Ceremony by Robert B. Parker Read Free Book Online

way. Meet you in the middle."
    I nodded, and pushed toward the dark booths along the right-hand wall. In the second one I found Red. He was sitting alone in a booth for four, wearing his overcoat and drinking coffee. The overcoat was gray with black velvet lapels. His hair was red, and it had receded back sharply on each side, leaving a keen widow's peak pointing down at his forehead. I slid into the booth opposite him. He looked up from his coffee cup as he took a sip, then put the cup carefully back in the saucer.
    "What'll it be?" he said.
    His face was white and fat with puffy cheeks. There was some sweat on his upper lip. I showed him my picture of April Kyle. He looked at it and handed it back. "So," he said. His voice was very soft, hard to hear in the noisy room.
    "Know her?" I said.
    "Know a hundred like her," he said.
    "I don't want a hundred like her, I said. "I'm looking for her."
    "I heard you were," he said. I found myself leaning forward to hear him.
    I nodded. We were quiet. Across the room, above the crowd, a new team of three dancers came on stage. Red drank some more coffee. He held the cup in both hands as he drank, as if it were a bowl, ignoring the handle. He looked past me over the rim of the cup. I looked up. Trumps was there and behind him two other black men. Trumps's coat was unbuttoned. I looked at Red, "He the one you heard it from?"
    Red nodded.
    Trumps said, "The quiff told me she sent you down here. I was hoping you'd come."
    "Quiff," I said. "Trumps, you're a pleasure to listen to. I haven't heard the word quiff` since Eddie Fisher was big."
    "Never mind the shit, man. Get out of the booth. You got some things to learn."
    Red sipped some more coffee, his pale blue eyes blank as they looked at me. One of the men behind Trumps, a tall man with very square high shoulders, showed me a 62 gun. He held it low, concealed from the room by his body. A Beretta. Expensive. Nothing but the best.
    "Come on, smart ass," Trumps said. "We going someplace and see how tough you are."
    "You can find that out right now," I said. "I'm tough enough not to go."
    "Okay, motherfucker, then we'll do it while you sit there," Trumps said. His voice was hoarse and intense. He put his hand into his coat pocket and brought out a spring knife and snapped it open. Behind him Hawk appeared and banged together the heads of his two helpers. It sounded like a bat hitting a baseball. Trumps half turned. I caught his knife hand and yanked him toward me, turning the knife away as I did. I put my left hand behind the elbow of his knife arm and bent the arm backward. He grunted with pain. The knife clattered out of his hand onto the table. I pushed him away, picked up the knife, and folded the blade back into the handle. Trumps caught his balance with one hand on the back of the booth and stared at Hawk. Hawk smiled at him that pleasant, unfeeling smile. "Evening, Trumps," Hawk said. He held the Beretta loosely in his right hand. Not aimed at anything. Both of the men whose heads had banged were sunk to their knees. One leaned his head groggily against the edge of the table. The other rocked on his haunches with his hands clutched behind his head and his forearms pressing against his temples. Trumps's voice was choked. "What you doing in this, Hawk?"
    Hawk nodded at me. "I with him," he said.
    "The honky?"
    "I usually call him Ofay, but yeah, I with him."
    "Against a brother?"
    "Uh-huh. "
    Red was silent and still across the booth. No bouncers came near.
    Trumps said, "I didn't know you in this, Hawk."
    Hawk smiled and nodded.
    "He rousted me in front of one of my whores," Trumps said.
    "He does that," Hawk said.
    "He got me when I wasn't ready," Trumps said.
    Hawk smiled. "Don't matter none," he said. "He get you when you're not ready, when you are ready. You a mean little bastard, Trumps, but Spenser's the best around-almost."
    "I didn't know he was with you, Hawk," Trumps said. "He is," Hawk said. He looked at Trumps. Trumps shifted