Stone Cold js-4

by Robert B. Parker

  “A dozen?” Suit said.

  “We’re not going to eat a dozen

  donuts.”

  “Sooner or later,” Jesse said.

  Suit put the cruiser in gear.

  “Care to dine with an ocean view?” Suit said.

  “Sure,” Jesse said. “The wharf

  would do but make it quick. Don’t

  want the donuts to spoil.”

  “Donuts don’t spoil,” Suit said

  and drove them to the

  wharf.

  They left the motor on against the chill as they ate donuts and

  drank coffee and looked at the boat traffic, even on a cold day, moving about on the harbor.

  “Seem like a nice couple,” Suit said.

  “The Lincolns?”

  “Who’d you think I meant,” Suit

  said. “Us?”

  “Wise guys don’t make sergeant,”

  Jesse said.

  Suit grinned.

  “You got some problem with the Lincolns?”

  he

  said.

  “Too nice,” Jesse said. “Too

  cooperative.”

  “You’d prefer they were surly?”

  “Suit, you been studying up,” Jesse said.

  “Surly?”

  “I’m a high school grad,” Suit

  said. “I know a bunch of words.

  Sometimes I say enticing, or symbolic.

  What’s

  wrong with the Lincolns?”

  “They bother me. Lot of people are a little uncomfortable when

  the cops come and want to look at your gun.”

  “They knew nobody got shot with their gun,” Suit

  said.

  “Some people would want to check with their attorney before

  letting us test their weapon,” Jesse said. “People are uneasy with

  cops.”

  “Maybe, since they had nothing to hide they didn’t want to act

  like they did.”

  “Maybe,” Jesse said.

  “Well, soon as we fire the thing we’ll know.”

  “We’ll know the bullets that killed our people weren’t fired

  from that gun,” Jesse said.

  “You think they had another gun?”

  “Two.”

  “You think they did it?”

  “Until I got a better suspect,” Jesse said,

  “yes.”

  “Her too?”

  “Yes.”

  “Even if the gun don’t match,”

  Suit said.

  “It won’t match,” Jesse said.

  “They knew that when they gave it

  to us.”

  “You never said nothing to them about their car being parked up

  at the Paradise Mall when Barbara Carey got killed,” Suit said.

  He wiped cinnamon sugar off his chin with the back of his hand.

  “No need to tell them all we know,” Jesse said.

  “Because you got some kind of instinct that they’re the ones?”

  Suit said.

  “Because there’s something very phony about them,” Jesse

  said.

  “Lot of that going around in Paradise,”

  Suit

  said.

  “But they’re the only phonies whose car was parked ten feet from

  a homicide,” Jesse said.

  “Well,” Suit said.

  “Yeah.”

  44

  They sat together on the couch in the living room with their feet up on the coffee table. It was so still that they could hear the small click of the ice maker in their freezer. On the far horizon was the low profile of an oil tanker heading toward Chelsea Creek.

  “Looking at the water,” he said,

  “it’s like you can see

  eternity.”

  With her head resting against his shoulder, she said,

  “You

  always say that.”

  “Well, it’s always so.”

  “It’s always so, for you,” she

  said.

  “You and I are one and the same,” he said.

  She was quiet. The oil tanker disappeared behind the coastline curve to the east.

  “Do you think the cop will forget about us after the gun doesn’t

  match?” he said.

  “He was so polite,” she said. “I

  thought he was

  nice.”

  “In an odd way, I hope he doesn’t forget about

  us.”

  “Makes it more exciting?” she said.

  “I guess so,” he said.

  “What if he catches us?”

  “You think he’s going to catch us? Him and his bumpkin

  buddy?”

  “He didn’t seem to know very

  much,” she said. “Actually I think

  we sort of intimidated them.”

  “I know,” he said. “Did you see

  how stiff the big one was

  sitting by the door?”

  The ocean was empty now, stretching out from the empty beach below them. They watched its blue gray movement and the scatter of whitecaps where the wind ruffled the surface.

  “They can’t find out anything from the gun,” she

  said.

  “Of course not,” he said. “We

  haven’t even fired the damn

  thing.”

  “I know. I just worry sometimes.”

  “Do you really think some flatfooted cop has a chance against

  us? You and me?”

  “He didn’t seem so stupid to

  me,” she said, “more like he was

  polite.”

  “He was looking at your ass, for God’s sake.”

  She smiled and banged her head gently against his shoulder.

  “See, I told you he wasn’t

  stupid.”

  He put his hand inside her thigh, and she snuggled down a little

  against him.

  “Do that, myself,” he said.

  “I know.”

  Two gulls rose outside their window, effortlessly riding the air

  currents. They never seemed cold in the winter, nor hot in the summer; they were just always there, circling, soaring, looking for food.

  “It might be fun to kill him,” he said.

  “The cop?”

  “Yes.”

  “Isn’t that asking for trouble?”

