Night Passage (20 page)

“But that doesn’t mean he did it. He could be ragging you about it even if he didn’t.”

“He did it,” Jesse said. “I been at this too long to be wrong. He needed to tell me.”

“So what’s that got to do with Mrs. Hathaway?”

“Just before Jo Jo told me he did it, she was making goo-goo eyes at him over the cider table.”

“That doesn’t mean she’s having an affair with him.”

“It’s not something you expect to see,” Jesse said. “I see something I don’t expect, I want to know about it. The fact that I opened the door and you were behind it is an accident.”

Simpson sat and thought about this. Jesse waited. There’s too much coming at him, Jesse thought. He doesn’t know enough. He’s not old enough yet. He wants to talk about it, hell, he’s dying to, but he thinks it’s dishonorable.

“I met Mrs. Hathaway at the Yacht Club,” Simpson said. “Some kind of big wedding reception, I was doing a paid detail. She started talking to me, and at the end of the party she asked me to drive her home, because her husband was going out with a few of the men afterwards and she was tired. So I took her home and she asked me in and …”

“Okay,” Jesse said. “I don’t need the details. In effect she picked you up.”

“Yes.”

“And she was both affectionate and expert?”

“You better believe it,” Simpson said.

“Way to go, Cissy.”

Simpson blushed more darkly.

“It’s not like she was my first,” he said. “But …”

“She was your first grown-up,” Jesse said.

Simpson nodded.

“She’s amazing,” he said.

“I don’t want to sound harsh here, Suit, but you might not be the only guy she ever picked up.”

Simpson shrugged.

“She say anything about her husband?”

“She said they get along fine, but the fire’s gone out.”

“In his furnace only,” Jesse said.

“I think she likes him though,” Simpson said.

“You think he knows?”

Simpson shook his head.

“I don’t know. She’s not all that careful. I don’t think he wants to know.”

They were quiet, until Simpson said, “I still don’t see what it’s got to do with Tammy Portugal.”

“I don’t either, Suit. Maybe I will later. If she’s connected to Jo Jo, and if Jo Jo did the Portugal girl … knowing is always better than not knowing.”

“Always?” Simpson said.

“If you’re a cop,” Jesse said, “always.”

Simpson sat for a time thinking. Jesse knew he didn’t believe it was always better to know. But he was getting older every minute, and Jesse knew he would believe it, if he stayed with the cops.

“You know about the militias,” Ploughman said.

Buck nodded.

“Well, I know some guy from one of the militias, come to me, said he needed something done for a comrade in arms back east. That’s what he called him, a comrade in arms.”

Buck waited.

“They talk funny as a bastard, these guys, you ever notice? He says that there’s a guy out here that threatens the comrade in arms back east and he has to be deactivated.”

Ploughman waited for Buck’s reaction. Buck had no reaction and Ploughman looked disappointed.

“Deactivated! They want him clipped, why don’t they just say so, you know? So I tell this guy, No. I steal shit, but I don’t kill people. I mean I’ll carry a piece sometimes and make people think I would, you gotta make them think so, otherwise whaddya do, go in the bank and say gimme the money or I’ll yell at you? But I never used it. I ain’t a life taker. So I says no. And the militia guy kind of nods and looks at me like I’m a freaking enemy of the people and he says, well perhaps they will have to send someone.”

Ploughman stopped, looking pleased. Buck waited.

“And that’s it,” Ploughman said.

“That’s what you got to buy off twenty years?”

“Hell, it’s good. It tells you who ordered the hit and that they probably sent their own man. That’s golden, for crissake.”

“Who did they send?” Buck asked.

“I don’t know. They found out I wasn’t the man, they didn’t have anything else to say to me.”

“You hear of them approaching anyone besides you?”

“No.”

“How much were they going to pay you?”

“Five.”

“Five thousand?”

“Yeah. They’re all cheap bastards,” Ploughman said. “I never saw a militia guy willing to go first class.”

“Where in the east?”

“Didn’t say. But I figure you guys know where he came from.”

Buck didn’t answer. He stood with his arms folded, leaning on the wall, admiring his boots. Then he shifted his look to Ploughman.

“Tell your lawyer to see me,” Buck said finally.

“Can you work something out?” Ploughman said.

