Cold Service Read Free Page A

said.
    She looked at Hawk.
    "I'm sorry," she said. "We can't shake him."
    Hawk smiled gently.
    "Don't matter," he said.
    "At least the man who shot you will do his time."
    "Maybe," Hawk said.
    "I promise you," Margie said.
    "He ain't going to do much time," Hawk said.
    Quirk was looking out the window, studying the back of the building as if it was interesting.
    "They gonna kill him in prison," Hawk said. "If he gets there. He rolled on them once. They won't take the chance."
    Margie looked at Quirk. Quirk nodded.
    "Be my guess," Quirk said.
    Margie looked at me.
    "And what is your role in all of this?" she said.
    "Comic relief."
    "Besides that."
    "My friend dodders," I said. "I have to hold his arm."
    "Don't I know you from someplace?" Margie said.
    "I swept you off your feet about fifteen years ago, insurance fraud case, with a shooting?"
    "Ah," Margie said. "That's when. You remember that as sweeping me off my feet?"
    "I like to be positive," I said.
    Margie nodded slowly. Then she looked at Hawk.
    "I've heard about you," she said. "You may want to deal with this problem on your own."
    Hawk smiled.
    "And I can't say that I'd blame you," she said. "But if you do, and we catch you, I will be sympathetic, and I will do everything I can to put you away."
    "Everybody do," Hawk said.
    "Meanwhile, we'll stay on this thing," Margie said. "It's a horrific crime. But honestly, I'm not optimistic. What we had was the witness."
    "And now you don't," Hawk said.
    "And now we don't," Margie said.
    "And they been acquitted."
    "Yes."
    "And double jeopardy apply."
    "Yes."
    Hawk stood slowly. I stood with him.
    "When they kill him," Hawk said. "Maybe you can get them for that."
    "We'll try to prevent that," Margie said.
    "No chance," Hawk said.
    He turned slowly toward the door, one hand holding the back of his chair.
    "We'll catch them sooner or later for something," Margie said. "These are habitual criminals. They aren't likely to change."
    "Thanks for your time," Hawk said.
    "I'll have coffee with you," Quirk said. "Margie, we'll talk."
    She nodded, and the three of us went out. Slowly.

6
    WE WALKED SLOWLY to a coffee shop on Cambridge Street. If Quirk noticed that Hawk was shuffling more than he was walking, he didn't comment.
    All he said was, "You back in the gym yet?"
    "Nope," Hawk said. "But Ah has started to brush my own teeth."
    "Step at a time," Quirk said.
    We got coffee. Quirk took a thick manila envelope out of his briefcase and put it on the table.
    "If I go before you do and forget this, and leave it lying here on the table, I want you to return it to me immediately. I only got two other copies. And under no circumstances do I want you to open the envelope and read its contents."
    "Where my man, Bohdan?" Hawk said.
    "In jail awaiting trial," Quirk said.
    "Suffolk County?" Hawk said.
    "Yep."
    "Think he'll last till his trial?" Hawk said.
    "He thinks so," Quirk said. "He thinks everything's hunky-dory with the other Ukrainians."
    "You keeping him separate?" I said.
    "Yep."
    Hawk made a soft, derisive sound.
    "Never going to make trial," Hawk said.
    Quirk shrugged.
    "And ain't that a shame," Quirk said.
    "What have you got on the rest of them?" I said.
    "The details are, of course, confidential police business, which is why I have them sealed up safe in this envelope. We been talking to the organized-crime guys, the FBI, immigration. We know it's a Ukrainian mob. Which means we are dealing with some very bad people. Even the Russians are afraid of the Ukrainians."
    "They straight from the old country?" I said.
    Quirk shook his head.
    "We think from Brooklyn. They've set up around here in Marshport, up on the North Shore, which has got a small Ukrainian population."
    I nodded.
    "They come in, start small. Take over a book here and horse parlor there. Usually small-time black crime. The assumption being that the blacks have the least power."
    Quirk grinned at Hawk.
    "Which, from the looks of you, may be correct at the