Taming a Sea Horse by Robert B. Parker Page A

He always knew everything that went on around him. It made no impression on him. Almost nothing did. He didn't enjoy it. He didn't mind it.
    I was doing curls. Hawk said, "How you and Susan doing?"
    "Love is lovelier," I said, "the second time around."
    "Worth the scramble," Hawk said.
    "Yes."
    Hawk shifted from pull-ups to dips. He whistled to himself through his teeth, his lips together so one barely heard the small internal melody. He was whistling "On the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe." We both finished on the Nautilus equipment and went to the boxing room. I jumped rope, Hawk played games on the speed bag. Now he was whistling "Sweet Georgia Brown."
    I said, "You still on good terms with Tony Marcus?"
    Hawk said, "Sure."
    I said, "I think I need some help from him."
    "Nothing Tony like better," Hawk said, "than to do favors for some honkie who punched him in the mouth the only time he met him."
    "It's why I asked about your terms," I said. "If he liked me I wouldn't need you."
    "If you need me 'cause people don't like you, babe, you need me bad. What you want from Tony?"
    I crossed and uncrossed the rope as I jumped. "I'm looking for a guy named Art Floyd. He recruited a kid for a whorehouse in Boston."
    "You looking for the kid?"
    "No. I'm looking for him. The kid's dead."
    "Well, Tony the man," Hawk said. "Nothing much happens in the whore business that Tony don't follow. Floyd kill the kid?"
    "No, I doubt it. I'm looking for April Kyle again."
    "The little blond kid from Smithfield."
    "Un huh."
    "Man," Hawk said, "you do hang in there. Tell me about it, maybe we work something out with Tony."
    I told him about April and about Ginger Buckey.
    "So you figure you find out what happened to Ginger Buckey you maybe find out what happened to April," Hawk said.
    "April's gone, Ginger's dead, and Rambeaux is scared. There's got to be a connection."
    "Well, I see what I can do. But Tony don't remember you fondly."
    "I'm not asking him to dance."
    "Good to know," Hawk said. "What Tony get out of this?"
    I shrugged. "A favor to me?"
    "Besides that," Hawk said.
    "A favor to you?"
    "Tony usually looking to get favors more than he looking to give them," Hawk said.
    "Okay, we'll owe him one," I said.
    "What this `we' shit, white man?"

17
    Hawk and I met Tony Marcus at a Chinese restaurant called Ming Garden on Route 9 across from the Chestnut Hill Mall. Marcus was maybe my age with a modified Afro and a thick mustache. The mustache had some gray in it, but his face was smooth and unlined. He sat in a booth alone toward the far end of the restaurant. At a table next to him four other black men sat with menus closed in front of them. All of them wore suits. One of the guys sitting with his back toward us was too heavy for the suit and where it pulled tight across his back I could see the faint line of a shoulder-holster strap.
    "Why here?" I said to Hawk as we walked toward them.
    Hawk shrugged. "Likes the food, I guess. Man was willing to come, I didn't ask many questions."
    We reached the booth. Marcus smiled. The four guys at the table all looked at us without any expressions. Marcus gestured that we should sit across from him and we did. Hawk slid in first and I sat beside him.
    "Tony," I said.
    "Good Szechwan cooking," Marcus said. "You like Szechwan, this is the place. Better than Chinatown."
    I nodded. A waiter showed up with some Chinese beer and put it down and went away. "I already ordered," Marcus said.
    "Thoughtful," I said.
    The waiter returned with two platters of Peking ravioli and some hoisin sauce. Marcus smiled again, and rubbed his hands softly together. We each ate a ravioli and drank some beer. The four guys at the next table weren't eating or drinking. They just sat.
    "Understand you looking for a man," Marcus said.
    "Art Floyd," I said. Marcus nodded.
    "You know him?" I said.
    Marcus nodded again. He speared a second ravioli from the platter and spooned a little sauce over it and cut it in two with the edge of