Again the downcast eyes. Her mouth pouting like a sad child, albeit a cute one, she traced a small circle on her kneecap with the forefinger of her right hand.

“No.”

“Why not?”

She began to cry. I waited, letting the question hang. She placed both her hands over her face, being careful of her makeup, and cried some more. I was pretty sure I was supposed to go and sit on the couch and put my arm around her, in which case she would turn in and bury her head on my shoulder and weep as if her heart would break. I stayed where I was. Finally after waiting as long as was decorous she stopped crying and lowered her hands, and raised her head so she could look searchingly into my eyes.

“Men are such babies,” she said.

“Maybe not all of them,” I said.

“You’re not, are you?”

“Except when I don’t get my way,” I said. “How come you and the BF are not still an item?”

“Somehow, I know this sounds… something… anyway, somehow when we were both married and sleeping with each other it was, like even. But then I was divorced and he was the only one that was cheating. He couldn’t stand it.”

It did in fact sound… something.

“Sure,” I said. “What is his name?”

“Oh, I can’t give you his name,” she said.

“You can if you wish me to work for you.”

“Aren’t you already hired, I mean, I’ve told you all this stuff.”

“KC, the surest way to prevent the stalker involves knowing who he is. Probably is your ex-husband; but it might be your ex-boyfriend, it might be somebody else. If I’m going to do what you are trying to hire me to do, I will do it better and quicker if you tell me what I ask.”

She bit her lower lip gently and, with her hands laced over her knees, rocked slightly on the couch.

Finally she said, “Louis.”

“That’s a start,” I said.

More lower-lip biting until finally she said, quite tragically, I thought, “Vincent.”

“Louis Vincent,” I said.

Her voice softened almost reverentially. “Yes.”

“And where does he live?”

“Hingham.”

“Does he have a place of business?”

“Why?”

“Doesn’t seem discreet to approach him at home,” I said.

“Oh God, you can’t approach him. He’d never forgive me.”

“He’ll never know I got it from you,” I said.

Again a long and fully acted out period of silent pondering.

“He’s a stockbroker,” she said. “Hall, Peary.”

“Fifty-three State,” I said.

She nodded. I had made her thoroughly miserable.

“Would you feel safer if I had someone outside your house until I, ah, crack the case?”

“I went down to the police department,” she said. “The sergeant was so nice, really lovely to me.”

“I’ll bet he was.”

“He says they’ll keep an eye on my apartment.”

“Have you notified the phone company?”

“No.”

She seemed startled, either that she hadn’t thought of it, or that I had.

“You should probably do that,” I said.

“He never says anything when he calls.”

“Most people don’t,” I said.

If she thought I was amusing she didn’t let on.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Hawk and I went to call on Amir Abdullah in his offices at the African-American Center at the university. A couple of hard-looking young guys in black suits and white shirts let us in. They eyed me like I was a case of the clap.

“Teaching fellows?” I said to Hawk.

Hawk smiled and let his stare rest on the two men.

“Dr. Abdullah,” I said. “He’s expecting me.”

They looked at me some more and at Hawk, who smiled at them engagingly.

Then one of them said, “Down this hall, third door on the left.”

Hawk and the two young men kept eye contact until we were past them and headed down the hall. There was African art on the walls, and some splashy posters advocating action. Everyone I saw was black.

“I feel like Casper the friendly ghost,” I said.

“You a pale one, all right,” Hawk said, and we knocked on the half-open door of Abdullah’s office.

A voice said, “Come!” And in we went.

The walls of the office were covered with some sort of pan-African proletarian art in which magnificent black men were throwing off yokes of oppression. The white men in the posters were all mean-looking fat guys. None of the white guys looked like me. None of the magnificent black men looked like Abdullah. Abdullah was very light-skinned. In the old days, before tans were unhealthy, Susan, in summer, was darker than Amir. He was skinny, and quite tall. His hair was short and militant-looking. He wore round gold glasses and a saffron-colored robe and sandals. His nails were long and clean and looked manicured. He wore rings on all four fingers of each hand. A Rolex watch peeked diffidently out from under the sleeve of his robe. He was smoking a long curved meerschaum pipe, and the room was rich with the pungency of his tobacco. A six-foot shield made of ornamented hide stood in the corner, with two long-bladed spears crossed over it. The bookcases were full of books. Many names I didn’t recognize, a few I did, Frantz Fanon, Ralph Ellison, Richard Wright.

Abdullah nodded at Hawk.

“Do I know you?” he said to me.

“My name’s Spenser,” I said. “This is Hawk.”

Abdullah looked thoughtfully at Hawk, and nodded.

“S’happenin‘, bro?”

Hawk didn’t say anything. He moved to the left of the door and leaned on the wall. Abdullah looked back at me.

“Don’t get many white men in here,” Abdullah said.

“Too bad,” I said.

“Why?”

“I hate segregation,” I said.

“Don’t need no smartass honky jivin‘ me ’bout segregation,” Abdullah said. “Nigger’s got to get on with life. He do that best if he keep Whitey at a distance.”

I didn’t see anything there to help me with Robinson Nevins’ tenure problem so I let it slide.

“You’re on the English department tenure committee?” I said.

“Why you axin?”

The strain of talking like a homeboy was palpable in Abdullah, you could tell he had to rephrase things in his head so he wouldn’t sound like Clarence Thomas. Leaning against the wall, Hawk looked like he was fighting a yawn.

“You caught me,” I said. “Actually I know you’re on the tenure committee of the English department, I guess I was really wondering why you don’t have an office there.”

“Ain’t my business solvin‘ yo’ problems,” Abdullah said.

“Of course not,” I said. “You ever see Robinson Nevins in a sexual circumstance with the late Prentice Lamont?”

“You ain’t no cop,” Abdullah said.

“How can you be sure?”

“You’da hassled me when you came in.”

“Private cop,” I said.

“And him.” Abdullah nodded at Hawk.

“Amir,” Hawk said. “You refer to me as ‘him’ again and I will slap your skinny ass around this office like a handball.”

Hawk’s voice was calm and his diction was better than Tony Blair’s. Abdullah flushed. He was so light that it was visible.

“Only way you talk to a brother like that, is if you a damned Tom,” Abdullah said.

Without a word Hawk stepped toward Abdullah, who flinched back involuntarily behind his desk.

“Hawk,” I said. “It won’t get us what we’re after.”

Standing directly at Abdullah’s desk, Hawk kept his eyes on Abdullah.

“No white man calls me nigger,” Hawk said quietly, “no black man calls me Tom.”

He leaned across the desk and grabbed a handful of Abdullah’s saffron robes. Abdullah screeched for help and several of the hard young men in dark suits came dashing down the corridor. Hawk slapped Abdullah across the face forehand and backhand, hard enough to rock his head back. Abdullah was all skinny arms and legs scrambling to get away. Hawk slapped him again as the first of the hard young men rushed into the room. Hawk dropped Abdullah, turned, and flattened the hard young man with a left hook. Three more crowded through the door. I took in a deep breath and let it out, and hit one of them on the back of his neck behind his right ear, and the fight was on. There were four of them and two of us, but one of us was Hawk and one of us was me, and they had Abdullah on their side. Having Abdullah on your side was like subtracting one, so the fight was almost even. The young men were all aficionados of some sort of Asian fighting technique, at which they were technically skilled. But they’d used it mostly to frighten college kids and intimidate professors. By the time the university cops arrived, the fight was over, we had won, and the militant Professor Abdullah was trying to crawl out of his office door from behind his desk, before Hawk got hold of him again.