“Have him call me,” Buck said and went and knocked on the door.

Jesse was drinking scotch at the counter in his tiny kitchen when Jenn called.

“Is it later there or earlier?” Jenn asked.

“It’s eight o’clock where you are,” Jesse said, “and eleven o’clock where I am.”

“Are you drinking?”

“I’m having one scotch before bed,” Jesse said.

“Just one?”

“Funny thing, Jenn. There’s a lot of pressure here all of a sudden, and it seems like I don’t need a drink. I haven’t had more than one since the pressure began.”

“Are you in trouble?”

“There is trouble,” Jesse said. “I don’t know yet if I’m in it.”

“Can you tell me about it?”

“The trouble? Sure. The guy I replaced in this job got murdered in Wyoming. A woman got murdered and I think it’s a way of getting at me.”

“Was she close to you?”

“No, I didn’t know her. But I know who did it, and I think he did it to challenge me.”

“Are you scared?”

“Yes,” Jesse said. “It’s probably why I only have one drink.”

“So you’ll be ready?”

“Something like that.”

“Can’t you arrest the man?”

“I can’t prove anything,” Jesse said.

“Is the man in Wyoming part of this?”

“I don’t know. It’s crazy that a town like this, where there hasn’t been a killing in fifty years, suddenly has two in a month. It makes you want to think they’re connected.”

“But you don’t see a connection.”

“No. There’s some kind of militia group in town. Not like the National Guard, the other kind, and there’s something funky about them.”

“Do you like the men you work with?”

“I like them, but I don’t know who I can trust.”

“No one?”

“Well, I’m sort of forced to trust one of them. My guess is he’s okay.”

“What about that woman. Weren’t you seeing a woman?”

“Abby. She’s mad at me.”

“Have you broken up?”

“I don’t know. The last time I saw her she walked away in a huff.”

“What is she mad at?”

“I wouldn’t tell her about this.”

“ ‘This’ being the stuff you’re telling me?”

“Yes. She said it meant I didn’t trust her.”

“Does that mean you trust me?”

“Yes.”

“Even though …?”

“Even though,” Jesse said.

The phone line made phone line noise while both of them remained silent.

“You should come home,” Jenn said after a time.

“I don’t know where home is, Jenn.”

“Maybe it’s with me.”

“I got too much going on, Jenn. I can’t walk down that road right now.”

“Even if you don’t come home, why not get out of there? I’ve never heard you say you were scared before.”

“I can’t leave it, Jenn. You know when they hired me, I was drunk? Why would they hire a guy to be police chief who was drunk in the interview?”

“I don’t know,” Jenn said. “Maybe they didn’t know you were drunk.”

“They knew,” Jesse said.

Again the cross-country silence broken by the low-voltage sound of the circuitry.

“I’m scared, Jesse.”

Jesse didn’t say anything.

“Will you call me soon?” Jenn said.

“Yes.”

“I mean tomorrow, every day, so I’ll know you’re okay?”

“Yes.”

“I still love you, Jesse.”

“Maybe,” Jesse said.

“I do, Jesse. Do you still love me?”

“Maybe,” Jesse said.

After they had hung up he sat looking at the half-empty glass with the ice cubes melting into the whiskey. He picked it up and took a sip, and let it slide down his throat, warm and cool at the same time. His eyes felt as if they would fill with tears. He didn’t want them to, and he pushed the feeling back down.

Jenn, he thought. Jesus Christ!

Michelle sat and talked with Jesse on the wall. A couple of other burnout kids sat farther down the wall pretending that they weren’t listening, and were too cool to pay any attention to the police chief if he chose to sit on the wall with them.

“You got a cigarette?” Michelle said.

“No.”

“You don’t smoke?”

“No.”

“You ever?”

“No.”

“How come?”

“I was a jock,” Jesse said. “I thought it would cut my wind.”

“That’s weird,” Michelle said.

Jesse stared at the leaves on the common, crimson now in places, and maroon, and yellow, the yellow tinged along the edges with green. It was something he’d never seen except on calendars, growing up in Arizona and California.

“I live next to your girlfriend,” Michelle said. “Abby Taylor.”

“That so?”

“Yes. Sometimes I see you come home real late with her and go in.”

“Un huh.”

