Hawkins stared out at the tops of the buildings downtown; he was frowning, and Ableson noticed a deep line that ran between his eyebrows to the bridge of his nose. Hawkins wasn’t so young anymore. Neither was he.

“Why should they think that?” Hawkins asked softly.

“Because everyone knows Levy’s your friend; and Adam was his son.”

Hawkins looked at him. “So he’s capable of beating five kids to death?”

“There’s Luria, don’t forget, and Walinsky and the whole mishpochah.¶ Luria’s capable of anything. Besides, Adam was Levy’s son.”

Hawkins threw his cigarette in the toilet. “If you say that again, Mo, I’ll tear your fucking head off.”

Ableson drove up the ramp into the City Hall section, then up the Bowery to Third and through the tunnel to the LIE. He felt dirtied, like the kid who sees his daddy making love to the maid, and he knew it was because Hawkins—his best friend, his idol almost—had acted like a stranger.

Hawkins wasn’t like Turner. He didn’t hate anybody, and Ableson had never seen him lose his temper. He was so big, only men who were too drunk to know what they were doing called him nigger. But even when that happened, he wouldn’t fight.

Like the night, years ago, when this big red-­faced rummy wanted to take Hawkins on with everyone watching. He was as tall as Hawkins, and bigger. He had a bright red face, a belly that hung over his belt, and arms like a bear. He sat next to Hawkins and Ableson at the bar and he kept calling Hawkins nigger, as if it were his name. Nigger, who do you like in the NFL playoffs? . . . Nigger, lemme buy you a beer, shit like that. But Hawkins wouldn’t break, and the drunk got so frustrated he pushed Hawkins hard in the chest, and Hawkins had to hang on to the bar to keep from falling on the floor. Hawkins and the white man slid off their barstools and faced each other. Everyone stopped drinking to watch. The place was dead silent, and Ableson saw a look of triumph in the white man’s eyes as he squared off. But Hawkins raised his big hands fast, grabbed the man’s shoulders, and held him stiff-armed so the drunk couldn’t get any closer. Sweat ran down Hawkins’s face, and the drunk strained against the hands that held him, but he couldn’t move. Then Hawkins started talking.