  “Isn’t that what we do,” he

  said. “Ask for trouble? Would it be

  as thrilling doing what we do, if there were no risk of getting caught.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” she

  said. “I never thought of it that

  way.”

  “Would you have fun playing baseball if you knew you couldn’t

  lose?” he said.

  “I never played baseball,” she said.

  “Or gambling.” He was very intense.

  “The possibility of losing

  is what gives it juice.”

  “It would be something,” she said,

  “afterwards.”

  “It would,” he said, “be the

  fuck of our lives.”

  “Oh my,” she said.

  “We should think about it,” he said.

  “Yes. Even if we decide to do it, though, we shouldn’t do it

  yet.”

  “Let’s see how close he can get without catching us,” he

  said.

  “And then if we kill him,” she said,

  “it will be in the nick of

  time.”

  She smiled up at him.

  “What kind of fuck would that be?” she said.

  45

  Together again, Jesse thought, as he looked at Candace

  Pennington sitting across his conference table from Bo Marino.

  Chuck Pennington was there with Candace, and Joe Marino was with Bo.

  “He
threatened Candace,” Chuck Pennington said quietly. “He told

  her if she testified against him he’d kill her, and if he had to

  he’d kill Feeney too.”

  “The hell he did,” Joe Marino said.

  “He told her anything it was

  she should stop lying about him.”

  “Anyone else hear the threat, Candace?”

  Jesse

  said.

  “No, but he said it.”

  “Liar,” Bo said.

  “See, nobody heard him,” Joe Marino said.

  “It’s just his word

  against hers.”

  “Don’t force me to make that

  choice,” Jesse said.

  “What’s that mean,” Marino said.

  “It means that I have found Bo to be a chronic liar, and a bad

  creep.”

  “See that, they’re all out to get me. I didn’t do nothing to the

  bitch.”

  Chuck Pennington stood up quite suddenly. He showed no change of

  expression as he reached across the table and yanked Bo Marino out of his chair and dragged him headfirst over the table.

  “Hey,” Joe Marino said and stood up.

  Chuck Pennington punched Bo twice in the face with his left hand. Bo’s father grabbed Chuck from behind and wrestled him away

  from Bo. Pennington shrugged Marino off, and turned and hit him a right hook that set Marino back on his heels and another one that knocked him down. Jesse put a hand softly on Candace’s shoulder.

  Otherwise he did nothing. Bo floundered across the tabletop, his nose bleeding. He was a big kid, a weight lifter and a football player, but he looked like neither with the blood running down his face and tears welling in his eyes. He swung wildly at Chuck Pennington, who tucked his chin inside his left shoulder and let the punch slide off his arms. Then he hit Bo with a straight left and a right cross and Bo sat down hard on the floor. Bo’s father

  was scrambling to his feet.

  “Arrest him,” Joe Marino screamed at Jesse. “You saw it. I want

  the sonovabitch arrested for assault.”

  “Assault?” Jesse said.

  “You seen him,” Marino shouted.

  “Sit down, Mr. Pennington,” Jesse said.

  “I promise you they

  won’t assault you again.”

  “Wait a minute,” Marino said.

  “You was sitting right

  here.”

  Pennington sat down. He still had no expression on his face but

  he was breathing a little harder. He didn’t look at his daughter,

  who stared at him with her mouth open.

  “And I saw you and your son insult Candace Pennington and

  assault her father,” Jesse said. “You see it any different?”

  “That’s the way I see it,” Chuck

  Pennington said.

  “Me too,” Candace said.

  Her small voice was startling in the big room.

  “He punched my kid for no reason,” Marino said.

  Bo had gotten to his feet and was holding a paper napkin against

  his bloody nose. He was crying.

  “I think there was a reason, Mr. Marino,”

  Jesse

  said.

  46

  Jesse came into the Gray Gull out of the bright winter day, and

  stood for a minute to let his eyes adjust. The maitre d‘ saw him

  and came over with some menus under his arm.

  “This isn’t a raid, is it,

  Jesse?”

  Jesse smiled.

  “I’m meeting someone,” he said.

  “I know, she’s here already. I put her by the window, that

  okay?”

  “Swell,” Jesse said.

  Rita Fiore was sitting sideways to the table with her legs crossed, sipping a glass of white wine. She was wearing a black suit with a long jacket and a short skirt. Her white blouse had a low scoop neck, and the sun reflecting through the window off the harbor made her thick red hair glisten. She smiled at Jesse.

  “I feel like I walked into some kind of fashion shoot,” Jesse

  said.

  “Yes,” Rita said as he sat down.

  “My plan is that you’ll be so

  taken with my appearance that you’ll do whatever I want.”

  “It’s working,” Jesse said.

  The maitre d‘ put the menu down in front of Jesse, took Jesse’s

  order for a cranberry juice and soda, and departed.

  “Thanks for meeting me,” Rita said.

  “Didn’t want to run the press

  gauntlet?”