“You have sex with her?”

“Why do you want to know?” Jesse said.

“I don’t, I don’t care. I just think if you’re going to be telling people what to do you shouldn’t be having sex with people.”

“Why not?” Jesse said.

“Why not?”

“Yeah, why shouldn’t I be Chief of Police and have sex with people?”

“I don’t care what you do, but it’s gross to do that and then be telling other people not to.”

“Have I ever told you not to?”

“You think I should?”

“There’s no should to it,” Jesse said.

“Well, that’s not what most adults think.”

“I’d be willing to bet,” Jesse said, “that you don’t know what most adults think. You know what a few of them think and you assume everyone thinks that.”

“Well, do you think it’s okay?”

“Sex? You bet.”

“For me?”

“For anyone,” Jesse said, “that knows what they’re doing, and why they’re doing it, and is smart enough not to get pregnant when they don’t want to, or get AIDS, or get a reputation.”

“I’ve had sex,” Michelle said.

Jesse nodded soberly.

“I figured you had,” Jesse said.

“I don’t think it’s such a big deal.”

“Sometimes it is,” Jesse said. “Depends, I guess, on who you have sex with and when and how you feel about them.”

Jesse paused and smiled.

“Though I gotta tell you,” he said. “I’ve never not liked it.”

Michelle glanced down at the two ratty-looking boys at the end of the wall and lowered her voice.

“If a guy, you know, shoots off, and you get some on you, can you get pregnant?”

“He needs to shoot off in you,” Jesse said.

“In … down there?”

“In your vagina,” Jesse said. “There may be someone who’s gotten pregnant by getting it on her thigh, but it’s not something I’d worry about.”

Michelle was silent, her feet dangling, looking at the ground between her feet.

Jesse looked across the common some more at the fall foliage. What made the leaves of the hardwoods so bright, he realized, was the undertone of evergreens behind and between them. The turning trees were made more brilliant by the trees that didn’t turn. Must be a philosophic point in there somewhere, Jesse thought. But none occurred.

“So are you?” Michelle asked.

She was still looking at the ground, and as she talked she pointed her toes in and then back out.

“None of your business,” Jesse said.

“Embarrassed to say?”

“No,” Jesse said. “But you don’t go out with someone and then tell everybody what you did.”

“I’ll bet you talk about it with the other cops.”

“No,” Jesse said.

“That’s weird. You ever been married?”

“Yes.”

“You divorced now?”

“Yes.”

“Is it because you didn’t love each other?”

“No. I think we love each other.”

“So what is it?”

“None of your business,” Jesse said.

“Jeez, another thing you won’t talk about.”

“I don’t talk about you and me, either,” Jesse said.

Michelle was startled.

“We’re not doing nothing,” she said.

Jesse grinned at her.

“That makes it easier,” he said.

Michelle tried not to, but she couldn’t help herself. She giggled.

“Jesse, you are really crazy,” she said. “You are really fucking-A crazy.”

“Thank you for noticing,” Jesse said.

And Michelle giggled some more and looked at the harlequin leaf bed beneath her dangling feet.

Madeline St. Claire, M.D., had her office in a building on Bedford Drive in Beverly Hills a block north of Wilshire, on the corner of Brighton Way. Jenn liked the location. It made her feel important to go there twice a week. Jenn loved Dr. St. Claire and hated her. She was so implacable.

“What we are after in here,” Dr. St. Claire had said to her in one of her early visits, “is the truth.”

“So how come you are an authority on truth? Maybe your truth isn’t my truth.”

“We want your truth,” Dr. St. Claire said. “We want you to know why you do what you do.”

“Who’s to decide my truth?”

“You will.”

“So why do I need you?”

“Why do you?” Dr. St. Claire had said and Jenn had felt the stab of panic that she often felt when she realized that something was up to her.

She had gotten past that and now she understood why she needed help with the truth. But the rebellious child angry at the stern teacher never entirely disappeared, and many of the therapy sessions were combative. Sometimes Jenn cried. Dr. St. Claire remained unmoved. She was kind, but she was firm, and nothing Jenn did, no trick from Jenn’s considerable repertoire, could divert her. Under Dr. St. Claire’s steady gaze the strictures of pretense with which Jenn had defended herself for so long began to loosen.