Night Passage (10 page)

“Hey,” Jo Jo said. “I’m not anybody’s team, you unnerstand, I’m just me, Jo Jo. I do what I goddamned please.”

Hathaway stopped counting and looked up at Jo Jo silently with his pale blue eyes.

“We want you to avoid any confrontation with Jesse Stone,” Hathaway said.

“And maybe I do it anyway.”

Again the silence while Hathaway looked at him, and Jo Jo felt a little tingle of fear inside the protective muscle layers.

“We’ll have to insist,” Hathaway said.

Jo Jo held his look for a long moment and then shrugged and crouched and began to take money from the open suitcase. The little pussy was going to get his someday too, but there was no point arguing with him now. He was still useful. They finished the count in silence.

“I get two million, one hundred and fourteen thousand, nine hundred and five dollars,” Hathaway said when the money was counted. “Do you want to recount it?”

“Hell no,” Jo Jo said. “I’ll take your count.”

“Fine,” Hathaway said. “You get four percent?”

“Yeah.”

Hathaway tapped on a calculator for a moment.

“Eighty-four thousand, five hundred and ninety-six dollars and twenty cents,” Hathaway said. “If we’d used your count it would have been more like ninety-two thousand.”

“Don’t matter,” Jo Jo said. “Plenty more coming.”

“Fine.”

Hathaway counted out Jo Jo’s percentage.

“Keep the twenty cents, too,” Jo Jo said and laughed.

Hathaway made no response except to shrug slightly.

“Would you like that in an envelope?” Hathaway said.

“Sure.”

Hathaway folded it neatly, put it in a plain brown envelope, and handed it to Jo Jo. He put it back in one of the suitcases, picked up both of them, and started for the door.

Hathaway said, “Why don’t you have a seat while I get this deposited and get you a receipt?”

Jo Jo tried to look like he didn’t care, although in fact, he had been in a hurry to get out of Hathaway’s office and had forgotten that he needed a receipt to show Gino. He sat and looked at the boat models while Hathaway and two tellers deposited the cash.

Hathaway returned when it was gone and gave Jo Jo a deposit slip.

“What do you get outta this?” Jo Jo said.

Hathaway looked at him blankly without answering. Jo Jo shrugged, tucked the deposit receipt in his shirt pocket, picked up the suitcases, and walked out of the office, waddling a little under the pressure of his vast thighs.

Two target sites at the firing range of the Paradise Rod and Gun Club on the north edge of town were set aside on Thursdays for the members of the Paradise Police Department. Jesse required everyone on the force to fire service pistol and shotgun once a month. Fifty rounds pistol, ten shotgun. This Thursday it was Jesse’s turn, and Suitcase Simpson’s. Jesse brought both the nine-millimeter service pistol that came with the job, and the short .38 revolver that he usually carried. Both men put on the earmuffs, and Simpson shot first, two-handed, in the crouch that everyone used. He scored well enough, but Jesse could tell that he didn’t like shooting very much, that he was controlling a flinch. When it was his turn Jesse fired two clips from the nine-millimeter, and put all but three rounds into the bull’s-eye.

“Jesus, Jesse, you can shoot.”

Jesse read his lips and nodded. He put down the nine, drew the revolver, and put all five rounds into the black. Then he stepped back, reloaded the revolver, holstered it, and took off his earmuffs.

“How in hell did you get to shoot like that?” Simpson said.

“Practice,” Jesse said.

They each fired the shotgun, taking turns with it. When they were through Jesse handed the shotgun to Simpson.

“You get to clean it,” Jesse said.

“ ’Cause you’re the chief?”

“Of course,” Jesse said.

Simpson nodded.

“But I’ll buy you coffee,” Jesse said. “Prove I’m a regular guy.”

They sat in Simpson’s cruiser outside the Salt Air Doughnut Shop behind the supermarket in the town’s only shopping center, and ate some donuts and drank coffee.

“You married, Suit?” Jesse said.

“Not yet,” Simpson said. “I’m still playing the field, you know?”

“Plenty of time,” Jesse said. “What’s your real name?”

“Luther. My mother teaches Sunday school, she’s a very religious person, named me after some famous religious guy.”

“Un huh.”

“Gym teacher started calling me Suitcase when I was in the fourth grade, and it stuck.”

“Better than Luther,” Jesse said.

“Yeah, I guess so. I never did know why he called me Suitcase.”

“After the ballplayer, don’t you think?”

