"That a wise remark?" Marty said.

"Yeah. I'm just practicing on you, in case I meet somebody smarter."

Marty's tan darkened, and a small nerve in his right cheek began to twitch, below the walleye. He slid off the bar stool and stepped around his associate to stand beside me.

"You come in here looking for trouble?"

"No, but your guy Dukes was tailing me. Thought I'd ask you about it."

"My guy?"

"Guy in the raincoat. I wanted to see who sent him. And sonovagun, Marty, it was you."

"I don't know no Dukes."

"Sure," I said, "and you don't know no Spenser either, and you didn't have a guy on my tail."

Marty took a half step back and folded his thick arms. His two friends were both turned on the bar stools toward me. I noticed the friend without the medallion sported some crude prison tattoos on his forearms. The bartender had moved as far down the bar away from us as he could and was busy slicing lemons. Marty kept his pose as he stared at me. His coat sleeves pulled tight around his upper arms. His Rolex watch gleamed at me from his left wrist.

"Chills," I said, "run up and down my spine."

"Whaddya doing for Julius Ventura?" Marty said.

"Why do you want to know?" I said.

"

"Cause I'm softhearted," Marty said.

"Give you a chance to tell me what's going on, and maybe walk out of here with your balls still swinging."

I had a couple of killer responses to that all ready, but I didn't get to use them because Hawk came in. He stepped inside the bar and took off his sunglasses and tucked them into the side pocket of his suede-denim jacket. Then he unbuttoned the jacket and walked down the bar past where we were sitting, and leaned on the wall behind Marty and his pals. It was nice theater and also made it harder for all of them to concentrate on giving me the hard eye.

Which had been getting pretty boring anyway.

"So," I said.

"Why do you want to know what I'm doing with Julius Ventura?"

Marty was still looking at me, but his two pals had swung farther around in their seats and were looking at Hawk.

"The colored guy don't make no difference," Marty said.

"The hell he doesn't," I said.

"Still three to two," Marty said.

"Yeah, but one of the two is me," I said.

"And the other one's him."

Marty wasn't scared of me, or of Hawk. Marty was much too predatory to be scared. But he was confused. He'd put a simple tail on a guy and ended up having the guy, so to speak, on his tail.

He was used to scaring people to death. He wasn't used to smart talk. His natural response to it would be violence. He was almost certainly doing what Gino Fish had told him to do, so he couldn't just kill me. He was supposed to find something out.

"You doing anything for Ventura got to do with Anthony Meeker?" Marty said.

The nerve near his eye was twitching faster. "Who wants to know?" I said.

"Who the fuck you think? Who's asking you? Geraldo fucking Rivera?"

"Gino interested in this?"

Marty shrugged.

"Sure he is," I said.

"And when he found out Ventura hired me, he wanted to know what I knew."

"So?"

"So he told you to have me followed, and you did."

"So?"

"So, why's he want to know?"

"None of your fucking business," Marty said. It was starting to occur to him that I was finding out more than he was.

"And how'd he know so quick that Ventura hired us?" I said.

"That's it," Marty said.

"Meeting's over."

"He's got somebody in Julius's organization."

"Get lost," Marty said.

Marty put his thick hand on my chest and shoved. I was supposed to stagger backwards. But I didn't. I rolled a little away from the shove and Marty's hand slid off my chest and Marty actually staggered a half step forward. He caught himself on the bar and tried to look like he hadn't staggered.

"You okay?" I said solicitously.

The tic in his cheek was vibrating like high C. His hand started toward his coat.

Hawk said, "Marty."

Hawk never talked especially loud. But you could always hear him. He seemed to be in the same position leaning on the wall that he had assumed when he came in. Except the big-barreled.44 Mag that he always carried was now out and aiming at Marty Anaheim.

Everything stopped.

The bartender ducked down out of sight behind the bar.

The motorcycles kept zooming around the track.

Hawk nodded toward the door.

Nobody said anything for a moment. Then Marty jerked his head at the two gym rats and the three of them headed out. At the door Marty turned back, his cheek in full tic.

"Another day," he said, his high voice shaking, "you're both dead meat."

Hawk grinned at him.

"Gotta watch them steroids, Marty. You be talking soprano pretty quick."

Marty looked at Hawk with a look that would have scared us both if we weren't so fearless. Then he turned and went out the door followed by the gym rats. Hawk put the big Magnum away, and leaned over the bar.

"You got any Krug?" he said to the bartender, who was still crouched on the floor behind the bar.

"Maybe an eighty-six?"

The bartender didn't know what Krug was.

CHAPTER 8

I had lunch with Shirley Ventura at a new joint on Huntington Ave. called Ambrosia. You could eat well, and have quite a nice time examining the spectrum of Boston chic which regularly gathered there. Shirley studied the menu for a long time. She was wearing a low-cut electric blue slip dress that was designed to enhance long legs and a narrow waist. Shirley was short and chunky. The effect was different. A number of the women lunching that day appeared to notice the difference.

"You got any, ah, like maybe a roast beef sandwich?" Shirley said to the waitress.

"We have a wonderful sandwich of grilled portabellas with Asiago on country bread dressed with extra virgin oil and served with julienne of jicama and blood orange," the waitress said encouragingly.

"What's a portabella?" Shirley said to me.

"A big mushroom," I said.

She looked at the waitress and frowned.

"A mushroom sandwich?"

The waitress smiled enthusiastically.

"Why don't we each have the pail lard of chicken, and a green salad and some bread."

"Of course, sir. Anything to drink with that?"

"Wine," Shirley said.

"Anything special?" the waitress said.

"Some white wine," Shirley said. She'd lost interest in ordering and was looking around the room at the other diners.

The waitress looked at me. She didn't have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind was blowing.

"Bottle of Sterling Sauvignon Blanc," I said.

The waitress smiled as they always do to tell me how much she admired my choice of wines, and hurried away to tell the wine steward.

"What's that pal lard thing you ordered?" Shirley asked.

"Breast of chicken flattened with a mallet and quickly sauteed."

"Sounds terrible," she said.

"Drink enough wine," I said, "you'll think you like it."

Shirley picked up a roll from the bread basket and bit into it the way you eat an apple. She looked around the room some more until the waitress returned with the wine.