  “I thought it might be nicer if we stayed away from all of

  that,” Rita said.

  She sipped her wine and looked out at the harbor.

  “This is a lovely spot,” she said.

  “How’s the

  food?”

  “Adequate,” Jesse said. “The

  view’s better.”

  A waiter brought Jesse his cranberry and soda. He looked at Rita’s glass, and she shook her head. Sitting across from her,

  Jesse could feel her energy. There was a sense of intelligence and of kinetic sensuality that radiated from her in equal portions.

  “Are you thinking long thoughts?” Rita said.

  “Mostly I’m thinking, wow!”

  “Good,” Rita said. “I like

  wow.”

  “In the small moments between thinking wow, I’m wondering why

  you wanted to see me.”

  Rita looked at him for a while without speaking. Somehow she managed to sit with a wiggle. I wonder how she does that?

  “Like so much in life,” Rita said,

  “there are several reasons,

  including the hope that you might in fact think wow.”

  Jesse smiled. The waiter came. Rita ordered a Caesar salad.

  Jesse ordered a club sandwich. The waiter left. Jesse waited.

  “First, I now represent only Bo Marino,”

  Rita

  said.

  “Nice,” Jesse said.

  Rita wrinkled her nose.

  “Everyone is entitled to the best defense he can get,” she

  said.

  “Which would be you.”

  “Yes.”

  “Reagan know?”

  “I have so notified the Essex County DA.”

  “So why tell me?”

  Rita smiled.

  “Because the Marinos wish to sue you for dereliction of

  duty.”

  “Is that in the penal code,” Jesse said.

  “Not exactly,” Rita said. “But

  pretty much everything is in

  there if you’re a good enough lawyer. They are also suing Chuck

  Pennington for assault.”

  “Really?”

  “They claim he assaulted them in your presence and you did

  nothing to prevent it.”

  “It all happened so quickly,” Jesse said.

  “I’m sure,” Rita said.

  “I can tell already that you’re kind of slow to react.”

  “Well,” Jesse said, “the thing

  is Bo attacked Chuck, who

  responded in self-defense. Then Joe Marino jumped in and Chuck had to defend himself from both of them.”

  “And you?”

  “Broke it up as soon as I could,” Jesse said. “Restraining the

  Marinos was difficult.”

  Rita smiled faintly. “I’m sure,”

  she said.

  The club sandwich was cut into four triangles. Jesse picked up one of the triangles and bit off the point.

  “And,” Rita said. “If I were to

  talk with the Pennington father

  and daughter, I’d probably hear the same story.”

  “Sure,” Jesse said.

  “Verbatim,” Rita said.

  Jesse smiled.
“We all saw the same thing,”

  Jesse

  said.

  “And that’s how you’ll all

  testify.”

  “Absolutely,” Jesse said.

  “So it will be your word against theirs.”

  “And I’m a distinguished law officer here in Paradise,” Jesse

  said. “And Bo is a rapist.”

  Rita nodded and ate a crouton and looked out at the harbor, and

  across at Paradise Neck, with Stiles Island at the tip, tethered by the new causeway.

  “Did you know that Chuck Pennington was a boxer in college?” she

  said.

  “I did,” Jesse said.

  Rita ate another crouton and half a romaine leaf.

  “Doesn’t that make Bo seem kind of

  foolhardy?” she

  said.

  “Bo isn’t smart enough to be

  foolhardy,” Jesse said. “And, of

  course, he didn’t know what Pennington did in college.”

  “Be hard to demonstrate that he did,” Rita said.

  “Ethically.”

  “Ethically?”

  “I know, it’s embarrassing, but

  …” Rita shrugged. “It will

  be difficult to enlist a jury’s sympathy for Bo Marino.”

  “Who is, you will note,” Jesse said,

  “bigger than Pennington. So

  is his father.”

  “Noted,” Rita said and finished her wine and waved the empty

  glass at the waiter.

  They ate in silence for the short time it took the waiter to replace Rita’s glass.

  When he was gone, Rita said, “This isn’t a winner for our side.

  I’ll persuade my clients to drop it.”

  “And if they don’t?”

  Rita smiled.

  “They’ll drop it,” she said.

  Jesse nodded and ate his club sandwich.

  “So,” Rita said, “off the

  record, what really

  happened?”

  “Off the record?”

  “Between you and me, only,” Rita said.

  “Pennington smacked the crap out of Bo Marino and his old man,

  and I let him.”

  “I’m shocked,” Rita said.

  “It’ll be our secret,” Jesse

  said.

  “Perhaps,” Rita said, “before

  we’re through there will be

  several more.”

  Jesse looked at her and she looked back. There was promise in her eyes, and challenge, and a flash of something so visceral, Jesse thought, that Rita may not have known it was there.

  “Wow,” Jesse said.

  47

  Jesse was on the phone with the state police ballistics lab, talking to a technician named Holton. Suitcase Simpson sat across the desk from him, drinking coffee and reading the Globe.