Paul Murphy came into the van wearing work clothes. He poured some coffee for himself.
“There’s a crack in the seawall,” he said, “on the ocean side. I put a tenpenny nail in there and hung the dummy on it, just below the top of the wall.”
Crow nodded, and drank some coffee.
“The timing is everything here,” Jesse said. “You can’t have Amber up there with you too soon, or Esteban may not shoot. On the other hand, she’s got to be up there in time for the old man to see her getting shot at.”
Crow nodded. He was impassive as he always seemed, but Jesse thought there was a ripple of electricity beneath the surface.
“Esteban’s got to pass this site to get out on the Neck. When he does we’ll know it.”
“State cops?” Crow said.
“Sitting tight in the parking lot of the post office,” Jesse said. “’Bout four blocks that way.”
“People at the other end?”
“Yep.”
Crow nodded, flexing his hands a little.
“You nervous?” Jesse said.
Crow shook his head.
“I like to go over it,” Crow said. “Like foreplay, you know?”
“I’ve always thought about foreplay differently,” Jesse said.
Crow shrugged.
“Romero will be with Francisco,” Crow said. “He’s the stud. If somebody needs to get shot down, shoot him first.”
“You know him?”
Crow shrugged.
“We move in the same circles,” he said. “Rest of them will just be routine gunnies.”
The back door of the van was open. Crow looked out at the rain.
“Guess it doesn’t make so much difference where the sun’s coming from,” he said.
“Rain’ll take care of that,” Jesse said.
Crow nodded. He took a deep breath of the wet, salt-tinged air.
“Rain’s good,” he said. “Rain, early morning, hot coffee, and a firefight coming.”
He grinned and nodded his head.
“Only thing missing is sex,” he said.
“We pull this off,” Jesse said, “you get to keep the dummy.”
71.
At seven minutes past ten a new Nissan Quest picked its way through the narrowed construction lane.
In the van, Crow said, “That’s Esteban driving.”
“Let the van through,” Jesse said on the radio. And Buddy Hall waved it on. It drove on across the causeway and disappeared around the bend.
“Peter,” Jesse said into the radio, “a maroon Nissan Quest.”
“Got it,” Peter Perkins said. “It just U-turned and parked near the causeway.”
Into the radio Jesse said, “Corporal Jenks? You standing by?”
“We’re here,” Jenks said.
At 10:23 Steve Friedman said on the radio, “Two Lincoln Town Cars coming down Beach Street. Right plate numbers.”
“Okay,” Jesse said. “Buddy, you hold them at the barrier. First in line.”
“Roger,” Buddy said.
“Murph,” Jesse said. “Pull the backhoe in front of the van.”
“Okay,” Paul Murphy’s voice came over the radio.
The backhoe edged in front of the van. Jesse looked at Crow. Crow looked back. Jesse nodded once. Crow nodded back. Then, shielded from the street by the backhoe, Crow stepped out of the van and started out along the causeway with his hood up against the rain. It was 10:26. The first of the two Lincolns pulled to a stop at the barrier just out of sight of the causeway. The passenger-side window went down.
“What’s the holdup, Officer?” Francisco said.
“Just a minute, sir,” Buddy said. “Gotta clear the other end. You’ll be on your way in a jiffy.”
At 10:28 Crow was leaning on the seawall at the spot where the Amber dummy had been concealed on the other side. The rain made everything slightly murky.
“Jesse,” a voice said on the radio, “Peter Perkins on the Neck. A guy got out of the Quest and walked down to the bend where he could see the causeway. He’s coming back now, walking fast…. He’s getting in the van. They’ve left the slider open on the driver’s-side backseat.”
“You hear this, Crow?” Jesse said.
Crow’s voice was muffled a little because the mike was inside the sweatshirt.
“Got it,” he said.
“Van’s under way,” Perkins said.
Jesse looked at his watch.
“Get ready, Buddy,” he said into the mike. “Seven seconds, six, five, four, three, two, one, send the Lincoln.”
