“Yes,” I said.

“Will you be involved, Hawk?”

Hawk turned from the window and grinned at Nevins.

“Sure,” he said. “I’ll help him with the hard stuff.”

Nevins put out his hand. “I appreciate your taking this,” he said, “for whomever you’re doing the favor.”

I shook it.

“You need a ride anyplace?” he said to Hawk.

Hawk shook his head. Nevins nodded as if to confirm something in his head, and turned and left. Hawk continued to look out the window. The ball game had moved quietly into the eighth inning. Outside my window it was mostly rain now. Hawk turned away from the window and looked at me without expression.

“Tenure?” I said.

Hawk smiled.

“‘Fraid so,” he said.

CHAPTER TWO

Susan periodically undertook to make my office more homelike, and one of her most successful attempts was the relatively recent introduction of a coffeemaker, coffee canisters, and some color-coordinated mugs. Milk for the coffee then required a small refrigerator, in which I could also keep beer in case of an emergency. The refrigerator, of course, matched the mugs and the canisters and the sugar bowl and milk pitcher. The coffee filters and flatware were in a little drawer in the cabinet that I had built under her direction to hold the refrigerator. Hawk always smiled when he looked at it. Which he was doing now as he made us some coffee.

“Surprised Susan don’t have you color-coordinating your ammunition,” Hawk said.

“Well, she does sort of like the.357,” I said, “because she likes how the lead nose of the bullets contrasts with the stainless steel cylinder.”

“Tasteful in small things,” Hawk said, “tasteful in all things.”

He poured a pot full of water into the coffeemaker and turned the machine on.

“Tell me about Robinson Nevins,” I said.

“Father is Bobby Nevins,” Hawk said.

“The trainer?”

“Un huh.”

Hawk and I both watched the small trickle of coffee that Mr. Coffee was generating very slowly into the pot.

“A watched pot never brews,” I said.

“Yeah it will,” Hawk said.

“You know Bobby Nevins?” I said.

“Yeah.”

“He ever train you?”

“Some,” he said.

“That how you know the kid?”

“Un huh.”

The pot had filled slowly.

“Tole you it would brew,” Hawk said.

“Jeez,” I said. “I was sure I was right.”

Hawk took it from the machine and poured us two cups of coffee.

“You are a domestic fool,” I said when Hawk handed me a cup.

“Ancestors were house slaves,” Hawk said. “It’s in the genes.”

“So how well you know Robinson Nevins?” I said.

“Bobby come closer to bringing me up,” Hawk said, “than anyone else.”

“So you’ve known Robinson all your life.”

“Yes.”

“Well?”

“No, not so much. He was around some.”

“But he came to you when he got in trouble,” I said.

Hawk shook his head.

“Bobby did,” Hawk said.

“He’s still alive?”

“Yeah. Eighty-two now, still healthy, still hangs out at the gym looking for young fighters.”

“So Robinson was born to him late.”

“Yes, only kid. Got divorced when Robinson was pretty small. Wasn’t a good divorce. Don’t know where Robinson’s mother is now.”

“Kid close to his father?”

“Bobby loves that kid,” Hawk said. “Kid grew up mostly with his mother. But Bobby paid the bills and saw the kid when he could and when the kid got to be a professor Bobby was walking around talking like the kid had just become heavyweight champ. You know, I don’t know if Bobby ever even went to school. I’m not sure how much Bobby can read.”

“How about Robinson. He close to Bobby?”

“I think he’s a little embarrassed by his father,” Hawk said. “He’s close to his mamma and his mamma never had much good to say about Bobby.”

I nodded.

“What do you know about his problems?” I said.

“Just what he told you.”

“What do you think?”

“‘Bout the tenure or the suicide or what?”

“Any of the above,” I said.

“Don’t know shit about tenure,” Hawk said. “Kid who died, Prentice Lamont, was a very gay guy. I pretty sure Robinson knew him. Don’t know if Robinson is gay or not.”

“How gay?” I said.

“Activist. Ran a little flier service that outed people.”

“How nice,” I said. “What’s the rumor about him and Robinson?”

“That they had a big affair and Robinson broke it off and the kid killed himself.”

“Love unrequited?”

“That’s the rumor,” Hawk said.

“Bobby Nevins know this rumor?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s he say?”

“He says fix it,” Hawk said. “He wants the kid to get his tenure.”

“Bobby got any money?”

Hawk shook his head. He was holding the coffee mug in both hands, his hips resting against the color-coordinated countertop, the steam from the coffee rising faintly in front of his face.

“So we’re in this for the donut,” I said.

Hawk nodded and smiled. When he smiled he looked like a large black Mona Lisa, if Mona had shaved her head… and had a nineteen-inch bicep… and a 29-inch waist… and very little conscience.

“How’s that work, exactly,” I said. “You take on somebody for no money, and I get to share in the profits?”

“You the detective,” Hawk said.

“True.”

“Whereas,” Hawk said, “I just a simple thug.”

“Also true.”

“And you my friend.”

“Embarrassing, but true.”

“So.” Hawk spread his hands, holding the coffee cup with his right, in a gesture of voilа. “I try to bring you as much business as I can.”

“Like this thing.”

“Exactly,” Hawk said. “And I going to help you with it.”

“Swell,” I said.

“So what we going to do first?” Hawk said.

“Drink some more coffee,” I said.

Hawk nodded. “Tha’s a good start,” he said. “Then what we going to do, bawse?”

“Get you diction lessons,” I said. “I always know when you are really jerking my chain, because you start sounding like Mantan Moreland.”

“Mantan Moreland?”

“I’m kind of proud of coming up with that one myself,” I said. “Where did the Lamont kid do the deed?”

“Had a condo in the South End,” Hawk said. “Did it there.”

“Okay, that’s Boston Homicide. Which means Quirk and Bel-son.”

“So we talk with them first,” Hawk said.

“I’ll talk with them first,” I said. “They’d arrest you.”

“Bigots,” Hawk said.

CHAPTER THREE

I was in Cambridge with Susan. We were cleaning up the backyard behind the house on Linnaean Street where she lived and worked. Pearl the wonder dog was catching some rays on the top step of the back porch while we worked. Since part of what we were cleaning up was left by Pearl, it seemed only right that she be there.

I had dug a large hole in the recently thawed earth in one corner of the yard and into it I was putting shovelfuls of yard waste which Susan, wearing fingerless leather workout gloves, had raked into a number of small piles. One of the things that made Susan so interesting was the fact that she looked like a Jewish princess and worked like a Bulgarian peasant. As far as I knew she had never been tired. I dumped a shovelful of waste into the hole and shoveled a little dirt over it.

“Reminds me of my profession,” I said.

“Cleaning up after?” Susan said.

“Yeah.”

In addition to her workout gloves, Susan had on black tights, a hip-length yellow jacket, and a black Polo baseball cap. In the spirit of cleanup she had put on designer work boots, black leather with silver eyelets, which looked odd, but good, over the tights.

“It’s a good reminder,” Susan said, “of life’s essential messiness.”

“Or Pearl’s.”

“Same thing,” Susan said.

Pearl raised her head slightly at the mention of her name, and then looked slightly annoyed that it was a false alarm. She sighed noisily as she settled her head back down onto her front paws. The sun was bright, and the earth had thawed, but in the shady corners against the fence and under a couple of evergreen shrubs, granular snow lingered like a dirty secret, and lurking inside the sixty-degree temperature was an edge of cold to remind us that it was too early for planting.