”And will he go out with me?“
”That’s for you and him to work out.“
”Will you?“ Jill leaned toward Hawk as she spoke. The throat of her simple white blouse was open and as she leaned forward there was a clear line of cleavage.
”Sure,“ he said.
”And I, meanwhile, will chase down whoever has been annoying you and urge them to stop,“ I said.
”Can you find him?“
”Sure,“ I said.
”How?“
”You start looking,“ I said. ”And you ask people things, and then that leads you to somebody else and you ask them and they tell you something that hooks you into somebody, and so on.“
”But where on earth will you start?“
She had a little trouble with the separation between earth and will.
”I already have,“ I said. ”I started with your friend Rojack.“
She frowned. She took a drink. She frowned again. ”I told you I don’t know him.“
”Know his name though,“ I said.
” ‘Course I know his name.“
”He says you and he were an item.“
”He’s a creep,“ Jill said.
”Is there anything you’d like to add to that appraisal?“
Hawk sat quietly. Now and then he took a small taste of his scotch. He watched Jill’s behavior happily, as if he’d paid a modest admission fee and felt he’d gotten a bargain.
”I don’t want to talk about him,“ Jill said.
”You think he did it?“ I said.
Jill shook her head angrily.
”I’ll find it out anyway,“ I said. ”Wouldn’t it make sense to tell me what you know, and get it over with quicker?“
”I’m hungry,“ Jill said.
I slid the bowl of smokehouse almonds toward her. She took a handful and ate them silently, then drank some more wine. She had turned away from me as she did so and was eyeing Hawk.
”You married?“ she said. Hawk shook his head. ”Got anybody?“ Jill said.
”Lots,“ Hawk said.
”I mean anybody special,“ Jill said.
”They all special,“ Hawk said.
”You like white girls?“
Hawk looked at me again.
”Tell me ’bout that pay again?“ he said.
”Good. It’s good as hell,“ I said. ”And you get a free watermelon, too.“
Hawk nodded. Jill bored in on him. ”Do you?“
”Not stupid,“ Hawk said. ”Mostly I prefer not stupid.“
”Did Spenser tell you what I’ve been looking for ever since I got to Boston?“ She put an h in Boston.
”A noble black savage,“ Hawk said.
Jill shook her head. She was implacable. She probably didn’t listen to what I said or Hawk said or the byplay between us.
”I want something about this long,“ she said and made her two-foot measuring gesture again.
Hawk examined the distance between her hands seriously, then nodded thoughtfully.
”Could send over my little brother,“ he said.
Chapter 15
HAWK was still nursing his first Laphroig, I was two-thirds through my first Sam Adams, and Jill was just beginning her fifth white wine.
”Before you doze off,“ I said, ”can we talk about Wilfred Pomeroy?“
Jill had no reaction for a moment, then she looked very carefully up from under her lowered gaze and said to me, ”Who?“
”Wilfred Pomeroy. Rojack says he was harassing you and had to be chased away.“
”I don’t know anything about it,“ she said.
”As far as I can tell, Jill, you don’t know anyone and you’ve never done anything. Why would Rojack make up a story about Wilfred Pomeroy?“
”Rojack’s a creep.“
”Who could think up a name like Wilfred Pomeroy?“ I said.
”Who cares about Pomeroy?“ Jill said. ”Why are you bothering me with all these creeps?“
There were two well-groomed young women in tailored suits sitting on the next couch. They both wore very high heels and they both were sipping Gibsons. Everything about them said, We have MBAs.
”This is called detecting,“ I said. ”I’m trying to find out who murdered your stunt double, in the hopes that I can dissuade him, or her, from murdering you.“
Hawk had leaned back in the couch and crossed his feet on the cocktail table. He held the single-malt scotch in both hands and rested it on a point above his solar plexus. He was examining the two MBAs with calm interest, the way one examines a painting. ”Her?“
”Could be a her, couldn’t it?“
”Why would any woman want to kill me? I don’t even know any women.“
”You know Wilfred Pomeroy?“
”No.“
One of the MBAs had become aware of Hawk’s gaze. She kept looking back at him in covert ways: pretending to glance out the window, casually surveying the room. She murmured something to her friend, who leaned forward to put her drink down and peeked at Hawk from under her bangs. Hawk continued to examine them without any reaction to their behavior.