Buddy Hall stepped aside and waved the two Lincolns onto the causeway. Jesse jumped from the van and sprinted to his car parked in the beach parking lot right at the causeway. He could make Crow out through the rain, leaning against the seawall. The Quest was almost there. Suddenly Crow rolled up and over the seawall and Jesse heard the boom of a shotgun. Boom, boom, boom, in rapid sequence. Christ, he thought, a street sweeper. Boom, boom, boom. No sign of Crow. Then there was a flash of color at the seawall, and what seemed to be the body of a young woman appeared above the seawall and fell forward onto the causeway. Jesse put the car in gear and headed toward the scene. In front of him the two Lincolns spun sideways in the road and men with guns were out of both cars, shooting. Jesse turned on his lights and siren. Steve and Bobby behind him did the same, and from the Neck end of the causeway came Eddie Cox and John Maguire and Peter Perkins with the lights flashing and the sirens wailing.
In Jesse’s earphone Corporal Jenks said, “Jesse, you need us?”
“Block the causeway by the beach,” Jesse said. “And hold there. Nobody on or off.”
“Roger.”
Jesse got to the shoot-out first. The patrol cars from both ends of the causeway arrived right after he did at the shooting scene and swerved sideways to block the causeway. Jesse got out of his car, shielded by the open door. He had a shotgun. Most of the shooting stopped when the police arrived. Except the man with the street sweeper. From the van, the street sweeper kept firing toward the seawall. A tall, straight-backed man with salt-and-pepper hair walked from behind the lead Lincoln to the Quest, as if he was taking a walk in the rain. He fired through the open side door of the Quest with a handgun. After a moment a shotgun with a big round drum came rattling out onto the street. Behind it came the shooter, who fell beside the gun onto the street and didn’t move. The Paradise police ranged on both sides of the shoot-out, standing with shotguns, behind the cars. At the mainland end of the causeway, State Police cars blocked the road.
“Police,” Jesse said. “Everybody freeze.”
The tall, straight man looked at the scene, and without expression dropped his handgun. The other men followed his lead. Jesse walked to the tall man.
“You Romero?” Jesse said.
“Yeah.”
“I’m Jesse Stone.”
“I know who you are,” Romero said.
“You know him?” Jesse said, looking down at the dead man in the street.
“Esteban Carty,” Romero said to Jesse.
“No loss,” Jesse said. “You are all under arrest. Please place your hands on top of the car nearest you and back away with your legs spread.” Jesse smiled slightly. “I bet most of you know how it’s done.”
Louis Francisco got out of his car and walked unarmed to the motionless Amber dummy in the street. He knelt down in the rain and looked at it and turned it over. He looked at it for a while, then he stood and looked over the seawall, and finally turned and looked at Jesse. His face showed nothing.
“I wish to speak with my attorney,” he said without inflection.
Jesse nodded. Everyone was quiet. The only sounds were the movement of the ocean, and the sound of the rain falling, under the low, gray sky.
There is no quiet quite like the one that follows gunfire.
72.
Jesse sat with Healy, late at night, in his office, with a bottle of scotch and some ice.
“Quest
was stolen,” Jesse said.
“’Course it was,” Healy said.
“We don’t have much on Francisco,” Jesse said. “He didn’t even have a gun.”
“And he was just innocently riding along when a firefight broke out,” Healy said.
“We got the others for carrying unlicensed firearms, and for firing them. The claim is that they fired in self-defense.”
“And the Horn Street Boys?”
“They got a twenty-six-year-old public defender,” Jesse said. “They’ll be lucky to avoid lethal injection.”
“Jenks tells me there was some sort of dummy involved,” Healy said.
Jesse shrugged.
“And where is this guy Crow?”
Jesse shrugged again.
“Just curious,” Healy said. “But you’re right. It’s probably better if I don’t know too much about what went down over there.”
“Probably,” Jesse said.
“What about this guy Romero?” Healy said. “The one that shot Carty?”
