Blue Screen

by Robert B. Parker

  “Culture of denial?” I said to Jesse. “Are you sure you’re a cop?”

  “God made her look like she does,” Jesse said. “To live up to that, she has to deny everything else.”

  “Even her sister?”

  “Sister knows,” Jesse said.

  “But pretending she’s not your sister doesn’t make her not know,” I said.

  “Why they call it denial,” Jesse said.

  I looked at him for a while. He glanced at me.

  “I’ve done shrink time,” he said.

  “Ex-wife?” I said.

  “Some.”

  “I’ve done it, too,” I said.

  “Ex-husband?”

  “Some.”

  Jesse smiled.

  “How’s it working,” he said.

  “I’m a lot better than I would be without it,” I said.

  Jesse nodded.

  We sat silently for a time. It wasn’t an uncomfortable silence. We seemed to be mutually at ease with our therapies and each other. As we sat, Erin dropped her bat and walked out of the batting cage.

  “I don’t see any fucking spin,” she said. “And I don’t think you do.”

  “Spring training doesn’t start till March,” Roy Linden said. “We got time.”

  “Bullshit,” Erin said and walked away toward the locker room.

  The two security guys walked along after her, looking in all directions, staying close. Roy Linden waved at us and walked out of the gym. Jesse and I were alone in the stands.

  “Is there a spin?” I said.

  “Yeah. Helps you recognize what the pitch will be.”

  “Could you see it?”

  “I could if I were hitting,” Jesse said. “Not from here.”

  The gym was empty. The amount of unoccupied space around us underscored how close we were sitting. The silence was substantial.

  “What was the problem with you and your husband?” Jesse said.

  “I’m still figuring that out,” I said. “But one of them was me.”

  “Hard to imagine,” Jesse said.

  “Think how I feel,” I said.

  We were quiet again.

  Without looking at me Jesse said, “Jenn cheated on me.”

  “Ouch,” I said.

  Jesse nodded.

  “More than once?” I said.

  “Many more.”

  “Hard to trust her now?” I said.

  “Yes.”

  More quiet, both of us surveying the empty gym.

  “Richie has remarried,” I said.

  “Ouch,” Jesse said.

  I nodded. Somewhere out of sight in the gym, a door opened and closed. The sound only underscored the silence. I was aware of my clothes and of myself inside them.

  “I feel a little tense,” I said.

  “Me too,” Jesse said.

  “But I like it,” I said.

  “Me too,” Jesse said.

  We looked at each other. There was no uneasiness between us and no challenge. We just looked at each other, seeing what was there.

  “I don’t know exactly what it means,” I said.

  “No,” Jesse said. “But it means something.”

  “We might as well follow it,” I said. “See where it goes.”

  “No rush,” Jesse said.

  “And your ex-wife?” I said.

  “I don’t know,” Jesse said.

  “Well,” I said after a time. “I guess we’ll probably find that out, too.”

  27

  ISAT WITH Richie’s Uncle Felix in the backseat of a silver Mercedes sedan parked off of Soldier’s Field Road in Brighton and looked at the Charles River. Outside the car, Felix’s driver leaned on the left-front fender and smoked a cigarette.

  I said, “Thanks for seeing me, Felix.”

  “I like you, Sunny, even if you ain’t with Richie,” Felix said.

  He had a voice like Darth Vader. I wanted to ask him how he liked Richie’s new wife.

  “How is Richie?” I said.

  “He’s fine,” Felix said.

  Felix wasn’t here to talk about Richie. With his brother Desmond, my former father-in-law, Felix ran the Irish Mob in Boston. Desmond did the corporate planning. Felix enforced it. He was quite brutal, but there was in him some strange courtliness and, despite myself, I liked him.

  “I was talking with my father,” I said. “About a case I’m on.”

  Felix nodded his massive gray head. My father and he had met in the course of their duties.

  “He said money often connects with, ah, mobsters.”

  “Like me,” Felix said.

