Death In Paradise (14 page)

The waitress appeared with a new vodka for Shaw. It was a double. Shaw took a large swallow.

Shaw leaned back in his chair again and seemed somehow to expand. For the first time since they had been seated, Shaw looked straight at Jesse.

"Actually, Gino and I are talking about doing a book together."

Under the pink-toned sun color on his face, the broken blood vessels made a darker red web on the skin above his cheekbones.

Jesse said, "Un-huh."

"About the gangster life," Shaw said. "Disaffection, opposition, freedom, violence."

"Un-huh."

Shaw drank some more.

"This country started in rebellion against established laws," Shaw said.

Jesse nodded.

"And Gino Fish, in himself, is almost entirely outside any established norms."

"Un-huh."

Shaw grinned suddenly, almost genuinely, at Jesse.

"Sort of a queer
Godfather
," he said.

"How do you collaborate?"

"Gino and I get together, couple times a week," Shaw said.

Despite the fact that he was clearly drunk, Shaw was focused as he talked about his writing, in a way he had not been before that.

"And talk?"

"Yeah. Gino likes to talk about himself."

Lunch arrived.

"When the book gets written," Jesse said, "do you share the royalties?"

"Everybody thinks it's royalties," Shaw said. "It ain't. It's the advance, stupid. You know?"

Jesse ate some clam chowder. Shaw paid no attention to his scrod. His speech had thickened noticeably. He'd been at the bar when Jesse arrived. He'd had three, one of them a double, since Jesse had arrived. The conversation wasn't going to last too much longer.

"So he gets half the advance?"

"Naw, it's all mine," Shaw said. "Gino jus' wants a book about him. He…"

Shaw stopped talking for a moment and looked at Jesse as if he were having trouble remembering who Jesse was. Then he put his head down and rested it on top of his scrod and went to sleep.

 

 

Suitcase Simpson came into Jesse's office trying not to look self-important.

"Got the info from the phone company," he said to Jesse. "That phone number used to belong to a guy named Alan Garner. No longer in service."

"Got an address?"

"Yeah. In Brighton, but he moved last year."

"I know where he is," Jesse said.

Simpson stared at him.

"How you know that?" he said.

"I'm chief of police," Jesse said.

"Oh," Simpson said. "Yeah. I forgot. You going to talk with this guy?"

Jesse shook his head.

"We'll watch him," Jesse said.

"We?"

"You ever do any surveillance?"

"Jesse. I'm a cop in Paradise, Mass.," Simpson said. "What the hell am I going to surveil?"

"Go put on some civvies," Jesse said. "Time you learned."

Driving into Boston from the north, there was a choice between the tunnel under the harbor and the bridge over the Mystic River. The tunnel was a little shorter, from Paradise, but on the Boston end you came up out of the tunnel into the boiling confusion of the largest urban renewal project in the country. Jesse took the bridge.

As they arched down toward the Charlestown end they could look down at the merge of the river and the gray sprawl of the harbor to their left. Below them was the old Charlestown Navy Yard, now mostly condominiums. Straight ahead the individuated buildings coalesced into skyline.

Tremont Street was so hot that the asphalt was soft. They parked on a hydrant and Simpson got out and bought a cup of coffee and a large Coke at a convenience store while Jesse stayed in the car looking at Development Associates of Boston. When he got in the car, he handed Jesse the Coke.

"My mother always used to tell me to drink hot stuff in hot weather," Simpson said. "Because being hot inside would make you feel cooler outside."

Jesse was silent.

"You think that makes any sense?" Simpson said.

"Sure."

"You think it's true?"

"No."

Simpson nodded and settled back with his coffee. Jesse knew he still half believed it. He was only about ten years older than Suitcase, but he felt like his father.

"Who we looking at here?" Simpson said.

"Alan Garner works for Gino Fish. Gino Fish is the guy whose phone number Billie Bishop left when she departed the shelter."

Simpson was sweating. His face was red. Jesse could see him thinking.

"And two other girls left his phone number at the same shelter," he said.

