by Mike Lupica
“The neighbor who called it in wasn’t sure it was even gunshots, because Billy’s house is set so far back from the road,” she said.
“ ‘Gunshots’ plural?” Jesse said.
“So she said.”
“Any activity from inside since you got here?” Jesse said.
“I was only a couple minutes ahead of you,” she said. “But no.”
Jesse grinned and nodded at the big house at the top of the hill, outlined against the night sky.
“Shall we?” he said.
They walked up the long driveway. The garage doors were shut. Only one car. A black Jaguar.
“Billy Singer been riding around town in a Jag?” Jesse said.
“Didn’t he tell you he had a driver?” Molly said.
“I believe he did,” Jesse said, “now that I think of it.”
“So we’ve got at least two visitors,” Molly said. “Your friend Wilson Cromartie and the driver of the Jag. You want me to call the desk and have them run the plates? They’re Massachusetts.”
“How about we let them surprise us,” Jesse said, “after we surprise them?”
The front door was unlocked. Jesse and Molly walked in, guns in hand, Jesse calling out, “Paradise police.”
“In here.”
Crow.
They followed the sound of his voice through a large foyer and into a much larger living room.
And there they all were.
“Let’s get this party started,” Crow said.
Jesse said, “Looks as if it already has.”
THIRTY-THREE
Billy Singer was seated on one couch. Ed Barrone was across from him on the other.
Two other guys were seated on the floor in front of the fireplace. White guys, dark clothes. Like they’d been raised to be perps. Both with that sullen perp stare Jesse had been looking at his whole cop life.
As soon as Jesse and Molly had stepped into the room, Singer and Barrone began trying to out-shout and out-curse each other, before Jesse snapped at them to both shut the fuck up.
“You can’t talk to me that way,” Singer and Barrone said, almost in the same moment.
“Just did,” Jesse said.
In a much quieter voice Crow said, “I felt threatened by the two desperados on the floor.”
“Explains why you were forced to draw your weapon,” Jesse said.
“Practically feared for my life, not ashamed to say,” Crow said.
The guy on the floor without the hat said, “Bull. Shit.”
Jesse ignored him.
“Who brought you two boys to the dance?” Jesse said to the two in front of the fireplace.
“They work for me,” Singer said.
Jesse said to Crow, “You ever meet them before?”
“Not till now,” Crow said.
“You need more muscle than Crow?” Jesse said to Billy Singer. “Seriously? What, the Navy SEALs were busy?”
“Needs more muscle now,” Crow said. “I just put in my papers.”
“Fuck off, Crow,” Singer said, and Crow put eyes on him until Singer turned away.
Barrone got up off the couch.
“I’m out of here,” he said.
“Sit down,” Jesse said, with enough snap in his voice that Ed Barrone hesitated just briefly before doing just that.
“I assume your friends over there are no longer armed,” Jesse said to Crow.
“Not now they’re not,” he said, and pointed with his own gun at the two Beretta long guns at his feet.
“Who fired the shots?” Molly said.
“I did when they wouldn’t behave,” Crow said. “Everything quieted down considerably after that.”
Jesse noticed the holes in the wall, one on either side of the fireplace.
“Am I allowed to speak?” Billy Singer said.
Molly walked over and picked up the guns.
“Before you do,” Jesse said to Singer, “maybe you can explain what you’re doing here together. Ed and you. Since we’re all under the impression that the two of you get along about as well as cats in a sack. And I’ve heard each of you talk endless shit about the other.”
“Why aren’t you arresting him?” Barrone said, pointing at Crow. “He’s the one who walked in and started waving a gun around.”
“Due time,” Jesse said. “And for the time being, I’m talking to our host.”
“Host this,” Billy Singer said.
Jesse sighed.
“Did you invite Ed here?” Jesse said.
“As a matter-of-fact I did,” Singer said.
“And why is that?” Jesse said.
“None of your business,” Barrone said.
“I could shoot him, you want,” Crow said.
Jesse turned back to Singer. “You were saying?”
“I just decided,” Singer said, “that with everything going on in this town all of a sudden, maybe the best thing was for us to stop talking at each other in the media and just go to neutral corners before somehow this whole thing becomes even more of a shitshow than it already is and we lose the people on the Board who want the thing to go through.”
“A reasonable enough sentiment,” Molly said.
Barrone looked at her as if he’d forgotten she was still in the room.
“I was talking to your boss,” he said to Molly. Dismissively. At least she didn’t shoot him.
“Same as talking to me,” Jesse said.
Crow had his own gun at his side, pointing at the floor. Jesse could have asked for it, but he knew it would only be for show, and to make Singer and Barrone and the two mutts feel better about things.
“Anyway, it’s what we were talking about when Cochise burst through the door,” Barrone said.
Singer said to Crow, “What the hell were you even doing here in the first place?”
“I was following Big Ed here for the fun of it,” Crow said.
“Because you’re such a fun guy,” Singer said.
