“She’s staying with her mother in Providence.”

“She getting any help?”

“Susan referred her to a rape crisis counselor, down there,” I said.

“She going?” Hawk said.

“I don’t know. Her ex-husband said he’d pay for it.”

“He likely to end up with her back in his lap,” Hawk said.

“I don’t think so. I think he’s pretty clear about her.”

Hawk was quiet for a time.

“‘Course there’s always your lap,” he said.

“Not if I keep moving,” I said.

“We got a plan what we do when Amir shows up?”

“We’ll ask him a bunch of questions,” I said.

“And when he lies to us?”

“We ask him some other questions.”

“When do I get to hang him out the window by his ankles?” Hawk said.

“We can always hang him out the window,” I said. “Trouble is then he’ll say anything he thinks we want to hear, and we may learn as much stuff that’s not true as we will stuff that is.”

“You just too soft-hearted,” Hawk said.

“Softer than you,” I said.

“Probably both happy ‘bout that,” Hawk said.

“This visit we try it the easy way,” I said.

“Might stir the pot a little,” Hawk said. “Might make him do something that we can catch him at.”

“Might,” I said.

There was the sound of a key in the door. We were both on our feet. Silently on the thick carpet I stepped into the kitchen, Hawk went into the bedroom. The bolt turned. The door opened. The lights went on. The door shut. I could hear him put the chain bolt on. I stepped out of the kitchen and stood in front of Amir. There was an Asian boy, Japanese was my guess, maybe eighteen years old, with Amir. The moment he saw me Amir spun toward the door. Hawk had stepped out of the bedroom between Amir and the door. Amir turned again and tried for the phone beside the sectional sofa. I stepped between him and it. Amir stopped and looked toward the bedroom. Not a chance. Same with the kitchen. He had nowhere to go. He stood frozen between us. Behind him Hawk took the bolt off, and opened the door slightly.

“You go home,” he said to the Asian kid.

The kid looked at Amir. Amir had no reaction. He was stiff with panic.

“Now,” Hawk said.

The kid turned and Hawk opened the door enough and the kid went out. Hawk closed the door and put the chain back on.

“Sit down,” I said to Amir. “We need to talk.”

“Don’t hurt me,” he said.

Amir’s voice was shrill and thin-sounding, as if it was being squeezed out through a small opening.

“No need for hurting,” I said. “Just sit down and talk with us.”

“The boy saw you here, he’ll tell the police,” Amir said.

Hawk stepped up behind Amir, put his hands on Amir’s shoulders, and steered him to the couch and sat him down.

“Stay,” he said.

Amir stayed. Hawk sat on the couch beside him. I sat on a hassock across from them, and rested my elbows on my knees and clasped my hands.

“Now, here’s what we know about you. We know it was you who informed the English department tenure committee that Robinson Nevins was sort of responsible for the death of graduate student Prentice Lamont.”

Hawk said, “Be quiet, Amir.”

“We know that you yourself were having a sexual relationship with Prentice Lamont before his death.”

Amir opened his mouth, looked at Hawk, closed his mouth.

“We know that Prentice was blackmailing gay people who didn’t want to be outed, and we know that you knew about that.”

Amir sat with his mouth clamped shut, trying to look intrepid, determined to make a virtue of necessity.

“What else do we know?” I said to Hawk.

“We know you a chicken fucker, Amir,” Hawk said.

Amir tried to look haughty. He was, after all, a professor.

“I don’t even know what that means,” he said.

“Sure you do,” Hawk said. “Means you’d fuck a young snake if it was male and you could get it to hold still.”

Hawk’s expression was, as always, somewhere between pleasant and noncommittal. Amir’s expression failed at haughty. It was more a kind of compacting silence, as if he was becoming less, dwindling as he listened, freezing in upon himself.

“We know you advised the current staff of OUTrageous, namely Walt and Willie, that they should continue the blackmail,” I said. “We know you declined to be a financial part of it because you said you didn’t need the money. We know you are currently having an affair with Willie, which is causing Walt to refer to you as a son of a bitch.”

“And,” Hawk said, “we know you went away this weekend in a private plane.”

“And here’s what we don’t know,” I said. “We don’t know if you made up the story about Nevins, or if it’s true. We don’t know why you told the committee about it in either case. We don’t know why you condoned the blackmail. We don’t know why you didn’t then take any money from it. We don’t know why you claim not to need money. We don’t know where you went this weekend. We don’t know if you are responsible for Prentice Lamont being dead.”

The silence in the thick sweet stench of the living room was palpable.

Hawk said very softly, “We’d like to know.”

“I didn’t do a thing to Prentice,” Amir said.

“Know who did?”

“Prentice killed himself.”

“No,” I said. “He didn’t. Do you know who did?”

“Prentice killed himself,” Amir said again.

“Who’d you go to see this weekend?”

“I didn’t go anywhere,” Amir said.

“You took a private jet out of Baxter Airways at two thirty-five last Friday.”

“I didn’t.”

“We can run that down,” I said. “You think people who are gay and don’t want the world to know should be announced?”

“There’s nothing shameful about being gay.”

“I agree. But my question stands.”

“Every gay person who announces himself proudly to the world is another step toward full recognition of our sexual validity.”

We were beginning to discuss abstractions, and Amir was on firmer ground. His voice was less squeaky.

“Unless they pay off,” I said.

“I think of it as a fine for noncompliance,” Amir said.

“But you wouldn’t take any of the money.”

“I do very nicely thank you on my salary and my lecture tours and my writing.”

“You have an affair with Prentice Lamont?”

“Prentice and I were lovers. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“While he was in love with Robinson Nevins or before?”

Amir hesitated. He could sense a pitfall in the question.

“While,” he said.

Wrong answer.

“So he was willing to cheat on Nevins but when Nevins left him he was so heartbroken that he killed himself?”

“You don’t understand the gay life,” Amir said.

“Why do you think Prentice killed himself?”

“Everyone thinks so,” Amir said.

“And why did you tell the tenure committee?”

“I felt honor bound to do so.”

“Honor bound,” Hawk said.

Amir looked at Hawk sort of sideways trying to seem as if he weren’t looking at him.

“I know you from before,” he said.

“Sure, we come to your office, couple weeks back,” Hawk said. “Boogied with some of your supporters.”

“No, I mean a long time ago. I know you from a long time ago.”

Hawk didn’t say anything. His face showed nothing. But something must have stirred in his eyes, because Amir flinched backward as if he’d been jabbed.

I let the silence stretch for a while, but nothing came out of it. Amir was rigidly not looking at Hawk.

“Amir,” I said. “I don’t believe a goddamned thing you’ve said.”

Amir stared straight ahead. I nodded at Hawk. We stood and went to the door. I took off the chain bolt. We opened it and went out. Before he closed it Hawk looked for a time at Amir. Then he closed the door softly.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

I was with Robinson Nevins at the university in the faculty cafeteria, drinking coffee. I was currently experimenting with half decaf and half real coffee. Not bad.