Cold Service - By Robert B. Parker Page 0,8

you ask?"

"No."

Susan smiled and shook her head.

"Amazing," she said.

"What?"

I peeled two Granny Smith apples and cored them and sliced the remains into my stuffing.

"He has risked his life for you and you for him."

I turned on the water faucet and began to peel onions in the stream of descending water so they wouldn't make me cry. I didn't want Susan thinking I was a sissy.

"And," Susan said, "you are planning to risk it again."

"Prudently," I said.

"And you don't even ask him what his plans are for Thanksgiving, or if he's spending it with anyone."

I had the first onion peeled. Pearl padded back in from the living room and sat near Susan and looked hopeful. I put the onion on the cutting board and turned and leaned against the kitchen counter and looked at Susan.

"I was walking along the river with Hawk, couple of weeks ago," I said. "And he remarked that life in prison had no connection with how people live anywhere else."

"He's probably right," Susan said.

"He's nearly always right," I said. "Not because he knows everything. But because he never talks about things he doesn't know."

"Not a bad idea," Susan said.

"No," I said. "Quite a good one."

"But what's that got to do with not knowing what he was doing for Thanksgiving?"

"I digressed," I said. "And it misled you. Go back to the thing he said about prison."

Susan poured herself half a cup of coffee and emptied in a packet of fake sugar.

"Analogy," Susan said. "Hawk's world is not like anyone else's."

I nodded.

"So asking Hawk about Thanksgiving is like asking a fish about a bicycle," Susan said.

"Or asking him about Cecile."

"Does Cecile matter to him?"

"Yes," I said.

"But?"

"But not the way you and I do."

"Who does?" Susan said.

"Good point," I said.

"Do you understand him?"

"Up to a point," I said.

"And then?"

"Hawk's black. He's been outnumbered all his life. I don't know, and probably can't know, quite what that's like."

"Or what it took for him to become Hawk," Susan said.

"And to keep being Hawk," I said. "He didn't choose a Hawk that's easy to maintain."

"But if he doesn't maintain," Susan said, "he'll disappear."

"He'd laugh at you for saying that."

"Yes," Susan said. "But it doesn't mean it's not true."

"Besides," I said. "You have a doctorate from Harvard and you live in Cambridge."

"So I'm used to being laughed at," Susan said.

10

THE WEEK AFTER Christmas, Hawk and I were at the Harbor Health Club. Hawk had been doing twenty-pound curls and hundred-pound bench presses. And resting a lot between sets. Now he was on the bicycle, with the resistance set low and the sweat running down his face. "After the Gray Man shot you," Hawk said, "how long before you was a hundred percent?"

"A year," I said.

Hawk nodded. Henry Cimoli came over with a bottle of water and gave it to him.

"Thin and flabby at the same time," Henry said. "Reminds me of my first wife."

Henry walked over to me. His small body bulged out of his white T-shirt.

"I could probably kick his ass now," Henry said. "Be my chance."

I nodded.

"Be wise to kill him if you do," I said.

"I know," Henry said. "Eventually he'll get better."

Hawk kept pedaling.

"You so little," Hawk said, "you be punching me in the knee."

"You're so scrawny," Henry said, "that would probably drop you."

Hawk was struggling to keep his breathing normal.

"You… ever knock… anybody down… when you… fighting?" Hawk said.

"I knocked Willie Pep down once," Henry said.

"He stay down?" Hawk said.

"Not for long," Henry said. "It was the last punch I landed."

Hawk got off the bike and sat on a bench, taking in air.

"Doctor say you okay to work out?" Henry said.

Hawk nodded.

"He say do anything I can."

"Which ain't much," Henry said.

"Yet," Hawk said.

Henry nodded.

"Yet," he said.

Henry went away. I finished my set and sat down beside Hawk.

"I have been collecting data," I said.

Hawk wiped his face with a hand towel and nodded.

"I have addresses for our four Ukrainians and for the two lawyers we know about."

"Talk to any of them?"

"No."

"Good," Hawk said.

"We could, though, if you want to," I said.

"Ain't ready yet," Hawk said.

"I could sort of protect you," I said. "Unless you annoyed me."

Hawk shook his head.

"Got to wait," Hawk said.

"I could ask Vinnie to join us," I said.

"Can't have no one protecting me," Hawk said.

I spent a little time thinking about that.

Then I said, "No, you can't."

11

IN MID-MARCH I was sitting in my office, invoicing clients. It was tedious, but it reminded me of why I did what I did. Outside my window the sun was shining. It