“We got him on the unlicensed gun thing,” Jesse said. “But Francisco’s lawyer says he can make a self-defense case on the shooting. And I think he might.”
“Anyone you can turn?”
“I don’t think so. We got the most leverage with Romero,” Jesse said. “But he’s a pro. He’ll take one for the team if he has to.”
Healy nodded.
“Besides,” Jesse said. “I kind of like the way he walked in there and took Esteban out. For all Romero seemed to care, the kid could have been throwing snowballs.”
Healy leaned forward and put some more ice in his glass and poured another inch of scotch for himself.
“I’m sure he’s swell,” Healy said.
Jesse sipped his scotch, and rolled it a little in his mouth before he swallowed.
“He’s not swell,” Jesse said. “But he’s got a lot of guts.”
“How about the kid?” Healy said.
“Amber?”
Healy nodded. Jesse drank another swallow of scotch. The room was half-dark. The only light came from the crookneck lamp on Jesse’s desk.
“Francisco says he’ll leave her be,” Jesse said. “We got enough legal pressure on him up here, so he might mean it…at least for now.”
“She’s moving in with Daisy Dyke?” Healy said.
“Yes. She’ll work there. I’ll supervise her, get her in school, stuff like that.”
“Maybe I’ll stop by to watch you at the first parent-teacher meeting,” Healy said.
Jesse shook his head.
“You’re a cruel man, Healy,” he said.
“Who buys her school clothes?” Healy said. “Pays the doctor’s bills, stuff like that?”
“We have an, ah, financial arrangement with her father,” Jesse said.
“Which is no more kosher than this freaking shoot-out on the causeway,” Healy said.
“Probably not,” Jesse said.
“So I’m better off not knowing about that, too,” Healy said.
“We all are,” Jesse said.
“You think the old man will let her be?”
“I don’t think he gives a rat’s ass about her in any emotional way. I think we got a little legal pressure on him. I think it’ll be in his best interest to give all this a good leaving alone, for the time being.”
“But?”
“But we’ll keep a car around Daisy Dyke’s as much as we can,” Jesse said. “And I’ll take her places she needs to go.”
“Think she’ll stay?” Healy said.
“I don’t know. If she stays, she’s got financial security. If she runs away, she doesn’t. Her mother’s dead. Esteban’s dead. So she hasn’t got any place to run away to, that I know about.”
“Talk to any shrinks about her?” Healy said.
“My own,” Jesse said.
“And what does he say?”
“He’s not optimistic,” Jesse said.
Healy nodded. He drank some scotch and sat back in his chair.
“Gotta try,” he said.
73.
It was the first snow of the winter. The snowfall was deeper inland than it was along the coast, but in Paradise there was enough to make watching it fall worth doing. Jenn stood with Jesse at the French doors. It was late afternoon but not quite yet dark. Over the harbor the snow whirled in the conflicting air currents and disappeared into the asphalt-colored water. Most of the moorings were empty for the winter, but a few fishing boats still stood in the harbor and the snow collected on their decks. The snowfall was thick enough so that Paradise Neck on the other side of the harbor was invisible.
“What’s in the bag?” Jesse said.
“A care package from Daisy, for supper,” Jenn said. “Amber brought it.”
Behind them, disinterested in snowfall on the water, Amber sat sideways in an armchair with her legs dangling over an arm and watched MTV.
“What did you bring?” Jesse said to Amber.
“A bunch of stuff,” Amber said. “I don’t know.”
“Gee,” Jesse said. “That sounds delicious.”
“Whatever,” Amber said.
Jenn went to the bar and made two drinks and brought them back to the window. She handed one to Jesse.
“Oh, God,” Amber said. “You two booze bags at it again?”
“We are,” Jesse said.
Jenn went and sat on the footstool near Amber’s chair.
“How is school, Amber?” Jenn said.
“Sucks,” Amber said. “Don’t you remember school, for crissake? It sucks.”
“Gee,” Jenn said. “I loved school.”
“Sure,” Amber said. “You probably did. You were probably the best-looking girl there, and popular as hell.”
