“All right, I will. But I wish I had a drink. I’m usually drinking when I tell this story and it comes out better that way.” He scratched his nose. “I met Gus placing a trifecta at Aqueduct. After that he helped me with a couple of jobs. He was a real little guy and he was nearly always short on cash, because he spent all his time at the track. I liked him because he drank harder than anyone I ever saw and he was never sorry about it. It’s funny he didn’t say anything about having a daughter. And you’re pretty. You’d think he would have been proud to have a daughter like you.
“When he was drunk it was like he was a different person, and he used to do crazy things for money. If someone said, ‘I bet you won’t punch that guy,’ he’d go up to a bouncer and punch him. Or if we said, ‘I bet you won’t toss your wallet,’ he’d give his credit cards away to strangers. He’d pitch all his clothes off a balcony, or throw his keys down a sewer grate. Everyone would be laughing and he’d say, ‘Sober Gus is going to love this!’ Then I’d see him the next day, his face all busted up, trying to cancel the cards, or on his hands and knees in front of a sewer grate by the side of the road, with a hook at the end of a string and he’d say, ‘Drunk Gus did this to me.’
“A few months back when he was Sober Gus he asked me for a loan, to help him cover a debt. So I gave it to him, but Drunk Gus put the money on a horse instead and lost. When I went to collect, Sober Gus cried, and I kept thinking of him crouched over that sewer grate, all pathetic, fishing for his keys, so I told him I’d give him more time. And you know what Drunk Gus did? He went to my gym that same night and busted the safe and stole my deposit for the week. He drove to Atlantic City and spent every bit of the dough, and then he up and died there, owing me, owing everybody. So that’s how I know him.”
The girl put down her fork.
“You didn’t have to tell her that,” said Hawley.
“I did,” said King. “Now she knows all about her old man.”
The pie fillings were starting to run together, the colors mixing on the plate. Hawley could feel heat coming off the girl beside him.
“Why did you go to the funeral?” she asked.
“Because he owed me five thousand dollars.”
“It’s not so much,” said Hawley. But he knew that it wasn’t about the money. What bothered King was that the guy had turned on him.
“It’s plenty.”
The girl wrinkled her nose. “I haven’t got that kind of money. I don’t know if any of this is true.”
King stabbed a piece of pie with his fork. He put it in his mouth. “Believe it.”
The bullet hole in Hawley’s back began to ache, the first one he got in the Adirondacks, and as soon as it did, his mind started taking inventory—his father’s M14 rifle and extra ammunition in the duffel by his feet, a loaded Smith & Wesson revolver tucked into his belt. Hawley’s body was ready, every muscle tight.
The girl slid out of the booth. She had taken her gloves out of her purse, and she held them crushed between her fingers. She was shaken but she still thought she could just leave. “Thank you for the pie.”
Fast as lightning, King threw out one of his boxer’s arms and caught her around the wrist. It made Hawley jump to see him do it.
“Let go of me.” The girl struggled against him. She was looking for the waitress.
“Sit down,” said King.
The girl opened her fingers and the gloves floated to the table. She stopped fighting and King relaxed his grip, but he didn’t let go. The little black hat had come unpinned; Hawley saw her eyes flashing underneath the veil. The girl acted like she was going to sit down again, but instead she bent forward and sank her teeth into King’s wrist.
The man screamed and his fingers released. As soon as they did, the girl snatched her gloves and ran for the door. King scrambled out of the booth to go after her but Hawley got up and blocked the way.
“Just let her go,” he said.
“Fucking hellcat!” The girl’s teeth had gone right through the skin, and now King was bleeding on his baggy suit. Hawley listened to her heels running away and then the bell rang over the door.
“You don’t need that money,” said Hawley.
“This doesn’t have anything to do with you.”
“It does.” He hadn’t meant for the words to come out like that, but they did. And as they did, Hawley knew they were true. This knowing was different from before, when his body had sensed the bullets coming for him. It was more like the meteor shower he’d told the girl about, a trail of cold rock suddenly burning to life. He’d unlocked something, a possibility, and the entrance was here, in this thin aisle of space before him, between the booths and the counter and a row of spinning stools.
Ed King’s eye was twitching, the nostrils of his broken nose wide open. He leaned back and then his fist flashed forward, as fast as when he grabbed the girl’s arm. But Hawley had been waiting for it, and he dodged just enough for King to miss and topple over onto the table. The dishes went smashing onto the floor, pie tossed in every direction.
The cook stuck his head through the kitchen window. “What the hell is going on out there?”
It distracted Hawley just enough so that King’s next punch connected, a strong blow to the chest and then another quick to the jaw, and before he knew it he was on the floor of the diner. King had the satchel and he was crossing over him and Hawley reached up and took hold of the man’s legs and threw him to the ground and scrambled on top of him and then he started beating him with all of his might.
It was what he was meant for.
Hawley’s body recognized every turn, like a well-worn path—the adrenaline, the heat of his shoulders working, the shifting of weight, the tumble of skin and hair, the blows to the ribs, the ache of breathing, the familiar sensation of his knuckles crunching, and it felt wonderful, the flood of it like some smooth, dark air flowing from a deep cavern. He grabbed the Smith & Wesson from the back of his pants and stuffed it into King’s mouth.
The cook stepped out from the kitchen carrying a shotgun. He still had his hairnet on. “That’s enough!” he shouted. “Drop it.”
Hawley slowly removed the revolver from between King’s teeth. He had been so close to killing that his fingers shook. It wasn’t the way he’d meant to go and now he backed away from the edge, his heart beating and the blood roaring through his hands, even as he lifted them over his head. The cook walked around the counter, keeping the shotgun level, and backed over to the entrance. He cracked it open.
“Barbara! Get in here!”
The waitress came in, smelling of cigarettes. Her eyes went wide as she took in the mess. “Jesus Christ!” she said.
“Call the police,” said the cook.
“You don’t have to do that,” said Hawley. “Nobody’s hurt.”
“You were going to murder that guy,” said the cook. He made Hawley give him the revolver. Then he sent the waitress over to the pay phone by the bathrooms to call the police. She didn’t have any change and had to take it out of the cash register.