Small Vices

"Can you ask around without being too direct?"

She gave me a look as flat and impenetrable as Rosie's.

"Of course you can," I said.

She smiled.

"Where are you staying?" she said.

"Days I

She wrinkled her nose. "Really?"

"I'm on my own time," I said, "and Susan's not with me."

"Don't you yourself deserve to go first class?" she said.

"I probably deserve whatever I can get," I said. "But all I need is a room and a bath. Days I

She nodded as if she weren't really listening to me.

"I'll get in touch with you there," she said.

I stood. Rosie sprang from the couch and dashed over to me and did a quick spin.

"She wants you to pick her up," Patricia Utley said.

I did. She weighed more than I would have thought.

"Dog's built like a Humvee," I said.

"But much cuter," Patricia Utley said.

"And her nose is longer," I said.

Rosie lapped me slurpily under the chin as I walked toward the door carrying her. Patricia Utley walked with me. Steven appeared in the hall. I had noticed over the years, both on Thirty-seventh Street and now here, that the front door never opened unless Steven was present. He opened it.

I handed Rosie to him and leaned over and kissed Patricia Utley on the cheek and went down the steps and turned west on Sixty-fifth Street. West Fifty-seventh Street was only about ten blocks away, but it was a lot farther than that from where Patricia Utley lived.

Chapter 46

I HAD DINNER with Paul Giacomon that night in one of those SoHo restaurants where the wait staff all look like members of a yuppie motorcycle gang.

"What do you think?" Paul said as we studied the menu which the head biker had slapped down in front of us before returning to her real job, intimidating tourists.

"Interesting," I said.

"Does that mean it really is interesting, or is it the kind of interesting like when you see a Jackson Pollock painting and you haven't got a clue and somebody says how do you like it?"

"The latter," I said.

Paul gri

"But it's very downtown," he said.

"I think maybe I'm more a midtown guy," I said.

"Food's good," Paul said.

And it was. We had a bottle of wine with it. And we talked. It was fascinating to me to see how at home in this environment Paul was.

"You look good," he said. "Susan told me after you got shot you were down to like 170 pounds."

"I was slim," I said, "but I was slow and clumsy."

"You okay now?"

"Good as new," I said.

"Susan says you and Hawk worked like slaves for almost a year."

"If I'm to pursue my chosen profession," I said, "I can't be slim, slow, and clumsy."

"I suppose you wouldn't pursue it for very long," Paul said, "if you were."

"How's your love life?" I said.

"More like a sex life at the moment," Paul said.

"Nothing wrong with a sex life," I said.

Paul gri

"Nothing at all," I said. "Though finally it seems to me that a love life is better."

"If you find a Susan," Paul said.

"True," I said.

"And the Susan finds you."

"Meaning?"

"Her first marriage, for instance, didn't work," Paul said.

"Meaning?"

"Meaning Susan is not a simple woman."

"Not hardly," I said.

"Not everyone could be happy with her," Paul said.

"Maybe not," I said.

"But you can."

I nodded.

"You dating anyone regularly?" I said.

"Three people," he said.

"They know about each other?"

"Of course they do," he said. "Who brought me up?"

"Mostly me, I guess."

"All you," Paul said. "And the psychiatrist you got me. My first fifteen years were without upbringing."

"Well," I said. "We did a hell of a job."

"Me too," he said. "You in town on business?"

"Yeah."

He nodded. Paul never asked about business.

"You okay?" I said.

"Me? Yeah."

"Enough money?"

"Yeah. I still get a check every month from my father. I'm getting a lot of bookings for my choreography, and I've started acting a little. Got a part in a thing called Sky Lark about ten off-offs."

I nodded. Paul looked at me carefully.

"Why do you ask? You never ask questions like that."

"Just wondering."

Paul didn't say anything. He drank some wine, poured some into my glass and some more into his.

"You're all right?"

"Absolutely," I said. "Healthy as a horse, and damned near as smart."

Paul chimed in on the damn near as smart so that we spoke it simultaneously. We both laughed.

"Okay," I said, "so maybe you've heard my act."

"And maybe I know it pretty well," Paul said. "You're worried about something."

"Not worried exactly, just alert to all possibilities. If something happened to me, you could count on Hawk to help you in any way you needed."

"I know."

"And Susan."

"I know that, too."

"And if she were alone, you could be very helpful to her."

"And would be. You and she are the closest thing I ever had to real parents."

"Good," I said. "Can we come down and see you in this play?"

"You don't want to talk about all the possibilities you're alert to," Paul said.

"No."

"Okay."

Paul drank some wine and cut a piece off his sushi-quality tuna steak and ate it. Then he looked at me for a minute and nodded silently.

"Whatever it is," he said, "my money is on you."

"Smart bet," I said.

Chapter 47

PATRICIA UTLEY'S MAN Steven showed up at my hotel the next morning. He called from the lobby. I gave him the room number and let him in when he knocked. He handed me a lavender note-sized envelope with my name written on it, purple ink in a beautiful cursive hand.

"Mrs. Utley asked me to give you this," he said.

I opened the envelope and found a piece of matching note paper with the name Attorney Morris Gold written on it, and an address in the East Nineties. Under that was written in the same beautiful script, "You will need a place to receive calls. You may use my home. You know the number."

"Tell Mrs. Utley thank you," I said.

"She also instructed me to offer you any help you might need."

"Thank you, Steven, but I think this will be a solo dash."

He nodded.

"If you decide otherwise," he said, and let it hang.

I nodded.

"I'll go see this guy, then I'll come to the house."

"Very good," he said, and left.

I had no plan. All I had was the name and address of a guy who might get me to the Gray Man, and a Smith Wesson.357 Mag, with a four-inch barrel, which I slipped onto my belt and positioned on my right hip. No machine guns, no siege ca