Jenn nodded a small nod.
“Well,” she said. “There was that.”
“You like school, Jesse?” Amber said.
“No,” Jesse said. “To tell you the truth, I thought it sucked, too.”
“See?” Amber said to Jenn.
Jenn nodded.
“You want a Coke?” she said to Amber.
“Yeah, sure, if I can’t have the good stuff,” Amber said.
Jenn got up and got Amber a Coke. Jesse continued to look out at the snow. Jenn came back to stand beside him. Amber refocused on MTV.
“So much for motherly small talk with the kid,” Jenn said.
“Maybe it’s a little soon,” Jesse said, “for motherly.”
“Too soon for me?” Jenn said. “Or too soon for her?”
“You,” Jesse said. “You seem a little…avant-garde…for motherly.”
“I don’t know if that’s a compliment or not,” Jenn said.
“It’s an observation,” Jesse said.
“Wouldn’t it be odd,” Jenn said, “if we put this together someday, and we had children.”
“Yes,” Jesse said. “That would be odd.”
“But not bad odd,” Jenn said.
“No,” Jesse said. “Not bad odd.”
The early winter night had arrived. The only snow they could see now was that just past the French doors, illuminated by the light from the living room.
“I saw where Miriam Fiedler got divorced,” Jenn said.
“Yep.”
“I thought that was going to be troublesome.”
“Guess it wasn’t,” Jesse said.
Jenn looked at him for a minute.
“You have something to do with that?” she said.
“I talked with her husband,” Jesse said. “He was pleasant enough.”
“What did you say?”
“He and his boyfriend are opening a high-end restaurant on the coast of Maine, south of Portland. I suggested negative publicity about him spending all his wife’s money on boyfriends and this restaurant would not help business.”
“God, Jesse,” Jenn said. “Sometimes I wonder which side of the law you’re on.”
“Me, too,” Jesse said.
“But
it worked?”
“It worked,” Jesse said.
“That the broad the cop, Suitcase, was fucking?” Amber said from the armchair.
“Yes,” Jesse said.
“You think he’s still fucking her?”
“Probably,” Jesse said.
“And you don’t care?” Amber said.
“No,” Jesse said.
“I think it’s disgusting,” Amber said.
“What I do care about, though,” Jesse said, “is that they are people, and that this matters to them in some way, and they probably shouldn’t be talked about like a couple of barnyard animals.”
Amber stared at him for a moment, and then shrugged and sank a little lower into the armchair.
“I was just asking,” she said.
Jesse went to the bar and made himself another drink. He looked at Jenn. She held up her half-full glass and shook her head. The doorbell rang. It was Molly, in uniform, with a heavy, fur-collared jacket on. She had a folded newspaper in her hand.
“You seen the paper today?” she said when she came in.
“No delivery today,” Jesse said. “Snow, I suppose.”
Molly handed it to him. She looked at Amber.
“Section two,” she said. “Below the fold.”
Jesse turned to it.
FLA. CRIME FIGURE KILLED
Louis Francisco, the reputed boss of organized crime in South Florida, was found shot to death today in the parking lot of a Miami restaurant.
Jesse read the story through without comment. A driver and a bodyguard had also been killed. Neither was named Romero. No arrests had been made. So far police had no suspects. Jesse gave the paper to Jenn and looked at Amber. Then he looked at Molly. She shrugged. Jesse nodded. He put his drink on the bar and walked over to Amber and sat on the hassock where Jenn had sat.
“Your father’s dead,” he said.
She looked away from the television screen and stared for a time at Jesse. Then, finally, she shrugged.
“Sooner or later,” she said.
Jesse nodded. MTV cavorted on behind him.
“Who killed him,” Amber said.
“You’re so sure he was killed,” Jesse said.
“Yeah. How else’s he gonna go? He ain’t much older than you.”
Jesse nodded.
“It bother you?” Jesse said.
“That somebody killed him? No. He was a rotten bastard,” Amber said. “Both of them were rotten bastards.”
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