  “Nobody is exactly like you, Felix.”

  He nodded.

  “Do you know a man named Buddy Bollen?” I said.

  “Heard of him,” Felix said.

  He sat with his thick hands folded over his round, hard stomach. They rose and fell slightly as he breathed. Otherwise, he didn’t move.

  “What can you tell me about him?”

  “He’s a player,” Felix said.

  “Which means?”

  “Means he makes a lot of money and spends a lot and don’t mind cutting corners. Means when he wants to cut corners he don’t mind dealing with guys like me and Desmond.”

  “So have you done any business?”

  “Me and Desmond? No. I was just using a, ah, figure of speech.”

  “But you might know somebody he did business with?”

  “I might find out,” Felix said. “Whaddya want to know?”

  “Anything,” I said. “A woman was murdered in his house and I’m trying to find out who did it.”

  “I’ll ask around,” Felix said. “Anybody give you trouble?”

  “Like what?” I said.

  “Witness knows something won’t tell you,” Felix said. “I could help with that.”

  I smiled.

  “No, not at the moment. Thank you, Felix.”

  He nodded, looking out at the bright, gray river. I didn’t say anything. Neither did he. After a time, Felix turned and looked at me. It had weight to it. It was as if I could feel his stare.

  “How you doing, Sunny?”

  “Good,” I said. “Good.”

  “You still got Rosie?” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “Goddamnedest dog I ever seen,” Felix said. “Richie used to have her sometimes in the tavern.”

  “She still visits him,” I said. “Every week.”

  Felix nodded. He looked out the window at the river again and was quiet.

  After a time, and still looking at the river, Felix said, “Richie’s gonna have a kid.”

  It was difficult to breathe.

  I managed to say, “Oh?”

  “Wife’s pregnant,” Felix said. “Four months.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  I felt as if I had frozen solid. Felix’s cavernous voice seemed remote.

  “They know what?” I said. My voice sounded like a distant squeak to me.

  “Boy,” Felix said from somewhere.

  I didn’t say anything. Felix put his hand on my thigh and patted me for a moment.

  “Now you know,” he said.

  I nodded and got out of the car. The driver flipped his cigarette and stepped quickly to hold the door.

  “Thank you, Felix,” I said.

  “I’ll ask around,” he said. “Get back to you.”

  I stepped away. The driver closed the door. I walked to my own car and got in and closed the door. I sat for a moment, trying to breathe. Beside me the Mercedes pulled out of the parking area and out onto Soldier’s Field Road. I watched it briefly in the rearview mirror as it headed west toward Newton, and then my vision blurred and I couldn’t see much of anything.

  28

  SPIKE AND I tried to have dinner together every Tuesday night when we could. Tonight we were having whole wheat spaghetti with meatballs, cooked by Spike, and some Kendall Jackson Riesling, bought by me. Rosie sat beside me on my extra-wide c
hair, and Spike put a precooled meatball on a saucer in front of her. Rosie ate it. I drank some of my wine.

  “One of the things in being a detective,” I said, “is you learn a lot of stuff.”

  “Which means,” Spike said, “that if you do it for a while, you know a lot of stuff.”

  “I guess,” I said.

  I drank some more wine. Kendall Jackson Riesling was my favorite.

  “So what did you learn today?” Spike said.

  He wasn’t drinking wine. He had Jack Daniel’s on the rocks. Rosie watched us beadily. There was no way to predict from whence another meatball might appear.

  “I’ve been thinking about Erin Flint,” I said.

  “Lot of people do,” Spike said.

  “She’s pathetic,” I said.

  I drank some wine.

  “She’s high camp.”

  “You like her?” I said.

  My wineglass was empty. I refilled it.

  “I’m usually focused on the leading man,” Spike said.

  “What’s so pathetic?”

  I drank some wine.

  “She…”

  I drank a little more wine and thought about it.

  “She is a great physical specimen,” I said. “Very athletic. Very beautiful. She’s a big star. She makes a ton of money. She may become the first woman to play major-league baseball.”

