.

"He is a kid. He hasn't got the shrewdness or the strength to admit he can't read and get help so that he can. He thinks he's going to make so much dough playing basketball that he won't ever have to read. He'll get a smart agent. And he'll be entirely dependent on him. And when Dwayne's about thirty-four, thirty-five, he won't be making any more money playing basketball, and so he won't have an agent and then what's he going to do? Manage his affairs?"

"But you were dreadful to me when I called him a boy."

"Dreadful's a little strong," I said.

"I'm not a racist," she said.

"What's in a name," I said. "But when I came in here, I wasn't sure what to do with Dwayne. Now I am. And it's you that showed me. I'm going to treat him like a man."

"Does that mean you're going to turn him in?" Madelaine said.

"I don't know," I said. "But whatever I do I'm going to treat him like he's responsible for himself and his life."

"And what about me?" she said.

"What about you?"

"Are you going to tell that he can't read?"

I stared at her.

"It would be very hurtful to my professional standing," she said.

She was leaning forward in her chair now, her hands resting on the edge of her desk. Her mouth was open and her tongue moved rapidly back and forth over her lower lip.

I was still staring. "Holy Christ," I said.

HAWK and I tried to have dinner together once a week or so just as if we were regular people. After a session with Madelaine Roth, Hawk looked a lot more regular to me than he used to. We had a table against the wall in a storefront place called the East Coast Grill in Inman Square, where all the cooking was done over an open barbecue pit in the back, by a guy in a red baseball cap. I ordered the ribs, Hawk asked for grilled tuna.

"Don't dare order the ribs, do you?" I said.

"Heard it came with a wedge of watermelon," Hawk said.

"Your national cuisine," I said.

We were drinking Lone Star beer, in respect to the barbecue, and the first one went quickly. As we drank, people glanced covertly at Hawk. He was wearing white leather pants and a black silk shirt. His shaved head gleamed, and his movements were almost balletic: economical and surgically exact. He never moved for no reason. He never spoke to make conversation. His white leather jacket hung on the back of the chair, and if you paid attention to stuff like that, you could see where it hung a little lopsided from the weight of the gun in the right hand pocket. When he brought the beer glass to his lips you could see the muscles in his upper arm swell, stretching the silk of his shirt sleeve. The waitress brought us a second beer.

Hawk said, "Guy named Bobby Deegan came by to see me."

"Bobby gets around," I said.

"You know him?" Hawk said.

"Came by my office this morning," I said. "Urged me to lay off a thing I was looking into."

"S'pose you said, 'sho nuff, Bobby,"' Hawk said.

"I was going to," I said. "But my chin was trembling so bad it was hard to talk."

"Ah," Hawk said. "That why Bobby looking to have you clipped."

"Clipped?"

"Un huh."

"A sweetie like me?"

"Un huh."

"Gee," I said. "I thought I'd won him over."

"Guess not," Hawk said. "Bobby come in to Henry's looking for me. Said he needed some pest removal work done. Heard I was in that business."

I shook my head. "Pest removal," I said. "That hurts."

"Can see why it would," Hawk said.

The waitress came and brought ribs for me and tuna for Hawk. On the plate with my ribs were some beans, some watermelon and a big piece of cornbread.

Hawk looked at the slab of ribs. "Mighta made an error," Hawk said.

"Tuna's good for you," I said.

"Sure," Hawk said. "So I ask Bobby where he heard that, and he said, guy he'd done some business with in town. I say 'gimme a name.' He say ..." Hawk smiled happily, " 'Gerry Broz.' "

I said, "A blast from the past."

Hawk cut a morsel off his tuna and inspected. It was pink, as promised. Hawk nodded his head once and put the tuna into his mouth and chewed. He nodded once again, and swallowed.

"So I figure the guy's probably straight, using Joe's kid's name, anybody can know Joe's, but most folks don't know 'bout Gerry.

"So I say what's the pest's name, and he say you."

I was struggling happily with my ribs. Normally I ended up with barbecue sauce in my socks when I ate ribs, but I always figured they were worth it.

"What's he paying?" I said when I could.

"Five bills," Hawk said.

"For crissake," I said, "Harry Cotton was offering that, when, seven, eight years ago."

"Yeah, well, Bobby's out of town, he don't know 'bout you. So, I say, 'You tell Gerry who you want hit?' And he say, 'No, what's the difference?' and I say, 'No difference.' "

Hawk ate a couple of grilled vegetables. I ate some beans. Hawk drank some beer, patted his lips carefully with his napkin, put it back on his lap.

"So Bobby say, 'Well?' And I say, 'Well what?' and Bobby say, `You want the job?' and I say, 'No.' And Bobby say, 'How come?' and I just look at him for a while and Bobby say, 'Well, okay, fine, you don't want it.' And I just looking at him and he say, 'You got any suggestions?' and I say, `No' and Bobby takes a walk."

I shook my head. "Five grand," I said. "That's insulting."

"Hey," Hawk said, "I just reporting the news."

I nodded. My ribs were gone, also the beans and the watermelon and the combread. Also my beer. I'd done another good job at the table.

"These are serious guys," I said. "Bobby came into my office this morning, offered a bribe, made a threat, neither one worked, so he went right out and found you."

"And when I said no he probably went on and found somebody else not as good," Hawk said. He was working on his supper now that it was my turn to talk.