Jesse nodded. Suit wasn't stupid, but his mind had to move slowly over the surface of information before he possessed it. Jesse gave him time.

After a time Simpson said, "Well, that would be a really big coincidence."

"Really big," Jesse said.

"So why not go in and confront him with it?"

"And he says, I don't know anything about it, and what do we say?"

Suitcase drank some more coffee.

"I think it works," he said.

"Drinking hot stuff?"

"Yeah."

"Your mother tell you to run cold water over the inside of your wrist to cool your blood?"

Simpson was surprised.

"Yeah."

Jesse smiled.

"We could try to find those other girls," Simpson said. "See what they could tell us."

"One's named Mary," Jesse said. "The other one is Jane. Or so they told Sister."

"No last names?"

"Nope."

"You know where they came from, we could check Missing Persons…"

"I don't know where they came from. I doubt that the names are real."

"But they left a real phone number."

"Kids need to hang on to something," Jesse said.

"I don't know what you mean."

"However fucked up," Jesse said, "kids don't want to just disappear."

"They need to feel connected?"

"To something," Jesse said.

Simpson took another sip of coffee. The sweat ran down his face in front of each ear.

"Careful," Jesse said. "You don't want to get a chill."

"I don't know what we're looking for here," Simpson said.

"Me, either," Jesse said.

"So how we going to know when we see it?"

Jesse smiled.

"It's a chief of police thing," Jesse said.

 

 

Today they were in Simpson's Dodge pickup, parked farther down Tremont Street, watching Development Associates of Boston in the rearview mirror. Jesse went to use the washroom at the Boston Ballet building, showing his badge in the lobby to forestall discussion.

"First rule of stakeout," Jesse said when he came back. "Locate near a place you can take a leak."

"We going to follow somebody if they leave? Gino, or the receptionist guy?"

"Nope."

"So why are we here?"

"See what happens."

"Why don't we follow them?"

"I don't want to spook them," Jesse said.

"You think they'd spot us?"

"People like Gino need to be pretty alert," Jesse said. "If somebody's alert, it's pretty hard to tail them alone."

"So we're just going to sit here forever?"

"In another couple days," Jesse said, "we'll double-team them."

"Use two cars?"

"Yes."

"You and me in two cars?"

"Yes."

"So this is sort of like training."

"Sort of," Jesse said.

"That'll be so cool," Simpson said.

Jesse nodded.

Across the street, Vinnie Morris came up the stairs in front of the office and out onto Tremont.

"That the receptionist?" Simpson said.

Jesse smiled. "That's the shooter," he said. "Vinnie Morris."

"Doesn't look like anything special," Simpson said.

"He's supposed to be very good," Jesse said. "Look at me and we'll pretend to be talking."

"Look at you?"

"Yes. Nod your head. I'm saying something really important which is why we're sitting here in the parked car. You understand?"

Suitcase was looking at Jesse, nodding his head vigorously.

"You think he'd get wise seeing us sitting here?"

"He might," Jesse said. "Guys like him and Gino are very careful."

"That why we're using my car today?" Simpson said. "So they won't see the same one twice in a row?"

"That's right," Jesse said.

Simpson continued to nod overtly. Jesse grinned.

"And don't overact," he said.

In the outside mirror Jesse watched Vinnie Morris move up the street toward the sandwich shop where Simpson had bought them coffee when they'd arrived. In a few minutes he came back carrying coffee in a tall paper cup.

"Think he's been talking to your mother?" Jesse said.

"Nobody talks to my mom," Simpson said. "They listen."

Vinnie Morris went back down the stairs into the office again. The truck windows were open. There was no breeze. Jesse could smell the hot smell of the sidewalk. In the middle of the afternoon, Brian Kelly came by and tapped on the side window.

"It's okay," Jesse said. "He's a cop."

Kelly squeezed into the front seat of the truck beside Simpson.

Jesse introduced them.

"You got anything?" Jesse said to Kelly.

"Nope, I was going to ask you the same thing."

"We got two more shelter girls left a forwarding number. This time Alan Garner."

"Who's he?"

