I was in my office with the windows open and my feet on the desk, watching the secretaries high-heeling it across Berkeley and Boylston. It was short-skirt weather, and I was entertaining myself between cases. It's great not having a job, if you ain't hungry, as someone once said. Problem was I was hungry. I was thinking about heading home when I saw Hawk coming effortlessly down the crowded sidewalk. He seemed to push a bubble of air ahead of him that cleared his path. More than one of the secretaries turned to watch him pass. He was wearing a linen suit, purple t-shirt and ostrich cowboy boots. The afternoon sun gleamed off his shaved, black skull. He was carrying a brown paper bag. I hoped for donuts, but would have settled for filet mignon.
Hawk came into the office without knocking and set a bottle of Iron Horse champagne on the desk. Hawk drank champagne the way other people drank bottled water, but I had never seen it affect him. I had never seen anything affect him.
"Spen-sah," he said.
"Are we celebrating?"
"We are," he said.
"The return of Big Band Swing?"
"Ducats, Babe. Two court side at the Garden."
"Who did you have to kill to get those?"
"Nobody be missed," he said.
"Now?" I said.
"Unless you rather be sitting here waiting for a crime to rear its ugly head."
"My place first. I need to change clothes. I'll make you a sandwich."
"Deal. Garden Hot Dogs not what they used to be."
"If they ever were."
Hawk was still wearing his Oakleys when we came into my apartment. I had just dropped my keys on the counter when Susan Silverman came in from the bedroom. She had two wine glasses crossed between the fingers of her left hand and a bottle of wine in her right. She was wearing a garter belt and black stockings. And nothing else. She was gloriously, magnificently naked. The sight of her hit me the way it always does. It took me a second to even remember that Hawk was there. I waited for her to squeal and run back into the bedroom. She did neither. She crossed her arms over her heavy, low-slung breasts.
"Hello, Hawk."
"Susan."
He had a way of saying her name that sounded like Barry White reciting Shakespeare. Otherwise he did not show any reaction. Hawk rarely showed reaction to anything. But I didn't need to be a master sleuth to see the tent he was pitching in his thin trousers. It could have housed the Ringling Brothers. Though Hawk had known Susan almost as long as I had, I doubt he had even seen her in her bathing suit, never mind this. She looked at him for a long moment, got a little smirk to the side of her full mouth and said, "I had better get another glass." She turned and headed for the cabinet. Hawk turned to me.
"Should I be leaving?" he said.
"I believe Susan would be disappointed if you did."