"The only one as good would be me," I said, "and I wouldn't do it either."

"Still, they probably find some people willing," Hawk said. "Not everybody know better."

"Sucker born every minute," I said.

"What you into?" Hawk said.

"Basketball," I said.

"The national sport," Hawk said, "of ma people. Better tell me about it."

I did. While I did, Hawk finished his meal, the waiter came and cleared it and brought dessert menus.

"The bread pudding with whiskey sauce," I said to Hawk.

Hawk held up two fingers to the waiter and said, "Bread pudding."

We were eating the pudding by the time I got to Madelaine Roth. And I finished with Madelaine and the pudding at about the same time.

"What you think 'bout Bobby," Hawk said when I got through.

"I think that cheerful, pally act is a very thin veneer over a very tough guy," I said.

Hawk nodded. "Yeah," he said. "How 'bout I cruise around with you a while. Might meet me some adventurous coeds."

"Yeah," I said, "might be able to help me get Dwayne's attention too."

"Or Chantel's," Hawk said.

"Hawk," I said, "Dwayne is, you gotta remember, approximately the size of Harlem."

"There's that," Hawk said.

"Besides, I think we're trying to help him," I said.

"What's this we, white man? You the helper, I just along to see how it goes."

"Mr. Warm," I said.

The waiter brought the check. Hawk picked it up, looked at it and handed it to me.

THE next time I went to see Dwayne Woodcock, Hawk came with me. We found Dwayne in the spa in the Student Union drinking a Coke in a booth with two other kids. I recognized them. One was Kenny Green, the off guard, and a reserve forward named Daryl Pope. Dwayne looked up and said something to the other two. There was some laughter.

"Dwayne," I said. "We need to talk."

Dwayne was playing to his friends. "I don't need to talk, man. You need to talk whyn't you go someplace and talk?" He made the last word stretch. Hawk came up and leaned against the comer of the booth. All three kids looked at Hawk uneasily.

"I had a chat with Bobby Deegan," I said. Everyone at the table got a little stiffer when I said Deegan's name.

"I don't know nobody by that name, man," Dwayne said. "Sounds like some dumb fucking Irishman to me."

Dwayne's buddies laughed along with him. "Don't that sound like that to you?" Dwayne said.

"Sounds like that to me," one of his buddies said.

I looked at Hawk. I was getting tired of college kids. Dwayne was especially easy to get tired of.

"Want me to shoot one?" Hawk said. All three turned and looked at him.

"Who you talking to, man?" Dwayne said. Hawk turned his head slowly and looked at him, carefully. Then he looked at the other two, just as carefully.

Basketball players are big, and it's been years since they were reedy. There was nothing in Hawk's look that I could see that was anything but neutrally interested. He didn't say anything. But when he was through looking at them, all three kids had stopped laughing. Green and Pope looked at Dwayne, he looked back at Hawk for a minute, and then looked at me.

"You bring some fucking dude around, say he's going to shoot us?"

"Dude," I said to Hawk.

"Talks like all those bad-ass black guys on television, don't he," Hawk said.

"Heart of the ghetto," I said, "pulse beat of the streets."

Hawk leaned a little forward toward Dwayne and spoke softly.

"You had best excuse yourself from your friends, young man, and allow us to speak with you. We have your best interest at heart."

Hawk's eyes were steady on Dwayne. Finally Dwayne said, "Man, shit. I may's well get this over. You guys give us couple minutes. Get these fucking people out of my hair."

"We be over at the counter, Dwayne," Pope said.

"Sure," Dwayne said. "I'll catch you in a minute."

When they were gone I slid into the booth opposite Dwayne. Hawk sat beside me.

"Whatcha want?" Dwayne said.

"I think I want to help you," I said.

"Dwayne don't need help. Dwayne can carry the weight, you know?"

"What weight you carrying, Dwayne?"

"Whatever fuckin' weight you think you going to talk about. Dwayne Woodcock don't need no motherfucking help, man."

"You need help, Dwayne," I said. "You can't read, and you can't write, and some hard guys from New York got hold of your balls."

"Bullshit, man..."

"You don't think they got hold of your balls. You think you're making some easy bread, and no one gets hurt. But one of these days you'll try to walk away, and, whoa, sonovagun, they got a firm grip on your nads, and they're starting to squeeze."

"Nobody gonna squeeze Dwayne's balls," he said, "no dumb Irish fucker like Deegan. No honkie motherfucker like you, either."

Dwayne took a big breath. "Don't need advice from no honkie motherfucker, either," he said.

"Yes you do," Hawk said. "You need advice wherever you can find it." His voice was quiet. "And this is about the best place. It's also about the last place. You don't get help, and pretty soon advice ain't going to matter. You going to belong to Bobby Deegan, or the cops. Or you going to be dead."

"Whyn't you just leave this alone," Dwayne said.

Hawk's voice was still soft. "He ain't going to do that. He doesn't leave things alone. You can trust him. You can trust me. Lot of men don't meet two people they can trust in their whole lives."

Dwayne didn't say anything. He just shook his head. Hawk and I were silent. Pope and Green stood at the counter, looking at us, ready to jump in. Dwayne kept shaking his head.

I waited.

Finally Dwayne said, "Bobby say he was going to talk with you."