Robert B. Parker's Damned if You Do

by Michael Brandman

  While many patrons got out successfully, the exits were soon overrun. People were crammed together, struggling to escape. Some fell and were trampled. Others were violently thrust aside.

  Walker continued to push his way through the crowd, heading in Jesse’s direction. Sirens could be heard in the distance. Jesse watched warily as Walker approached.

  Then, without warning, Walker raised his pistol, aimed it at Jesse, and fired. The shot went wide. It slammed into the wall behind him.

  At the sound of gunfire, the screaming and chaos intensified. Terrified people continued to jam the exits.

  Jesse dove for the ground and rolled behind one of the food court’s oversized cement garbage bins.

  Walker fired again. The bullet caromed off the garbage bin, struck an upturned table, and fell to the floor.

  Jesse was hesitant to return the fire for fear of hitting either Clarice or a bystander.

  Walker fired again. It was wide left. Still shielded by Clarice, Thomas edged closer to the garbage bin behind which Jesse was hiding.

  Jesse could see Clarice looking directly at him. She was struggling to break free. Walker gripped her arm tighter. She winced in pain.

  By now the room had emptied considerably. From the corner of his eye, Jesse spotted Fat Boy Nelly at the Hot Wok Express that was located directly behind Thomas and Clarice. He was partially hidden by a soda machine. A Glock 19 was in his hand. He was searching for a clear shot at Walker.

  As Clarice fought to wrest her arm from Walker’s grasp, he tightened his grip even more. His rage was palpable. She looked toward Jesse, her eyes pleading for help.

  “You should never have fucked with me,” Walker said to Jesse.

  His Colt in his hand, Jesse looked for an opening, but Walker never gave him one.

  “You and me, Thomas,” Jesse said. “Just us. Leave her out of it.”

  “Too late,” Walker said.

  He fired a barrage of bullets toward the garbage bin. Shattered concrete fragments flew in every direction, one lodging itself into Jesse’s forearm, another into his cheek.

  Walker never saw Nelly behind him. His attention was totally focused on Jesse, whose wounds had begun to ooze blood.

  Nelly spotted his opportunity and grabbed it. With a clear field between him and Walker, he opened fire.

  Walker never knew that it was the Fat Boy who shot him. The very same round that killed him also tore through Clarice Edgerson, killing her as well.

  Both of them collapsed in a heap.

  Jesse had seen Nelly fire. He knew that the round had the potential to punch through Walker and Clarice both. His cry not to shoot came too late. He rushed to her side.

  He knelt beside her and eased her from Walker’s grasp. He lowered her to the floor. She was looking directly at him as she died.

  Jesse saw Dave Muntz and Rich Bauer approaching, their weapons drawn.

  He shook his head.

  He looked behind him, but Nelly was no longer there.

  “The shooter,” Bauer said.

  “Gone,” Jesse said.

  “Did you see who it was,” Muntz said.

  “I didn’t,” Jesse said.

  Muntz knelt down, checked Walker’s pulse, and signaled to Jesse that he was dead.

  “You’re bleeding, Jesse,” Suitcase said.

  Jesse nodded.

  Bauer grabbed a couple of towels from the nearest food stall and wrapped one of them tightly around Jesse’s arm, stanching the bleeding. The other he handed to Jesse and told him to press it to his cheek.

  Jesse mindlessly did as he was told. After a while, he stood and walked slowly out of the mall.

  Jesse sat in his cruiser, talking with Captain Healy. The mall was now a crime scene. State police and emergency medical personnel swarmed all over it.

  Fortunately, no civilians had been hit in the shooting. Several people suffered minor injuries. Two heart attacks had been reported. Three people suffered broken bones as a result of having been trampled. But aside from Walker and Clarice, there were no fatalities.

  One of the medics had cleansed and bandaged Jesse’s wounds. He removed a sliver of concrete from Jesse’s arm and a smaller chunk from his cheek. As a preventive measure, he gave him a shot of penicillin so as to ward off any possible infection.

  Walker’s bodyguard, the one that Jesse had taken down, had been hauled off to jail. The one that Nelly subdued had vanished.

  He had told the story to Healy several times, each time searching for the window through which he might have been able to save Clarice. He purposely omitted mention of Nelly.

  “I’m still puzzled as to the identity of the shooter,” Healy said.

  “Once people heard the gunfire, all hell broke loose. It was impossible to identify anyone in the melee.”

  “And you’re sticking to that?”

  Jesse nodded.

  “Is there something you’re not telling me?”

  “No.”

  “The shooter fired from behind Walker. You were in front of him. You didn’t see who it was?”

  “I was crouched behind a concrete garbage bin. Walker was firing at me. People were everywhere. I never saw the shooter.”

  “Fat Boy Nelly,” Healy said.

  “What about him,” Jesse said.

  “It had to have been him.”

  “Are you asking me or telling me?”

  “I’m asking you,” Healy said.

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “And you expect me to believe that?”

  Jesse shrugged.

  “All I want is confirmation,” Healy said.

  “I didn’t see who did it.”

