The hotel bill was mounting, always a cause of some discomfort. But we were on an open-ended job for which no one was at the moment paying me. So that night we ate in the same coffee shop on Madison where I'd had a tongue sandwich with Corsetti.

"How long we going to do this?" Hawk said.

"Eat in Viand's coffee shop?" I said.

"Hang around outside Farnsworth's apartment learning nothing."

"Didn't you learn patience," I said, "from your African ancestors?"

"If they was good with boredom," Hawk said, "they wouldn'ta been hunting lions."

"There's that," I said.

"Can't you think of nothing else to do?"

"No."

"But you too stubborn to quit."

"There's an answer," I said. "And Farnsworth has it."

"You want me to ask him the question?" Hawk said. "I could ask him kinda firm."

"I don't even know what question to ask," I said. "There's something going on that involves April, and Farnsworth, and Patricia Utley, and the late great Ollie DeMars, and I don't know what it is."

"We could ask him that," Hawk said.

"And if he doesn't answer and you can't scare him into answering, we're nowhere, and he's been warned."

"I could hit him until he told us," Hawk said.

"Which he'd do quick. You wouldn't have to hit him much, would be my guess. But how would we know if it was true? Everybody I've talked to has lied about everything I've asked them. I don't want any stories. I want facts."

"Facts?"

"Observable phenomena," I said.

Hawk was having a hot turkey sandwich. He ate some. "They make a nice hot turkey sandwich here," he said.

"Brisket's nice, too," I said.

"I could kill him," Hawk said.

I shook my head.

"Might not answer the questions," Hawk said. "But maybe the questions go away."

"No. I'm going to find out what's going on with April."

"Just a thought," Hawk said.

52

We had been five days in New York. I was sick of room service, sick of eating out, sick of not being home. I missed Susan. I missed Pearl. I missed looking out my office window. I missed Susan. I missed Chet Curtis. I missed Mike Barnicle. I missed Boylston Street, and the Charles River, and the Common, and the Globe, and the Harbor Health Club. I missed Susan. I missed spring training speculation, and commercials for Jordan's furniture, and Duck Tours, and the Ritz Bar, and Susan. But, on the other hand, New York, so far, was a perfect waste of time.

"How long will you hang in there," Susan asked me on the phone.

"Until I can think of something better."

"You could come home and watch April," Susan said.

"Lionel's the mover and shaker," I said. "He's up to something, and sooner or later he has to do something I can get hold of."

"A parking ticket, perhaps?"

"Don't be a smart ass," I said.

"I can't help myself," Susan said. "Any more than you can."

"I could help myself," I said. "If I wanted."

We spent a few more minutes on the phone in adolescent sex talk. When we hung up, I went to the hotel window and looked down at Madison Avenue. Had April wanted Leonard to kill Ollie? If so, why hadn't she gone to Tony when Leonard suggested it? Or maybe she didn't need to because someone else had done it. Or maybe she had someone else in mind and it wasn't time yet. Or maybe Tony was lying, or Leonard, or April. Or all of them in concert.

I made myself a drink and stood sipping it at the window. It seemed that April and Lionel had, at least at one time, been engaged in trying to establish a chain of upscale bordellos, the first few of which at least they were hoping to steal from Patricia Utley. They seemed to have fallen out, but maybe they hadn't. April seemed to not only want Dreamgirl to happen, she needed it. She seemed positively obsessed with it. I was pretty sure she couldn't go it alone. She didn't seem to like men much, but she did seem to need at least one to depend on. Maybe at first it was Lionel. Then maybe Ollie. Then maybe me. Which would explain her making a pass at me. If she needed a man, sex was what she used. It was why she didn't warm to Tedy Sapp. On him, sex was useless.

I drank a small, pleasant swallow of my drink. There was a lot of ice in the glass. The drink tasted clean.

Sex hadn't worked with me, either. Now who? Back to Lionel? Maybe that was the real thrust of her talk with Leonard. Would you kill someone for me. Maybe it was a test. If he said he'd kill someone for her, maybe he could be the man who helped her. Referring her to Tony meant he probably hadn't passed the test. Or maybe he had passed the test and was covering himself with Tony. There was a lot I didn't know. But working with what I did know, Lionel still seemed the logical choice to be re-anointed. Which was too bad. Lionel wouldn't take care of April. To him she'd be prey.

53

It was raining in New York. I was getting wet near the park, across the street from Lionel's building. Hawk was double-parked up the street. I wasn't getting too wet. I had on my Red Sox 2004 World Series Championship hat and my cognac-colored leather jacket. The hat kept my head dry, and the jacket kept my gun dry. The rest was wet. Water trickled down my neck no matter how carefully I adjusted my collar. The jeans and sneakers were soaked through.

At maybe 10:30 in the morning a silvery Porsche Boxster stopped in front of Lionel's building and April Kyle got out wearing boots and a bright red coat and carrying a small red umbrella. She gave the car keys to the doorman and ran into the building. The doorman scooted the car around the corner and came back in a few minutes, having parked it somewhere.

I wished I had a faithful assistant to whom I could say, "The game's afoot" or "Oh ho!" I could cross the street and say it to Hawk, but I knew he'd find it annoying. So I settled for giving myself a small nod of approval. Which made more rain leak past my collar in back.

I knew Hawk saw her. He always saw everything. If she came out and got her car, or got in a cab, he'd follow. If she came out and walked, I'd follow and Hawk would idle along behind, ignoring the occasional angry taxi. Nothing happened for maybe three hours, except the rain. Then April came out of the building with Lionel. They stood in the shelter of the doorway while the doorman hailed them a cab. A rainy day in Manhattan is not good for cab hailing. Even for professionals. When the doorman finally succeeded, he went back, held a large golf umbrella for Lionel and April, and escorted them to the cab. The umbrella shielded their view, and as they walked to the cab I ran across the street and jumped into the rental car with Hawk as the doorman closed the cab door and slapped his hand on the taxi's roof.

I couldn't help myself.

"The game's afoot," I said.

Hawk shook his head.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" He said.