Hush Money

Susan had another bite of steak. I sipped some red wine. I had finished my steak and was keeping track of what happened to the half of her steak that she had put aside. It was still aside. I remained hopeful.

“So what are you going to do?”

“Keep pushing,” I said. “Something will pop out.”

“The police can’t help you?” Susan said.

I shrugged.

“We say they threatened us, they say they didn’t, what are the cops going to do?”

“You wouldn’t go to the police anyway,” Susan said. “And certainly Hawk would not.”

I didn’t say anything. Susan put her knife and fork down, and folded her hands under her chin and gazed at me in silence.

“Don’t let them kill you,” Susan said.

“I won’t,” I said.

She thought for a minute, looking at me, and then said, “No, you won’t, will you.”

“No.”

We sat and our eyes held like that for a long minute.

Finally I said, “You going to eat the rest of that steak?”

She kept staring at me and then began to smile and her eyes filled up, and then she began to laugh and the tears spilled onto her cheeks.

She managed to say, “No.”

“Good,” I said.

I forked the steak onto my plate and sliced off a bite.

“Do you have a plan for tomorrow?” Susan said.

She had herself back under control but her face was still flushed the way it gets when she cries, or laughs, or both, and there was still some wetness on her completely sensational cheekbones.

“I thought we could sleep late, have a leisurely breakfast, once again defy the condo association for much of the afternoon, have a swim and go for di

She was laughing again. There was a slivered edge of fear behind the laugh, but it was real laughter.

“As I think about it,” she said, “I don’t think anything can kill you.”

“Nothing has,” I said.

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

We were lifting weights at the Harbor Health Club. Hawk in a tank top is a fairly scary sight, and a number of the other patrons glanced at us covertly from time to time. Hawk knew this. He never missed anything going on around him, and while, as usual, he paid no attention to anyone, I think it amused him. Now and then he would do something showy like handstand push-ups, to impress the rubes.

“While you been vacationing,” Hawk said, “I been detecting.”

“Good,” I said. “You can use the practice.”

“Every Friday Amir go up to Bangor. Every Sunday he come back. So I figure I better see what he doing up there, and I drive up to Bangor International Airport…”

“International?” I said.

“Sure,” Hawk said. “You think they hay shakers up there?”

“Well,” I said. “Yes.”

Hawk shook his head. He was doing some dips as he talked, and if there was any effort involved it didn’t show in his voice.

“Anyway, I’m there on a Friday afternoon sitting in my car, and about five o’clock here come Amir out of the terminal with his little overnight case. Black Lincoln stretch limo waiting. Driver gets out, opens the door. Amir hands him the overnight case, driver puts it on the front seat, Amir hops in the back. You want to guess the license number on the limo?”

“Don’t remember but I’ll bet it’s in my notes.”

“Same one,” Hawk said.

“You follow them?” I said.

“Yep.”

“To Beecham.”

“Yep.”

“Last Stand Systems, Inc.”

“Yep.”

“Stayed the weekend and came home Sunday night.”

“Yep.”

“You got any theories on what he’s doing up there?” I said.

“Visiting.”

“You got any thoughts on what he does while he visits?”

Hawk was doing pull-ups. He did five more after I asked the question, then let himself down slowly and dropped to the floor.

“We know Amir is queer.”

“Nice rhyme,” I said.

“And we know he, ah, hyperactive.”

“Nice phrase,” I said. “You think he’s got a boyfriend in Last Stand Systems, Inc.?”

“Somebody send the company plane down for him.”

“You think it’s Milo Quant?”

“There a Mrs. Quant?” Hawk said.

I didn’t say anything for a minute.

“You think there’s hanky-panky between Milo and Amir?”

“Amir was a white woman, what would you think?” Hawk said.

“That there was hanky-panky between Milo and Amir.”

Hawk smiled.

“That what I’d think,” he said.

“So,” I said. “We don’t want to be homophobic about this.”

“So hanky-panky it is,” Hawk said.

“On the other hand,” I said, “you’ve read the literature. For the leader of this movement to be having an affair with a gay black militant is not just miscegenation, for crissake, it’s treason.”

“You right,” Hawk said. “Couldn’t happen. Be like J. Edgar Hoover ru

“Exactly,” I said. “Impossible.”

I did some curls. Hawk worked on his triceps a little. I did some dips. Hawk worked on his lats. Henry strolled past us and explained to someone that the leg extension machine gave you a better workout if you put some weight on it. He showed them how to set the weight, then he walked back past Hawk and me without looking at us.

After a while Hawk said, “I feelin‘ short on electrolytes.”

“Me too,” I said. “Luckily Henry keeps some in his office.”

We went back into Henry’s office that looked out over the harbor and got some beer out of the refrigerator.

“Milo is speaking out in Fitchburg,” I said. “I thought I’d go out and listen.”

“Why?”

“Why not? Right now I got so little that knowing what he looks like will help.”

Hawk nodded.

“I had a lover in Maine,” he said, “and he coming to Fitchburg, maybe I arrange to meet him.”

“Why don’t you stick with Amir,” I said. “And I’ll tag along behind Milo Quant. And we’ll see.”

“Say we catch them doing the hoochie coochie,” Hawk said. “What we got?”

“More than we got now,” I said.

“That much,” Hawk said.

“Well, we’ve got some stuff,” I said. “We’ve already got Amir co

“True.”

“What we don’t have is proof that they did it, or any reason why.”

“Prentice a blackmailer,” Hawk said.

“Could be a reason,” I said.

“Don’t forget why we doing this,” Hawk said.

“I know. Robinson’s tenure,” I said. “I think we’ve got enough now. But it’s messy. I want it clean.”

“How often you get clean?” Hawk said.

I gri

“Figure I’m due,” I said.

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

I was getting ready to drive out to Fitchburg when KC Roth called me on the phone.

“I’m sorry about the other day,” she said.

“Un huh.”

“I guess I’m a little crazy right now.”

“Probably.”

“It’s not easy being me, you know.”

“I know.”

“I’m alone, I have no prospects, I need support. I guess sometimes I get a little too aggressive.”

“Nothing wrong with aggressive,” I said. “But you need to focus it properly.”

“Easy for you to say. You’re not alone.”

“The question isn’t whether it’s easy for me to say. The question is am I right?”

“I didn’t call up for you to give me advice,” KC said.

“No,” I said. “Of course you didn’t.”

“It’s frankly none of your goddamned business.”

“It was,” I said. “But now it isn’t.”

“That doesn’t mean I can’t call you up and have a civil conversation, does it?”

“No it doesn’t,” I said.

“Well fine,” she said and slammed the phone down.

I seemed to be in a lovers’ quarrel with someone who was not my lover. I hung up the phone and looked at it for a moment and then got up and went to get my car.

Fitchburg is a little working-class city of 40,000 people about fifty miles west of Boston. It is also south of Ashby and southeast of Winchendon and north of Leominster, and a great many people don’t care much where it is. The state college is up the hill from Route 2A. There were signs directing me to the evening’s event. When I got to the auditorium there were several Fitchburg Police cars and at least three blue and gray State Police cruisers parked around the place, taking all the best spots. I parked in a slot that said Faculty Only, and walked over to the auditorium. There were cops in the lobby, cops at the entrances, standing around talking to each other. There were also several Ivy League-looking guys in shirts and ties and dark suits, clustered near the main entrance door, sca