“Amir Abdullah,” I said.

“You mean do I think he killed him?”

He had a lot of trouble moving his mouth from I to think.

“You could put it that way,” I said.

“I… I… I don’t…” As he stumbled over his answer, Walt got one of those crafty looks that drunks get when they have this great insight, which in the morning will embarrass them.

“I bet he did,” Walt said. “I bet he did an‘ I bet Willie help’ him.”

“Why?”

“‘Cause he a sonfabish,” Walt said. “They both sonfabish.”

He pushed the nearly empty martini glass away from him and folded his arms on the bar and put his head down on them and mumbled “sonfabish” a couple of times and was quiet.

“Any evidence other than him being a son of a bitch?” I said.

I waited. Walt didn’t move. The bartender ambled down the bar. Walt started to snore.

“Walt a friend of yours?” the bartender said.

“No,” I said.

“Okay. He’s a regular. Bar’s almost empty. Let him sleep it off a little. When he wakes up I’ll send him home in a cab.”

“Good,” I said.

“He’s got a forty-three-dollar tab here,” the bartender said. “Including your beer.”

I put a hundred-dollar bill on the bar.

“My treat,” I said. “Take his cab fare out of that too.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem,” I said.

As I was leaving I contemplated the, albeit illusory, sense of power one achieved by slapping a C note on a bar. Maybe I should start carrying several. More important, maybe I should start earning several. At the moment I was doing two pro bonos, one for Susan, one for Hawk. I wondered if it was too late to cut myself in on OUTrageous. Maybe I could earn a bonus by telling everyone everything about everybody.

It was raining again, but I was dressed for it, and the walk back up to my office wasn’t very far, and I liked to walk in the rain. So I strolled the block down Tremont and turned up East Berkeley with my hands in my pockets and my collar up, while the rain came down gently. I thought about what I knew. I knew a lot, but nothing that solved my problem with Robinson Nevins. It was clearly time to talk with Amir Abdullah again. He almost certainly was a son of a bitch, but he didn’t look like someone who could have forced open that jammed window and thrown anyone through it. On the other hand, he might know someone who could.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Hawk and I were parked on Commonwealth Avenue outside the former Hotel Vendome, now a condominium complex. We had decided to conduct our discussions with Abdullah in a different venue, the first discussion having been a little brisk.

“Lives on the fourth floor front,” Hawk said.

“Learned anything else about him?” I said.

“Stops by the packie on Boylston, couple times a week, and buys two, three bottles of wine,” Hawk said. “Usually before Willie comes calling.”

“Anybody else come calling?”

“Almost every day,” Hawk said. “Young men. Any race. Look like students. Most of them are one time only.”

“You think he’s tutoring them in the formulaic verse of the North African Berbers?”

“Be my guess,” Hawk said, “that they exchanging BJ’s.”

“Yeah,” I said, “that’s another possibility.”

“He went away last weekend.”

“Where?”

“Took a cab to Logan to one of those private airways service areas, walked out onto the runway, got in a Learjet and…”

Hawk made a zoom-away gesture with his hand.

“Came home Monday morning, went to class.”

“Private jet?”

“Yep.”

“You have any idea where?”

“Nobody I asked knew,” Hawk said. “Plane was a Hawker-Sibley, left at two thirty-five last Friday from in front of the Baxter Airways building. Some numbers printed on the tail.”

Hawk handed me a slip of paper.

“Somebody has to know,” I said. “They have to file a flight plan.”

“You know who to ask?” Hawk said.

“Not right off the top of my head.”

“My problem exactly,” Hawk said. “I bet Amir will know.”

“Of course,” I said. “Let’s ask him.”

“He’s teaching a late seminar,” Hawk said. “Doesn’t get home until about seven.”

“Good,” I said. “Give us time to break into his apartment.”

“You think he might not let us in if we knocked nice and said howdy doo Mr. Abdullah?” Hawk said.

“I hate your Uncle Remus impression,” I said.

“Everybody do,” Hawk said happily.

We left the car in a no parking zone and walked across to the Vendome. Hawk said hello to the good-looking black woman at the security desk and pointed at the elevator. She smiled and nodded us toward it.

“Isn’t she supposed to call ahead and announce us,” I said.

“Un huh,” Hawk said.

“Been busy,” I said.

“Never no strangers,” Hawk said, “only friends you haven’t met.”

“That’s so true,” I said, and pushed the call button for the elevator.

“You know,” Hawk said as we were waiting for the elevator, “I suppose Amir got the right to go off on a weekend without us coming in asking him where and why.”

“Absolutely,” I said.

“But we going to ask him anyway.”

“Absolutely,” I said.

“‘Cause we don’t have anything else to ask,” Hawk said.

“Exactly,” I said and got into the elevator.

Hawk got in with me and pushed the button for the second floor.

“You ever think of getting into a line of work where you knew what you was doing?” Hawk said.

“Why should I be the one,” I said.

“No reason,” Hawk said. “Just a thought.”

The elevator stopped. We got out. Hawk pointed left and we walked down the corridor to the end door. I knocked, just to be sure. No one answered. I bent over to study the lock.

“You want to kick it in?” Hawk said.

“Looks like a pretty good dead bolt,” I said. “We’ll raise a fair ruckus kicking it in.”

“Might as well use a key then,” Hawk said.

I looked up at him. He looked like he might spit out a canary feather.

“The Nubian goddess at the desk?” I said.

“Un huh.”

“You sure you been keeping an eye on Amir all this time?” I said.

“She got a little closed-circuit TV can watch the lobby from her bedroom,” Hawk said. “While he in his apartment teaching young men about them formulaic Berbers, I doing a little lesson plan with Simone.”

Hawk unlocked Amir’s door. We went in. The dark room was close, heavy with the smell of men’s cologne mingling with something that might have been incense. I flipped the light switch beside the door. The room was done in tones of brown and vermilion. There was a six-foot African ceremonial mask on the far wall facing us between the seven-foot windows. A squat fertility goddess from Africa’s bronze age stood solidly on the coffee table in front of the beige sectional sofa, and a large painting of Shaka Zulu on the wall opposite the sofa. The rugs were thick. The windows along the front were heavily draped. To our left off the living room was a dining area, with a glass-topped table ornamented with two thick candlesticks in tall ebony holders that had been carved to resemble vines. A kitchen L’d off the dining area. The bedroom and bath were to our right. The bed was canopied. On the night table was a small brass contraption for burning incense. On the bureau was a framed photograph of a stern thin-faced black woman with her hair pulled tightly back and her dress buttoned up to the neck.

“Amir got some style,” Hawk said.

“Incense is a nice touch,” I said.

I sat on the couch. Hawk went over and turned the lights back off.

“Don’t want Amir to spot it from the street,” Hawk said. “Want him to walk right in and close the door behind him.”

He came over, walking carefully while his eyes grew accustomed to the dark, and sat beside me. He put his feet up on the coffee table.

“What’s happening with the woman got raped?” he said.