  Healy sighed.

  “Go home,” he said.

  “Soon.”

  “There’s more to this than you’re letting on,” Healy said.

  Jesse didn’t say anything.

  “It’s something personal, isn’t it?”

  Jesse remained silent.

  “Go home,” Healy said as he got out of the cruiser. He looked back at Jesse through the open window.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  Then he walked away.

  Jesse sat on his porch, a glass of scotch in his hand, the bottle on the table beside him. The evening breeze was chilling, but he didn’t feel it. The cascading waters of the bay provided background accompaniment that he didn’t hear.

  Although present, Mildred sensed that it might not be the right time for her to be on his lap. She sat on the adjacent chair, her eyes glued to him.

  He had never fully realized how much he had come to care for Clarice. She faded from life as she looked in his eyes. He saw it happen.

  He poured himself more scotch.

  He hadn’t been drunk in a while. Sobriety had sneaked up on him when he wasn’t watching. Days went by without him ever taking a drink. Or even wanting one.

  Tonight was different.

  Tonight he wanted one.

  More than one.

  He hoped that the scotch would accomplish what he was unable to achieve himself. Annie Carmine, he thought. He wanted it to erase the haunting look in her dying eyes from his mind and his heart.

  Before it could happen, however, he passed out where he sat.

  So you got wasted,” Dix said.

  “Yes,” Jesse said.

  “Why did you get wasted?”

  Jesse didn’t say anything.

  “Because of this woman’s death.”

  “I think so.”

  Jesse took a sip of the coffee that Dix had made for them. He didn’t really care much for Dix’s coffee. He was debating whether or not to tell him.

  “You don’t agree,” Jesse said.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You think I was using Clarice’s death as an excuse to get drunk?”

  “Were you?”

  “No.”

  “Is there another answer,” Dix said.

  “I got drunk so as to help me blot out the pain.”


  Dix didn’t say anything. Jesse didn’t say anything.

  “You’re not to blame,” Dix said.

  “Easy for you to say.”

  “You think her death was your fault?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Try not to lose sight of your hyperactive sense of responsibility.”

  “She wouldn’t be dead if it weren’t for me.”

  “You think Walker wouldn’t have brought her to the mall if it wasn’t for you?”

  “I do.”

  “And that Nelly wouldn’t have killed her?”

  Jesse didn’t say anything.

  “As much as you’d like to assume the burden of guilt for this, Jesse, it’s not gonna fly. You had no control over what happened. Walker did what he did. Nelly did what he did. You were irrelevant.”

  “What about Clarice,” Jesse said.

  “What about her,” Dix said.

  “She died because of me.”

  “She died because she was with Thomas Walker when Nelly took him down. You don’t really believe that Walker was out to kill her, do you? Do you really believe that, had Walker suspected Nelly might be lying in wait for him, he would have placed himself and Clarice in harm’s way?”

  Jesse didn’t say anything.

  “He may have been out to teach her a lesson, but certainly not to kill her. Or, more significantly, not to kill himself.”

  “He wanted her watching when he took me down.”

  “You bet he did. Testament to his self-presumed omnipotence.”

  “And Nelly upset his plans.”

  “Big-time.”

  “I think Nelly wanted to kill her right from the start,” Jesse said.

  “Why?”

  “Because she was in his way.”

  “How?”

  “He saw her as a threat to his taking control of the Mob’s prostitution operations. He knew that it was she who really ran the show. That Thomas was her front. She knew all the players and all the secrets. It was she who Gino pointed me to when he was looking to help me solve the murder.”

  “And?”

  “Nothing would change as long as she stayed in place. Nelly understood that.”

  “And you think that’s why he killed her?”

  “Yes.”

  “So then you surely can’t hold yourself accountable for what went down,” Dix said.

  Jesse didn’t say anything.

  “Despite your neurotic need to do so.”

  Jesse didn’t say anything.

  Dix didn’t say anything.

  They stayed that way until the session came to an end.

  Jesse was in his office, staring out the window and sipping his coffee, when Molly walked in and sat down.

  “Why so glum,” she said.

  “Personal.”

  “You want to talk about it?”

  “Not really.”

  “Something to do with what happened last night?”

  “Maybe.”

  “I’m going to take a wild guess,” she said. “Did it have anything to do with Clarice Edgerson?”

  Jesse shrugged.

  “I knew it,” Molly said.

  “We were friends.”

  “Newly made friends.”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ll get over it.”

  He looked at her.

  “You will,” she said. “Try not to make more of it than it was. Just because she’s gone.”

  Jesse didn’t say anything.

  “Try looking at it from a different perspective,” she said.

  “Meaning?”

  “You hardly knew this woman. Despite the fact that you and she had become so-called pals. Her story had a whole lot of pages in it about which you had no idea. I know you, Jesse. You have a tendency to overromanticize things. Don’t magnify this. I’m sure she was a lovely person. I’m sure you and she were en route to becoming fast friends. I’m sure you’re greatly saddened by her death. But you’ll get over it. Just try not to overreact is all I’m saying.”

  Jesse didn’t say anything.