“Ballplayer?”

“Harry Simpson,” Jesse said. “Cleveland, KC, the Yankees.”

“Never heard of him,” Simpson said. “Why’d they call him ‘Suitcase’?”

“Big feet, I suppose.”

Simpson ate half a donut.

“I never knew why he called me that,” Simpson said, “and I didn’t want to seem stupid, so I never dared ask.”

“So how come you asked me?” Jesse said.

Simpson paused and frowned for a time, which he did, Jesse knew, when he was trying to think.

“I dunno,” he said finally, “you don’t seem like you think things about people.”

“It’s a good way for a cop to be,” Jesse said.

“Not thinking things about people?”

“Something like that,” Jesse said.

Simpson frowned again and drank some coffee. They were quiet watching the junior high school kids, ill at ease and full of pretense, cutting through the parking lot to hang out in front of the shopping center.

“Man,” Simpson said finally, “you can really shoot.”

When Jennifer called, Jesse was on his third drink, sitting on his tiny deck overlooking the harbor with his chair tilted back, balancing with one foot on the deck rail.

“I need to talk,” she said when he answered.

“Okay,” Jesse said.

He added some ice to his glass and poured more scotch over it. He took the drink and the portable handset back out onto the deck, and sat down again, and hunched the handset between his shoulder and neck, and drank some scotch.

“I’m through with Elliott,” Jennifer said.

“Un huh.”

“Are you glad?”

Jesse took another drink. Across the harbor, the lights on Paradise Neck seemed untethered in the thick night.

“I’m trying to get to a place where what you do doesn’t make me glad or sad,” Jesse said.

“You’re drinking, aren’t you, Jesse?” Jennifer said. “I can hear it in your voice.”

“Or you can hear the ice rattle in the glass when I take a sip,” Jesse said.

“Don’t you want to know why I broke up with Elliott?”

“He and Tommy Cruise decided to make the picture without you?”

“There’s no need to be hateful, Jesse.”

“Maybe there is,” he said.

Jennifer was silent for a time. When she spoke it was with a kind of desperate dignity.

“I can’t just sit here on the phone and let you beat up on me, Jesse.”

“No,” Jesse said, “you can’t. I’ll try not to.”

“Thank you.”

“So how come you broke up with Elliott?” Jesse said.

“And I don’t need to be humored, either,” Jennifer said.

“Jenn,” Jesse said, “I didn’t call you. You want to talk, I’ll listen.”

There was a pause. He heard the clink of glassware and realized she was drinking too. Probably white wine. Couple of lushes, Jesse thought, three thousand miles apart…. Better than drinking alone, I guess.

“Do you remember that ridiculous girlfriend Elliott had with him when we had dinner once at Spago?” Jennifer said.

“Taffy.”

“Yes, that’s right. God, Jesse, you always remember stuff. She was like an ornament, you know, like his Rolex.”

“A way to look successful,” Jesse said.

“That’s right, well, I suppose everyone wants to look successful, but …”

“There’s better ways,” Jesse said.

“Like being successful?” Jennifer said.

“That’s one,” Jesse said.

She wasn’t stupid. She was ditzy enough so you could think she was, but she wasn’t. She understood a lot, when she permitted herself to think.

“Well, he was starting to treat me like Taffy. You know?”

“I’m shocked,” Jesse said.

“Don’t make fun of me, Jesse. It’s too easy to do.”

“Yes,” Jesse said. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“So I called him on it. I told him I wasn’t, you know, like a new hat he could wear around and hang up when he wasn’t using it. And he got really mad, and said he was sick of getting used by all the stupid starlets that he tried to help and a lot of other things … and I started to cry and told him to go fuck himself and got up and walked out of the place.”

“Good for you,” Jesse said.

“I feel like an asshole for crying,” Jennifer said.

“Everybody cries,” Jesse said. “The important thing is you didn’t let him use you.”

“Thank you,” Jennifer said.

They were silent across the continent while each of them drank.

Then Jennifer said, “But now what am I going to do?”

“What are you going to do about what?” Jesse said.

“I don’t have a job,” Jennifer said. Her voice was shaky and he knew that she wasn’t far from crying. “My career is going nowhere. I’m alone, and I’ve lost the only decent thing that ever happened in my life.”

“Meaning me?”

“Yes.”

“It’s not like we’re enemies, Jenn.”

“Oh, Jesse, I want to see you.”

“Until the next producer comes along?”

“Don’t, Jesse. I need to see you.”

