Hush Money

“Either side,” I said.

“Un huh.”

“There were four bodyguards, right?”

“Including the limo driver,” Hawk said.

“Plus Quant.”

“Two bodyguards in four fifteen,” I said. “Two bodyguards in four nineteen. Where’s Quant go?”

“Four seventeen,” Hawk said. “Want to take a look?”

“Sure,” I said. “Why don’t I register and we can look at the room setup.”

“Call from the car,” Hawk said, “make sure they have a room.”

I did. They did.

“Okay,” I said. “Stay here. I’ll call you.”

I left the motor ru

“Room two-oh-five,” I said.

“Fine. Is the desk clerk a man or a woman?”

“Woman.”

“Good. I’ll come in tell her I’m Amir and I’ve lost my key.”

“They often want to see ID,” I said.

“She’d be scared to ask me,” Hawk said. “Scared I say she racist for asking.”

“And if she remembers Amir at all it’ll be that he’s black and so are you, so you must be him.”

“Un huh.”

“See you soon,” I said.

And I did. In about ten minutes he knocked on the door and I let him in. He smiled at me and held up the plastic key card.

“She thought I look like Michael Jordan,” Hawk said.

“You know how to play that old race card,” I said. “Don’t you.”

“I do,” Hawk said.

The room was standard B-class hotel. Tile bath and shower in the short hall as you came in the door, king-sized bed, small table and two chairs by the window, built-in bureau with a large television set on top of it. The door unlocked electronically with the plastic card and could be chain bolted from the inside. I looked at the chain bolt. The chain was attached to the door frame by two small brass screws. I took a small pry bar from the gym bag.

“Bolt the door,” I said.

I took the room key and went out and shut the door. I heard Hawk set the chain bolt. I opened the door with the plastic card, slid the pry bar in through the opening, and popped the chain loose without much effort. I went back into the room and closed the door.

“Shouldn’t be hard getting in there,” I said.

“Once we in what we going to do?”

“I guess we’ll ask them what they’re doing here,” I said. “And then we’ll see what happens.”

“What you want to happen?”

“I want everyone to get so percolated that they start saying things they will later regret and we might finally know something concrete.”

“And what we going to do they start hollering and the bodyguards come dashing in?”

“I thought you had that covered,” I said.

“‘Course I got it covered,” Hawk said. “I just meant you want me to shoot them or quell them with a stern look?”

“Stern look will probably cause less ruckus,” I said.

“I’ll work on it,” Hawk said, and we went out and took the elevator to the fourth floor.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

The room was half lit by the security lights that shone on the parking lot. We could have kicked the door in while singing Verdi’s “Othello” and neither Milo nor Amir would have heard us. They were in bed together, zonked. Hawk walked over to the bed and leveled his gun at them. When he was in place I closed the door, found the light switch, and turned on the lights. They slept on. Amir was on his side, his back to Milo who lay on his back, his mouth half open, snoring gently. Hawk put the big Magnum back under his coat. He picked up the telephone from the bedside table and disco

“Recognize any of these,” I said to Hawk.

He shook his head.

“Only do booze,” Hawk said. “But they don’t look like prescriptions.”

Milo opened his eyes. They didn’t focus. His mouth was still open and he was still making soft snoring noises. Hawk took his gun back out. Milo blinked a couple of times. He closed his mouth. He blinked a couple more times. Then he sat bolt upright and as he did so Hawk put the gun muzzle right up to Milo’s face.

“Don’t yell,” Hawk said.

Milo fumbled at the bedside phone. He couldn’t find the handset and couldn’t seem to register that it was gone.

“Phone won’t work,” Hawk said.

“There’s money in my wallet,” Milo said in a thick voice. “In my pants pocket. On the back of that chair.”

“Wake him up,” I said and nodded at Amir.

Milo turned and shook Amir awake. He came back from wherever he was even more slowly than Milo had, but after a while everyone was awake and looking at each other.

“Tell Milo who we are,” I said to Amir.

Both men had edged up into a sitting position, their backs resting against the headboard. Both were half covered by the bedclothes. Both their upper bodies were naked. Amir wore three thick gold chains. His chest was black and bony. There was a lot of short curly hair on it. Milo had no jewelry, nor hair on his chest. He was fat and pale with blotchy pink highlights.

“They’re,” Amir paused, “the white one is a detective.”

“Detective? Damn you, you have no right…”

Hawk tapped him gently on the forehead with the muzzle of his gun.

“Shh,” Hawk said.

“Tell him what detective I am,” I said.

“What detective? I don’t know what…”

“I’m the detective you sent your people to threaten,” I said.

“Threaten?”

I knew that Milo’s brain was fuddled by whatever controlled substance he’d been ingesting with Amir. But even so he looked genuinely puzzled.

“Didn’t he do that, Amir?” I said.

“I… how would I know?”

“Well, you and Milo seem sort of friendly,” I said. “I just thought you might. So, tell him what we’re doing here.”

“Doing here? God, how would I know?”

“You know,” I said. “Explain to Milo what we’re after.”

“Speak up, Amir,” Hawk said.

Amir looked as if someone had taken a shot at him.

“They’re after me,” Amir said. “They are after me because they think I made a person lose tenure.”

“Tenure?” Milo said.

“And because a kid you know got pitched out a window,” I said. “Tell him about that.”

“Window?” Milo said.

“It’s all craziness, Milo,” Amir said.

Milo looked at me and Hawk. Rallying is hard when you’re half stoned, and you got no pants on, but Milo was trying.

“There are armed men in rooms on either side of us,” Milo said. “If you were to fire that revolver, they would rush in here and kill you.”

Hawk smiled.

“You think?” he said.

Milo turned his head and stared at Amir.

“What is this about tenure and a person getting thrown from a window?”

“It’s not anything, Milo.”

“What are you doing to me, you degenerate ca

“Who are you calling degenerate?” Amir said. “I’m everything you hate and you can’t stop fucking me.”

Milo slapped him across the face. Amir laughed at him.

“Talk about degenerate,” he said.

It came all at once. Gestalt. The whole thing. For the first time since Hawk had come in with Robinson Nevins in the spring, I knew what was going on. It was a feeling I wasn’t used to.

“Prentice knew about you and Milo,” I said to Amir.

Amir’s face seemed to freeze.

“You got a lot of perks out of being a militant black man, just like you got a lot of perks out of being a militant gay activist.”