27
SUSAN AND I MET for supper at Scampo, which was
located in the recently rehabbed building that had once been the
Charles Street Jail.
"You must feel at
home here," Susan said, looking around.
"Anywhere you are is
home," I said.
"You silver-tongued
devil," Susan said.
She ordered a
martini. I asked for scotch and soda. The waitress went eagerly off
to get it. While she was gone, I brought Susan up-to-date on the
Jumbo Nelson affair.
"You think the
threat is real?" Susan said.
"Probably," I
said.
"And Z's going
to--how do they say it on TV?--watch your back?"
"That's 'bout the
size of it, little lady," I said.
"The Indian," Susan
said.
"Yes," I
said.
"Whom you are
attempting to rescue?"
"Exactly," I
said.
The waitress
returned with our drinks, and told us about the specials and left
us to decide. We touched glasses. I took a swallow. Susan took a
sip.
"Well," she said.
"He's not Hawk."
"No," I
said.
"On the other hand,
Hawk has had his whole life to perfect being Hawk," Susan
said.
"True."
"Z's only had a
little while."
"He may never be
Hawk; no one else is, either. But he'll get to a place where he'll
do."
"Unless the booze
gets him," Susan said.
"Unless that," I
said.
"How is his
drinking?"
"Seems to have cut
back," I said.
"You don't talk
about it?"
"Not
much."
Susan looked at me
thoughtfully for a time. My drink was gone. Our waitress spotted
that and came and asked if I would like another. I tried not to
tear up.
"I would," I
said.
"You still okay,
ma'am?" the waitress said to Susan.
Susan said she was
okay. Her glass was down a sixteenth of an inch, but it could have
been evaporation.
"You're not trying
to resolve his drinking, are you?" Susan said.
"No."
"You are trying to
turn him into a man who can resolve it himself," she
said.
"That's not quite
the way I thought about it," I said. "But yeah. That's about
it."
"And you think he's
up to it?"
"In the long run," I
said.
"But he's supposed
to be watching your back in the short run," Susan said. "Can
he?"
"We'll find that
out," I said.
"It's not like you
don't have people," Susan said. "Vinnie would walk around behind
you as long as was needed."
"True," I
said.
"And Tedy Sapp would
come up from wherever he lives in Georgia."
I
nodded.
"And Chollo, or
Bobby Horse."
"I
guess."
"Quirk, Belson, Lee
Farrell?"
"When available," I
said.
"But you choose a
work in progress."
"People need to
work," I said.
"For crissake,
people need not to get shot, too," Susan said.
"Suze," I said. "I
wasn't planning on having anybody watch my back. There's a time
when I might, but not yet. I can't be who I am, and do what I do,
if I'm calling out for backup every time somebody speaks harshly to
me."
"I know," Susan
said. "You are what you are and you do what you do. I accepted that
about you a long time ago."
"So it gives Z a
chance to see what he's learned and what he's about, without, at
least not yet, too big a risk."
"I'd prefer no
risk," Susan said.
"Me too," I
said.
She shrugged and
drank half her martini.
"And I accepted it
all a long time ago," she said.
She picked up her
menu.
"All the guys in all
the world," she said, in what was maybe a Bogart impression, "I had
to fall for you."
"Isn't it grand," I
said.
She nodded as she
looked at the menu.
"Yes, it is. . . ."
she said. "Mostly."