Crow ignored him. “Then Mister Ed shows up, after I’ve listened to him talk the same shit you have. So I got the idea that somehow you’ve been playing me, Billy. And then, as an added bonus, I found out that two guys who might be the two guys shot at the chief and me the other night might very well be working for you.”
“I got no idea what you’re talking about, but if I did, I’d tell you that I hit what I aim at, asshole,” one of the guys on the floor said.
“Shut up,” the other one said.
“You send these two geniuses to search Neil O’Hara’s house tonight?” Jesse said.
“I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about, or why I’d even want to know that,” Singer said. “This thing has gotten too hot and I finally decided to bring in Sammy and Roy here as bodyguards.”
“Or really shitty home invaders,” Crow said.
“Blow me,” one of the guys on the floor said.
“You believe what you want to, Stone,” Singer said. “But this was a business meeting. All this has ever been from the start is a business trip for me. I don’t know anything about houses getting broken into, or Neil O’Hara, or the dead tree hugger or anything else. And if you don’t have any other questions, I’d appreciate you getting the hell out of my house.”
He started to say something else, but stopped himself.
“A big Vegas hotshot like you, Billy,” Crow said. “Now I’m wondering if you’re looking for a way to run some kind of side game.”
“And just how do I plan to do that?” Singer said.
“Don’t know yet,” Crow said, “but if you are, one of us will figure it out.”
“Us?” Molly said.
Jesse turned to her and said, “Relieve Mr. Cromartie of his weapon, and then cuff him.”
“Finally,�
� Ed Barrone said.
Crow handed Molly his gun, and turned his back to her.
“You have the right to remain silent,” Molly said.
“I think of it more as a privilege,” Crow said.
THIRTY-FOUR
“You buying that kumbaya shit with Billy and Barrone?” Crow said.
Jesse snorted.
“Oh, wait,” he said. “You’re being serious.”
Well past three in the morning now. They were in Jesse’s office. Molly had gone home a few minutes ago, saying she’d had as much fun hanging around with the boys tonight as a girl could stand.
“Thanks for having my back,” Crow said to her as she was leaving.
“I had his back,” she said, jutting her chin at Jesse.
Crow shrugged. “ ’Night, Molly,” he said.
“ ’Night, Wilson,” she said.
“You two seem to have a nice healthy dialogue going there,” Jesse said when she was gone.
“She acts like I did something to her she didn’t want done,” Crow said.
“Too much information,” Jesse said.
“Just telling you how I see it,” Crow said. “It was something we did, not just something one of us did to the other.”
“Son of a bitch,” Jesse said. “I think you done cracked the case.”
“Women,” Crow said.
“Not all,” Jesse said. “Just this one.”
They sat in silence then. By now Jesse knew that Crow was even more comfortable with silence than he was. No small thing.
“I still don’t trust you,” Jesse said to him.
“And proud of it, I’ll bet,” Crow said.
“And you no longer trust Billy Singer.”
“I never trusted him,” Crow said. “I just had my own deal with him, if he got the land. He promised me a small piece.”
“Generous,” Jesse said. “You believed him?”
He told Jesse what Singer had told him about how he was smart enough not to screw Crow over and think he could get away with it.
“But now he fires you,” Jesse said.
Crow grinned. “When trust is gone in a relationship,” he said.
“So what do you think Barrone was really doing there tonight?” Jesse said.
“Beats me,” Crow said. “What I don’t get is why they’d join forces.”
“And develop the land together?” Jesse said. “These are not guys who are good at sharing.”
“I’ve known Billy a long time,” Crow said. “He hates Ed Barrone as much as he hates people skimming on him.”
Jesse said, “Maybe they only joined forces to see if they could find whatever it is those two morons were looking for at Neil’s house.”
“If it was them,” Crow said. “Or even knew that Neil might have something.”
“You think Singer might have been telling the truth?”
“He does that sometimes,” Crow said, “but only as a last resort.”
Jesse put his old New Balance grays up on his desk. They looked older than he was.
“Can’t have you running around town like some kind of vigilante,” Jesse said to Crow now. “Whether you’ve now done me a couple solids or not.”
“ ‘Vigilante’ may be a little strong,” Crow said.
“I thought it would be insulting for me to call you a mall cop,” Jesse said.
“How about thinking of me as an unlicensed private detective?” Crow said. “Like Sunny Randall, just without papers?”
“You know about Sunny,” Jesse said. Then added, “ ’Course you do.”
Jesse looked at his watch. Nearly four now.
“What I don’t get,” Jesse said, “is what’s in this for you?”
Crow grinned again. “You want me to be honest with you even though you just told me you don’t trust me.”
“Pretty much.”
“The girl, Blair, I met her,” he said. “She’s a sweet kid. And she loved the guy whose body just got found. And from everything I know, being around here again, is that your friend O’Hara was on the right side of this.”
“He was on the right side of most things,” Jesse said.