“Not right now, Jenn. Let things settle. Get yourself organized a little before you decide what you need. Maybe you might get some help, a shrink or somebody.”

“I have some friends in therapy,” Jennifer said.

“If you do get help, Jenn, try to get real help. Not some nitwit that reads your aura or does crystal therapy.”

“You think I’m a dreadful fool, don’t you, Jesse?”

“I think you do foolish things, sometimes, Jenn. I don’t think you’re dreadful.”

They drank. Jesse’s glass was empty; he got up, holding the phone, and refilled his glass with ice and scotch.

“Have you met anyone, Jesse?”

“Yes.”

“Do you love her?”

“Not yet,” Jesse said.

“I still love you, Jesse.”

Across the harbor the lights were fewer now as people went to bed. And the ones that still glowed in the black night were more separate and much farther apart.

“Do you still love me, Jesse?”

“I’m trying not to, Jenn.”

“I know, I don’t blame you. But I … I don’t like to think about life without you.”

Again Jesse was silent, looking at the disconnected pinpoints of light in the overreaching darkness.

“Can I see you sometime, Jesse?”

“Sure,” Jesse said. “But right now we both need to be a little separate so we can get our heads back in order, I think.”

“Can I call you again?”

“Sure, Jenn. You can call me anytime.”

“I still love you, Jesse.”

“Take care of yourself, Jenn. Don’t do anything impulsively. It’s time to go slow and think things through. If you feel crazy, call me up.”

“Are you succeeding?” Jennifer said.

“Succeeding?”

“You said you were trying not to love me, Jesse. Are you succeeding?”

Jesse took a long breath and let it out and drank some scotch. In the harbor, invisible in the darkness, a bell buoy sounded.

“Not so far, Jenn.”

Jesse was sitting in the middle booth at the Village Room restaurant, a block from the town hall, having lunch with Abby Taylor.

“Jenn called me the other night,” Jesse said.

“Oh?”

“She broke up with Elliott.”

“The producer?”

“Yes.”

“So what does that mean?” Abby said.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, what does it mean to us?” Abby said.

“Us?”

“Us. You know, you and me, who have been sort of dating and sleeping together and stuff like that. Us.”

“I don’t know.”

“Christ!” Abby said. “Think about it. Does it mean you’re going to annul the divorce?”

“No. Can you do that?”

“No. Does it mean you are going to dash back to L.A. and move back in with her?”

“No.”

“See, you can think about this. Do you still love her?”

The waitress came to the booth.

“Who gets the tuna?” the waitress said.

Jesse pointed at Abby. The waitress set the plate down in front of her.

“And you must get the club.”

Jesse nodded. The waitress put it down in front of him and went off. Jesse picked up a wedge of sandwich.

“Do you?” Abby said.

“Still love her?”

“Un huh.”

Jesse put the sandwich wedge back down on the plate and leaned back in the booth.

“I don’t know where it will go with Jenn,” Jesse said. “I don’t even know where I want it to go.”

“That’s comforting,” Abby said.

“What I know is that I’m not a good basket to put all your eggs in at the moment, you understand. I don’t know if I love Jenn or not right now. I don’t know if I can love anybody but Jenn right now. I like you, and we have fun together, but I don’t know what it will be like between us next week or next month. Until I get myself clear about Jenn …” He didn’t finish the sentence because he didn’t know how to. So he let it hang unfinished. Abby met his look for a moment and took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Her eyes glistened. Then she looked down at her sandwich.

They were quiet for a time neither talking nor eating.

Then Abby said, “Well, consider myself warned, I guess.”

She looked up at him and smiled very brightly.

“Doesn’t mean we can’t eat lunch,” she said and her voice was as bright as her smile. Jesse didn’t feel very hungry at the moment, but he started on his sandwich because he didn’t know what else to do.

Jo Jo Genest came into the restaurant and took a seat at the counter. He was wearing a sleeveless black tee shirt and his arms bulged obscenely. He swiveled on the counter stool and rested his back and elbows against the counter and looked at Jesse. Jesse finished chewing a bite of his sandwich and looked back at Jo Jo. He was a city cop, and he had long ago mastered the dead-eyed city cop stare. Jo Jo’s stare was more of a smirk, Jesse thought. They held the stare for about a minute, which to Abby, sitting in the booth watching them, seemed like an hour. Then Jo Jo wheeled slowly around on his stool and faced the counter and ordered a steak sandwich.