  “Did it ever cross your mind that perhaps they were using you?”

  He looked at her.

  “Since when did you become so wise,” he said.

  “I’ve always been wise,” she said. “It’s just that some people around here never noticed.”

  With that, she stood and walked to the door. Once there, she turned back to him.

  “What, no donut,” she said.

  “I didn’t feel like one.”

  “Do you feel like one now?”

  “Are you offering to bring me one?”

  “As long as I don’t have to touch it too much,” she said.

  “A donut might be nice.”

  “And maybe some hot coffee?”

  “Maybe.”

  She smiled at him and headed for the coffee stand.

  Jesse pulled into the parking space in front of the footbridge that led to his house. He spotted Fat Boy Nelly leaning against the stanchion at the entrance to the bridge, watching the progress of a pair of sailing skiffs as they raced across the bay.

  Nelly was wearing a vintage Miami Dolphins jersey, number thirteen, the name Marino embroidered on the back. His oversized jeans and unlaced Nikes were the same as always. He looked up when Jesse got out of his cruiser.

  “I read the papers,” he said.

  “I bet you were looking for your name.”

  “It wasn’t there. Why’s that, you suppose?”

  “Maybe no one saw you at the mall.”

  “That’s funny, I could’ve sworn somebody saw me there.”

  “I guess not.”

  Nelly didn’t say anything.

  “You want to come in,” Jesse said.

  “Nah. I just come by to finish what’s unfinished.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Why did you yell ‘Don’t shoot’?”

  Jesse didn’t say anything.

  “It was because of Clarice, wasn’t it?”

  Jesse remained silent.

  “I knew that’s what it was. I saw it in your eyes after. Man, I’m sorry.”

  “Unintended consequences,” Jesse said.

  “It was strictly business, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “I ’preciate you not sayin’ my name,” Nelly said.

  “I appreciate you having my back.”

  “You do?”

  “I looked for you,” Jesse said. “Never could see you, though.”

  Nelly smiled.

  “I’m very good at hiding myself,” he said.

  “Strange,” Jesse said.

  “What’s strange?”

  “It felt good knowing you were out there. I got a particular jolt when you winked at me as I was dealing with that bodyguard.”

  “Yeah. I liked that, too.”

  They stood silently for a while.

  “So what’s next,” Jesse said.

  “For Nelly?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’ll lay low for a while. Let this shit cool down. Then I’m gonna go have me a sit-down with Mr. Gino Fish.”

  “One he’s expecting, no doubt.”

  “No doubt,” Nelly said. “I’m planning to surprise him, though.”

  “How?”

  “I bought me a whole new wardrobe. Armani suits. Silk ties. English shirts. Italian shoes. The whole deal. I hate to admit to it, but I’ve even signed up for Weight Watchers. Gino gonna shit when he see me.”

  “Lovely image,” Jesse said.

  “You want to be a executive, you have to dress the part.”

  Jesse smiled.

  “Tone down the rhetoric, too.”

  “Meaning?”

  “I still have to talk the street talk, you know, but now I have to talk the white talk, too.”

  Jesse looked at him.

  “I plan to take my place at the table. Metaphorically speaking, that is.”

  “Metaphorically?”


  Nelly grinned.

  “The table signifies the white world. The less threatening I appear to that world, the more receptive it’ll be to me.”

  “Hence the Armani.”

  “Exactly.”

  “And the diet.”

  “I’m gonna give it a shot.”

  “Smart move.”

  “Yeah. Thanks.”

  “Send me a photo,” Jesse said.

  “We be friends,” Nelly said.

  “Odd, isn’t it?”

  “That we be friends?”

  Jesse nodded. He extended his hand. Nelly took it.

  “Good luck, Nelly.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “You, too.”

  Jesse got out of his Explorer, walked up the porch steps, and rang Martha Becquer’s bell. After several moments, she opened the door.

  “Jesse,” she said.

  “Have I come at a bad time?”

  “Not at all. Please come in.”

  He followed her inside and they sat in her pristine living room.

  “Why are you here,” she said.

  “It’s over,” Jesse said.

  “You mean you’ve identified the murderer?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’ve arrested him?”

  “He’s dead.”

  “Dead?”

  “Killed in a shootout at the Paradise Mall.”

  “The one I read about?”

  “It made the papers, yes.”

  “Who was he?”

  “Thomas Walker. Front man for the Mob’s interests in Boston prostitution.”

  “Meaning?”

  “He was the muscle. It was his job to make certain that the money flowed where it was intended to flow.”

  “And if it didn’t?”

  “Thomas made certain that it ultimately did.”

  “And it was he who killed Janet?”

  “Yes.”

  “And he won’t be brought to justice?”

  “You might say that he already has been.”

  “Why did he do it?”

  “For something trivial.”

  “Like what?”

  “Thomas Walker liked to think of himself as a powerful person. He paraded his power around. He was in charge of recruitment, and he always made certain that the women he selected did as he wished.”

  “But not Janet?”

  “He courted her. They were seen on the town together. When she defied him, he killed her.”