”And Rojack’s lying?“ I said.
”Yes,“ Jill said. She had some wine.
”But you have no idea why he would tell lies like this?“
”No.“
I leaned back and rested my head against the back of the couch and drummed my fingers lightly on the tops of my thighs. Jill had some wine.
Hawk said, ”Hard to imagine why anyone want to harass her, isn’t it?“
I rolled my head a little to the left so I could look at Hawk.
”Hard,“ I said.
”Susan met her?“ Hawk said.
”Yes.“
”She has motive,“ I said.
Jill was savoring her wine. She seemed capable of not hearing any conversation she didn’t want to hear.
”Are you a detective too?“ she said to Hawk. Hawk’s smile was radiant. He shook his head. ”Well, what do you do?“
”Mostly what I feel like,“ Hawk said.
”But, I mean, do you protect people all the time?“ Again the big smile from Hawk.
”Nope,“ he said. ”Sometimes I’m on the other side.“
Jill looked at me. I shrugged.
”I didn’t say he was nice. I said he was good.“
”I don’t think either one of you is very nice,“ Jill said. Her voice was very small and girlish.
”Maybe,“ Hawk said to me, ”we should can this job and protect those two.“
He nodded at the MBAs. Jill looked at them.
”I could show you some things that those two tight asses don’t know between them.“
”Good to know,“ Hawk said.
Chapter 16
IN the morning I headed west on the Mass. Pike I with the sun gleaming off the new snow and the temperature in the low thirties. I felt good. I’d looked up Waymark on the map and it was there. It was as close as I’d gotten to a clue in this whole deal. For the first time since I’d met Jill Joyce, I knew where I was going.
Waymark was in the Berkshire Hills, maybe two hours and twenty minutes west of Boston. There was a high gloss of rustic chic in the Berkshires, Tanglewood, Stockbridge, Williamstown Theater Festival; and there were enclaves of rural poverty where the official town mascot was probably a rat. Waymark was one of those. Driving into the east end of town after a long winding climb out of the valley, I saw a small house with a porch sagging across the length of the front and a discarded toilet bowl with a ratty Christmas tree stuck in it. In the next lot was a trailer, set on cinder blocks, its front yard fenced with bald tires, wet in the ground to form a series of half-circles, black against the snow. Two brown cows, their ribs showing, stood silently at a wire fence and gazed at me as I rolled by, and in a yard next to a convenience store a milk goat was tethered to the wheel of a broken tractor.
Beside the convcnicnce store, which advertised Orange Crush on an old-time sign that rose vertically beside the door, was a tall narrow two-story house with roofing shingles for siding. The shingles were a I:ulcd mustard color. Like a lot of the houses out here, it had a full veranda across the front. The veranda roof sagged in the middle enough so that th snow melt dripped off in the middle and puddled in front of the broken front step. There was a sign don in black house paint on a piece of one-by-ten pin board. TUNNYS GRILL it said. In front, on what onc might have been a lawn, a couple of cars were parked nose in. I pulled in beside them. The space hadn’t been cleared, merely rutted down by cars parkin and backing out. I could see where some of them ha gotten stuck and spun big hollows with their rea wheels. The dark earth below had been spun up ont the snow, mixing with exhaust soot and litter. nosed in beside a vintage 1970 Buick and parked an got out. From Tunnys Grill came the odor of winter vegetables cooking-cabbage maybe, or turnips. I walked across the buckling wooden porch and in through a hollow-core luan door that was probably intended to go on the closet in a housing develolment ranch. It was not meant to be an outside door and the veneer was blistering and the color had fade to a pale gray brown. When I pushed it open the coarse smell of cooking was more aggressive.