“But now it’s like with the Francisco kid,” Crow said. “It’s not the way I came in on this thing.”
“So who’s side are you on?”
Crow stood now, arching his back like he was trying to crack it, then stretching his neck one way and then the other.
Then he reached across the desk.
They shook hands.
“Your side,” Crow said, before telling Jesse that he was going to need his gun back.
THIRTY-FIVE
Molly refused to accept that Blair Richmond might be dead. She was like a dog with a bone, not that Jesse would ever put it that way. So she kept looking, like she was lifting up rocks all over social media, hoping that if Blair was out there somewhere, even having gone to ground, she might have made a mistake and left a trail.
From the start she’d said she was the obvious choice for this particular detail.
“I’ve practically got a doctorate in social media,” she said.
“I don’t remember you taking some kind of class,” Jesse said.
“I did,” she said. “It’s called daughters.”
Suit was still being stonewalled on Neil O’Hara’s cell phone records, and on the landline in his office. And could find no record of Ben Gage ever having a cell phone account. What they did know, from the SOB Twitter account, taken down a few weeks ago, is that he had been receiving death threats from people who’d seen him as the biggest obstructionist on the land deal. Gabe was now tracking the ones dumb enough to leave the tweet version of breadcrumbs about their real identities. Peter Perkins, in his last few months before retirement, was helping out with that.
It was always the same, Jesse knew. Pulling on strings. Somehow he wanted to roll this all up before the vote. But they were going to need some luck. Or some breaks. Or both. Maybe he could stop the thing somehow, even though Neil couldn’t.
Billy Singer’s two body men waited until the afternoon to show up at the station wanting their guns back, bringing their licenses and carry permits with them. Sammy Baldelli and Roy Santo. Not from Vegas, as it turned out. Both from Rhode Island. Both with priors. Jesse couldn’t prove that either one of them had been at Neil’s house. But Jesse was as sure as Crow was that it had been them at the house, and then on the beach, because if it wasn’t them, then who?
Jesse came out into the squad room and handed them the Berettas back himself.
He got very close to them.
“You take both the shots, Sammy?” he said. “Or did you leave it to this genius?”
“I’m telling you, Stone,” Baldelli said, “you’ve got this wrong. Somebody might have done this shit, but it wasn’t us.”
“You got us all wrong, dumbass,” Santo said.
“Do I?” Jesse said.
He turned and grabbed the front of Santo’s nylon jacket with both hands and lifted him off the ground as if he were lifting a child.
He could hear the room go silent.
“Let go of me,” Santo said.
But it wasn’t easy acting tough when your feet were off the ground.
“Not just yet,” Jesse said, trying to keep any strain out of his voice.
Then he said, “What were the two of you looking for the other night at the house?”
“I’m telling you,” Santo said, “it wasn’t us.”
“No wonder people hate cops,” Baldelli said.
Jesse put Santo down. The two of them walked out of the station. Jesse went back to his office and shut the door and sat down behind his desk and began to get his breathing under control. Only he knew how close he’d come to smacking them both. That feeling, the rising hig
h heat that all cops knew and all had to keep under control and only some did, could come on him as powerfully as the urge to take a drink.
He took his mitt and his ball out of the bottom drawer and began fiercely throwing the ball into the pocket. He knew that Suit and Molly and Gabe and Peter could hear the sound of it outside. And he knew that they knew enough not to interrupt him when the sound of the ball in the glove was as loud as it was right now, like firecrackers going off. When he needed to blow off steam this way. Maybe Molly, across the room, had seen it in his eyes when he’d grabbed Roy Santo.
The ball had actually put a familiar sting in the palm of his left hand, just because the pocket of the old glove was so threadbare by now. But there was still such a loud, singing sound in his ears that he almost didn’t hear his phone.
No caller ID.
Jesse knew surprisingly few people who had that on their phones.
When he answered he heard, “Yeah.”
Vinnie. His usual greeting.
Jesse waited.
“I got something maybe on your boy Singer,” Vinnie Morris said.
THIRTY-SIX
Jesse asked where he was. Vinnie said, “Vegas still.” Jesse asked where in Vegas and Vinnie said his suite at The Mirage. Jesse asked if he was paying. Vinnie snorted and said that was a good one, no shit.
Then he suggested that they have their conversation on what he called “The Zoom.”
Jesse laughed.
“Zoom?” he said. “Is this really you?”
“I tried The Zoom out the other day,” he said. “Got a kick out of it, not gonna lie. More like real talking.”
“And you such a talker,” Jesse said.
“Stop talking and gimme your email address and I’ll send you the link,” Vinnie said.
A few minutes later there they were on each other’s screens. It looked like some suite behind Vinnie. Jesse pointed that out.
“Prepaid,” Vinnie said.
Jesse said he was happy for him, but what did he have on Singer?
“Yeah,” Vinnie said. “So the guy I’m here for, he knows the guy. Singer, I mean. And my guy says that Singer has some major problems, all about to collide.”
