Touchdown
The sun was shining, but after days of rain, the mud at the back of the garden had not dried up yet. Hawk heard the squishing sound his tennis shoes made while he moved to the left and the right on the drenched soil. Some four yards away Roy was standing, dressed in a faded college tricot and torn trousers, the only set of clothes he had kept from his more sporty days.
There was no way Hawk could challenge him to a good, rough game of football. Mrs. Cohn must be watching from the living room window. She had warned Hawk not to engage her son in wild games, because he had a very delicate constitution and he had to save his energy for an important meeting that afternoon.
‘Catch the ball!’ Hawk now cried, tossing it at Roy. The other man missed it, and so it bounced away and landed under a hortensia bush. ‘What kind of meeting are you attending?’ Hawk asked.
Roy knelt down, picked up the ball and went to stand in his spot again. ‘I’m conferring with some new clients,’ he explained. ‘It’s safe to tell you, you won’t tattle…It’s Sal and Ettore Gambini from Manhattan.’
‘Toss the ball back, Roy,’ Hawk invited. ‘Come on!’ Roy did and when Hawk caught it, a thought hit him.
‘Hold on a sec…Gambini…not the mobsters, I hope?’
‘The very same,’ Roy grinned. ‘They wanted to meet me in DC, because they have no enemy clans here. We’ll be having tea at the Sulgrave Club.’
Hawk dropped the ball. Of any idea Roy could come up with, this was the most brainless one. ‘The Sulgrave Club! Christ, Roy, my parents often have lunch there, so do Lucy and her family. You can’t bedraggle the place by using it to meet the two worst criminals in America.’
Roy stuffed his hands into his trouser pockets. ‘You don’t understand, Hawk…After the hearings on the army versus McCarthy, I decided I was done with politics for good.’ He spat on the ground and rubbed the blob into the soil with a dirty tennis shoe. ‘And I’ve got to make a living for myself and my mother and my Rolls.’ Now he looked up and smiled at Hawk. He was almost handsome now.
‘It’s big business, I tell you! The Gambini brothers want me to defend them in court. It’s about Lou di Napoli.’
Hawk was at a loss. ‘Lou who? Never heard of him.’
‘The head of the Newark clan. He wanted to extend his turf to Manhattan, but the Gambinis did not like the idea. He got so scared of them that he shot himself in the back and then threw himself from the top floor of the Empire State Building.’ He swallowed. ‘It was so tragic.’
Hawk now hurled the ball at Roy. It hit him in the chest, causing him to fall flat onto his back, in the mud, with two feet in the air. He was definitely not athletic, but still shrewd enough to defend two criminals who should long have been jailed.
‘Hawk, you idiot!’ Roy cried. His clothes were stained now. ‘I promised Mama I wouldn’t get myself dirty. Look what you’ve done, she’ll ground me.’
He tried to scramble back onto his feet, but he slipped and fell down again. Hawk walked over to him and held the ball at an arm’s length to threaten him. ‘I’m going to help you up,’ Hawk said, finding with some delight that he was sounding like a wicked sorcerer. ‘But not before I’ve spilled some beans.’
‘What?’
O for being employed at the very source of knowledge, Hawk thought, this is going to be a goddamn mighty fine hoot, y’all.
‘David Schine has finished his army duty in Germany, Roy. Last thing I heard was that he returned to Los Angeles and is happily living with his family in Malibu.’
Roy’s dull, blue eyes grew large with reminiscence of the man he had once loved. ‘Los Angeles?’ he stammered. Then his face puckered, and tears started gushing. ‘My Dave…oh, boo-hoo-hoo!’
‘He’s said to be dating a damn fine gal now,’ Hawk went on, almost wetting his trousers with amusement. ‘Some mannequin from Sweden. Saw a picture of her in the newspaper…Lord, she’s such a snack that I’d abandon both Lucy and Tim for her.’
‘Boo-hoo-hoo-hoo!’ Roy wailed, causing a flock of starlings to flee noisily from a tree.
‘Mr. Fuller!’ Mrs. Cohn roared from a window. ‘Now what did I just say? You were supposed to play nicely with Roy, and you made him cry! Get yourself off the premises…no, take the side gate, I’m not having you walk through the house to get to your car…!’
Hawk cast her a haughty look and then cried: ‘I shall comply, Roy’s Mama, I shall!’
Roy was still sitting in the mud. ‘I’m gonna split, man,’ Hawk said to him. ‘See you around.’
‘Boo-hoo-hoo!’ Roy went, and Hawk could still hear his loud cries of grief when he had walked around the house to the spot where he had left his car.