Free Walking Shadow by Robert B. Parker Page B

people moving past us, and they seemed to me for a minute as they must have seemed to Herman Leong all the time: insubstantial, and temporary wisps of momentary history that flickered past, while behind him was the long, unchanging, overpowering weight of his race that bore upon the illusory moment and overpowered it.
    "You going back up there," Herman said.
    "Yeah."
    "Mistake."
    I shrugged.
    "I'm in the tough-guy business," I said.
    "I jump a case because two teenagers tell me to fade, and what do I do next for a living?"
    Herman nodded.
    "Guess you got to go back," he said.
    "Yeah."
    "Couple things," Herman said.
    "One, these kids are absolute stone killers. Don't be thinking that they're seventeen, or that they weigh about one hundred pounds. Killing people is who they are.
    Makes them feel good."
    I nodded.
    "Same with anybody got nothing else," I said.
    "I'll shoot one if I need to."
    "You'll need to," Herman said.
    "And more than one."
    "You said 'a couple of things." What's the other?"
    "Bring backup." Herman said.
    "I heard about you. And I know about you even if I didn't. You're a cowboy."
    I shrugged.
    "You can't do this alone," Herman said.
    I grinned.
    "No man is an island," I said.
    "Who said that, Hemingway?"
    "John Donne, actually."
    "Close enough," Herman said.
    "Low faan all look alike, anyway."

CHAPTER 18
    I met Hawk in a parking lot behind the Port City Theater. It was drizzling, and the rain had made puddles on the uneven asphalt surface. Oil leaching into them made unpleasant-looking color spectrums on the surface of the dirty water. Hawk was wearing a black cowboy hat and a black leather trenchcoat, which he wore unbuttoned. He was leaning on his Jaguar, and beside him in a leather jacket and a tweed sc ally cap was Vinnie Morris.
    "Vinnie," I said.
    "Spenser."
    "Assistance," Hawk said in his mock WASP accent, "in combating the yellow peril."
    "You mention to Vinnie the fee?" I said.
    "Told him he'd get what I'm getting."
    "You back with Joe?" I said.
    "No."
    "Things are a little slow."
    "Yeah. I got some dough put aside, but I'm sick of going over the dump every day, shooting rats."
    "Good to keep your hand in," I said.
    "Hawk tell you the deal?"
    "Un huh."
    "Need to know anything else?"
    "Who pays for my ammunition," Vinnie said.
    "I do," I said.
    "It's a fringe benefit."
    "Man, my career is taking off," Vinnie said.
    The drizzle was becoming more insistent.
    "We smart enough to get in out of the rain?" Hawk said.
    "You bet," I said.
    "Want coffee?"
    "Pick some place we don't like," Hawk said.
    "So it get shot up we won't feel bad."
    "I got to meet Jocelyn Colby over here in something called the Puffin' Muffin."
    "Fine."
    Vinnie looked at Hawk.
    "The Puffin' Muffin?" he said.
    Hawk shrugged.
    "Get used to it," he said.
    The Puffin' Muffin, in the theater arcade, was one of the many shops in Port City designed for affluent Yankees, and located in places where affluent Yankees never went. When they did come, it was for an evening of theater at which time they were rarely hungry for muffins.
    "Got a nice big picture window," Hawk said.
    "Yeah."
    "Let's not sit in it," Hawk said.
    We took a seat against the rehabbed brick wall.
    There was a counter across the back of the place and a display case full of muffins. On the walls there were pictures of muffins; the pictures were interspersed with theater posters from the Port City Stage Company. The furniture was blond. Including the muscular waitress, with her long hair gathered in a geyser on top and tied with a pink ribbon. She poured us coffee from a thermos pot.
    "Is it possible to get a muffin with my coffee?" I said.
    She didn't smile. People never thought I was as funny as I did.
    "Blueberry, bran, corn, banana, carrot, pineapple orange, cherry, raspberry, apple cinnamon, maple nut, lemon poppy seed, oat bran, cranberry, and chocolate chip," she said.
    "Corn," I said.
    "Toasted or plain?"
    "Plain."
    "Butter or margarine?"
    "Neither."
    "You want jelly