"Gino's receptionist."

"And main squeeze?"

"I don't know, does Gino usually squeeze his receptionists?"

"Usually part of the job description," Kelly said. "Or so they tell me at OCU."

"You mean these guys are gay?" Simpson said.

"I'm guessing about Garner," Kelly said. "But Gino's pretty certain."

"I want to put Garner and Gino under surveillance. You got anybody you can spare?"

"I look like the CO?" Kelly said. "I can spare me. On my own time."

"How come you need more guys, Jesse?"

"You need a couple on Garner and a couple on Gino," Jesse said. "What about Vinnie?" he said to Kelly.

Kelly shook his head.

"Vinnie does what he does," Kelly said. "For hire. You're looking for a missing kid, or something like that, Vinnie isn't going to do you any good."

"Why not?" Simpson said.

Jesse smiled.

"Vinnie doesn't fuck with kids," Kelly said.

"A shooter with standards?" Simpson said.

"Whatever," Kelly said.

"So there's you and me," Jesse said to Kelly.

"When I'm not wasting my time working, or sleeping, or trying to get laid," Kelly said.

"And Suit is three," Jesse said.

"How many we need?" Simpson said.

"We could get by with three more," Jesse said. "Five more would be perfect."

"Why so many?" Simpson said.

"Two cars so we can bracket Gino. Two for the receptionist."

"So that's four," Simpson said.

"What happens if one of them gets out of the car and starts walking?" Jesse said.

Simpson nodded.

"Can you spare anybody else?" Kelly said to Jesse.

"I only got ten cops left," Jesse said.

"Maybe I can get Bobby Doyle interested," Kelly said. "Otherwise we're it, and part of the time it's just you."

"Part of the time it's probably not any of us," Jesse said. "Once in a while we need to lead our lives."

Kelly looked surprised.

"You do?" he said.

 

 

"You drink more when you're sad?" Dix said.

"No," Jesse said. "I think it's more when I'm happy."

"You drink more when you're with her?" Dix said.

"I did this time," Jesse said.

"Because you were happy?"

"No," Jesse said. "I wasn't happy."

"Scared?"

"No."

"What?"

"I don't know exactly," Jesse said. "We were talking about being with other people."

"You talk about this before?"

"Yes."

"You always get drunk?"

"I don't remember," Jesse said.

"How do you feel when you think of her with another man?"

Jesse shook his head.

"Exciting?" Dix said.

"Jesus Christ!" Jesse said.

Dix waited.

"I'm not that sick," Jesse said.

Dix remained blank. Jesse was silent for a time.

"I don't know why," he said.

Dix almost smiled.

"What?" Jesse said.

Dix didn't answer.

"It's not about sex," Jesse said.

"Sure it is," Dix said. "It's always about sex."

"It's about other things, too," Jesse said.

He felt as if he were retreating slowly, giving up one position after another, modifying as he went.

"It is always about other things, too," Dix said.

"So why
do
I want to know?" Jesse said.

Dix smiled and didn't say anything.

"For crissake," Jesse said. "Is this a fucking game where you know and I try to guess?"

"Knowledge is power," Dix said.

"Power to do what?" Jesse said.

"Participate," Dix said.

Jesse thought about the surge of fear and anger and desire that filled him almost to overflowing when he thought of her with another man. He knew that the passion, the nearly voyeuristic need to know, had nothing to do with curiosity, and, he realized, nothing to do with disapproval. Dix was right. The penetrating need to be privy was a kind of participation. Not just in the act, but in her life. Not knowing was exclusion. The idea startled him.

"So it's not just him and her," Jesse said. "It's him, her and me."

"Better than nothing," Dix said.

"I hate thinking about her with another man."

Dix nodded.

"And I hate to be excluded," Jesse said.

Dix nodded again. The two of them sat there in silence.

"A rock and a hard place," Jesse said.

Dix smiled.

"Enough to drive a man to drink," he said.

 

 

"Kelly ever get that guy Bobby Doyle to help us out on surveillance?" Simpson asked.

Jesse shook his head.