  I drank some wine.

  “And as far as I can see, she is not happy for one minute during the day,” I said. “What a shame.”

  “I’ve seen her movies,” Spike said. “Thus proving that I really am gay.”

  “She has no acting talent,” I said.

  “None,” Spike said. “So where’s that leave her?”

  “It leaves her with only two things she can rely on,” I said. “Her looks and the kindness of rich men.”

  “And when one goes,” Spike said, “the other goes.”

  Spike turned the short whiskey glass slowly around on the tabletop. His hands were thick. Rosie watched him rotate his glass with the blank avidity of a Peeping Tom.

  “So there’s nothing to fall back on,” I said.

  Spike shook his head.

  “She acts with her appearance,” he said. “When her appearance is no longer compelling…”

  He shrugged.

  “And no one loves her,” I said.

  “Buddy?”

  “No, I hardly think so.”

  “Sister’s dead,” Spike said. “Anybody else?”

  I shook my head.

  “There’s a pimp in LA,” I said. “Claims he loves her.”

  I looked at him.

  “Not too consoling,” Spike said.

  “No.”

  Spike sipped a small sip of Jack Daniel’s. He watched as I poured more wine for myself.

  “Poor little rich girl,” Spike said.

  “When I saw her naked, in the women’s locker room, I thought that I would give five years off my life to look like that.”

  “Beauty doesn’t buy happiness?” Spike said.

  “I know it’s a cliché, but seeing it close-up—rich, beautiful, and unhappy—it doesn’t,” I said.

  “That’s been true for me, too,” Spike said.

  “You have to have something—a skill, a talent—that’s yours, that can’t be taken from you.”

  “Or a someone,” Spike said.

  I nodded. I was a little drunk. I felt like I wanted to be more drunk. Rosie shifted her black, almond-eyed stare onto me. She had a gaze like a Modigliani painting.

  “Or someone,” I said.

  I patted Rosie’s head softly. My eyes began to fill. God, I was going to cry. Spike was watching me. I dropped my head. I tried deep breaths to forestall it, but it wasn’t working. My deep breaths were shaky.

  “Let her rip, honey,” Spike said. “Who would you rather cry with than me?”

  “I don’t want to scare Rosie,” I said.

  I had trouble getting the words out.

  “Sunny,” Spike said, “while the potential for meatballs exists, Rosie won’t care if you have an extended case of demonic possession.”

  “I know,” I said.

  And the crying came. Face in hands, shoulders shaking. Boo hoo.

  Spike sat quietly, sipping his Jack Daniel’s, watching me. Rosie remained calm. The crying lasted maybe five minutes, which is a long time to cry. Then I was quiet for a while longer, getting my breathing under control.

  “Richie’s having a baby,” I said finally.

  “Whoops,” Spike said.

  I nodded. We sat. I drank some wine.

  “It’s never over till it’s over,” Spike said after a while. “I’ve always said that.”

  I shrugged, looking in my glass at the still surface of my wine.

  “And now it’s over,” Spike said.

  “I guess,” I said.

  29

  JESSE PARKED his car by the lighthouse at the end of Stiles Island. We could look west at the harbor, and east at the open Atlantic. It was the first of December, and spitting snow. Jesse left the motor running so we could have some heat. The wipers moved intermittently on the windshield. There was something lovely-looking about the juxtaposition of small snow and gray ocean.

  “Want to go over it?” Jesse said.

  “I guess,” I said.

  “Suspects?”

  “Not because I have evidence,” I said, “just a list of people I can’t rule out.”

  “Me too,” Jesse said.

  “Erin,” I said.

  Jesse nodded.

  “Buddy,” I said.

  Nod.

  “Gerard.”

  “The LA pimp,” Jesse said.

  I nodded.

  “And person or persons unknown,” I said.

  “I got them, too,” Jesse said. “Anyone else?”

  “Not without getting silly,” I said. “I mean, the baseball guy could have done it; or Robbie, her trainer; or any of the security guys, except those with an alibi; and the cook; and a couple of maids…”

  “And the first three hundred names in the Paradise phone book,” Jesse said.

  “It doesn’t mean that one of them didn’t do it,” I said.

  “We’ll save them for when we get desperate,” Jesse said.

  I smiled. “Like when you lose your keys,” I said, “and if you can’t find them for long enough, you end up looking in the refrigerator or the toilet tank.”

  He nodded.

  “Gerard is a karate guy,” I said.

  “Three thousand miles away,” Jesse said.

  “Six hours,” I said.

  We both sat quietly for a time, watching the snowflakes disappear on the dull, uneasy water.

  “Do you think Erin could have done it?” I said after a time.

  “She’s big and strong,” Jesse said.

  “She’s probably more capable than Buddy,” I said. “When you think of it.”

  “Strength wouldn’t be an issue,” Jesse said, “if there was a combination of events.”

  “Like Misty turned her head left at the precise moment someone was twisting it right?”

  “Something like that,” Jesse said.

  “The only other thing is, my father suggested that somebody like Buddy, all that money, might have some sort of Mob connection.”

  Jesse nodded.

  “This is in confidence,” I said.

  “Sure,” Jesse said.

  “My ex-husband’s uncle is a figure in organized crime in Boston.”

  “Felix Burke,” Jesse said.

  “Goddamn you,” I said. “Have I no secrets?”

  “Maybe we’ll find that out someday.”

  I paused for a minute. What did that mean?

  “Anyway,” I said. “Felix is going to look into Buddy’s connections, if any, and let me know.”

  “Still family,” Jesse said.

  “Felix is a thug and a stone killer,” I said. “But we somehow like each other.”<
br />
  “Until you cross him,” Jesse said.

  “I’ll try not to.”

  There was no movement in the harbor. There was no wind and the water was almost still. No boats. No gulls. Only the insignificant fall of the thin snow. Jesse’s hands were quiet on the steering wheel; mine were folded in my lap. We both looked at the ocean as if there were something to see. Neither of us spoke.

  Finally I said, “How is it going with your ex?”

  Jesse turned and looked at me thoughtfully for a long time.

  “Mediocre,” he said after a while.

  “I thought it was going well,” I said.

  He shrugged. “It was,” he said. “Now it’s not.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Would you like to talk about it?”

  “No,” he said. “Yes.”

  I waited.

  “The truth is, of course, she was the only person I could ever really talk to about this sort of thing and…”

  He shrugged. I leaned a little toward him, but I didn’t say anything.

  “I would like to talk about it,” he said after a while.

  He turned his head and looked at me for the first time.

  “I’d like to talk about it with you,” he said. “But not now. Not yet.”

  “When the time comes,” I said. “You can tell me your story, and I’ll tell you mine.”

  Jesse smiled at me. “Misery loves company,” he said.

  The snowfall had increased. A single herring gull drifted through the snow squall, circling down above the car, hoping perhaps for a discarded french fry. It landed beside the car and hopped around, cocking its head. It reminded me of Rosie, with its expressionless black eyes and its intensity. There were no french fries, nor popcorn, nor orange peels, nor bread crumbs. After a time, the gull flew away into the falling snow.

  30

  ROSIE AND I met Felix and another man in the parking lot of a Dunkin’ Donuts in Andrews Square. Felix sat behind the wheel, the other man in the front with him. Rosie and I got into the backseat. As soon as we got in I unhooked Rosie’s leash and she jumped into the front, jostling the passenger in the process, and squirmed onto Felix’s lap.

  The passenger said, “What the fuck?”

  “It’s Rosie,” Felix said. “I like Rosie.”

  Rosie’s tail thump-thumped against Felix’s wide rib cage. He patted her. The passenger looked as if he wasn’t a dog person. But, like most of the world, he preferred not to argue with Felix.