Blue Screen

by Robert B. Parker

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “Why is he there?”

  “Best shortstop I ever saw,” Jesse said. “If I made a martini, would you drink it?”

  “Up, with olives,” I said.

  He went to the bar and made a shaker of martinis and poured two. Mine with olives, his over ice with a twist.

  “Can I have a tour?” I said.

  “Won’t take long,” Jesse said.

  There was a kitchen, a bedroom, a bath off the bedroom, and the living/dining area with the bar. The place was very neat. On the night table by the bed was a photograph of a good-looking woman.

  “Is that your ex-wife?” I said.

  “Yes,” Jesse said.

  We walked back into the living room.

  “In good weather it’s nice to have a drink outside, on the little balcony,” Jesse said.

  “Unless you’re not drinking,” I said.

  Jesse took a small sip of his martini and smiled at me over the rim of the glass.

  “Or you are trying to drink socially,” he said, “like a responsible adult.”

  “How’s that going?” I said.

  Jesse lowered the glass and his smile got wider.

  “This is my first night,” he said.

  I looked out through the French doors at the harbor, and the lights across.

  “You like it here?” I said.

  Jesse came and stood beside me. He was quiet for a moment.

  Then he said, “Yes. I guess I do.”

  “Different than Los Angeles,” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “You can make a difference here,” I said.

  “Yes.”

  We stood quietly, holding our martinis, looking at the harbor.

  “In LA,” Jesse said, “any big city, you’re just bailing a leaky boat. You don’t sink, but you can’t stop bailing, you know?”

  “Too much crime,” I said.

  “Here there’s not so much,” Jesse said. “You have a significant crime, here, you solve it, you restore the whole town.”

  “So the town becomes yours,” I said. “In a way that LA never could be.”

  “Yes.”

  We each drank a bit of martini. There was enough moonlight so we could see the water. It was cold and uninviting, but there was something eternal about it.

  “You get the constituency small enough,” I said, “and it can become yours.”

  “Why you quit the cops?” Jesse said.

  “I suppose so. That and the, ah, chain of command.”

  “Ah, yes,” Jesse said.

  My glass was empty. Jesse took it and went to the bar and made me another martini. His glass was half full. Though, with a lot of ice in there, it was a little hard to tell. He brought my glass back to me and we stood and looked at the harbor some more.

  “So you’re home,” I said.

  Jesse thought about it.

  “It’s what I have,” he said after a while. “I struggle with booze. My love life is a mess. Being the Chief of Police in Paradise, Massachusetts, is what I’ve got.”

  “Love life is not the same as sex life,” I said.

  “No,” he said. “It isn’t.”

  I walked to the couch and sat at one end. Jesse turned, still by the balcony door, and looked at me.

  “And sex life is an insufficient substitute,” I said.

  “It is,” Jesse said. “But better than no substitute.”

  Jesse walked to a chair opposite the couch and sat. He drank a little more of his martini. I could feel his carefulness.

  “Jenn is cheating again,” he said.

  I felt as if I were watching a genie materialize out of a bottle. I nodded and didn’t say anything.

  “I guess it’s time to talk about it,” Jesse said.

  He got up and made himself a second drink and sat back down in his chair.

  “Ever since I was with her, Jenn had a tendency to wander. At first I didn’t know it. Then I did, and figured there was something wrong with me. I drank too much. I was just a cop. I expected her to feel about me the way I felt about her. I held on to her too hard. Stuff like that.”

  “If it was your fault, you could fix it,” I said.

  “You’ve been shrunk, too,” he said. “And there was stuff wrong with me, and I did work on it. I still work on it.”

  He paused and drank.

  “In fact, I see a guy that Jenn found, got me to go to, when I first got here.”

  “She was here?” I said.

  “She came here.”

  “From Los Angeles?” I said.

  Jesse nodded.

  “Got a job as a weather girl,” he said. “Channel three.”

  “Jenn Stone,” I said. “That’s where I’ve seen her.”

  “That’s her with the low-pressure areas,” Jesse said, “and the occluded fronts waving at the weather charts just like she knew.”

  “She followed you here,” I said.

  “Yeah.”

  “So there’s a real connection between you.”

  “Especially when things are going badly for her.”

  “It’s an impulse I understand,” I said.

  “She’s done a lot of shrink work, too,” Jesse said.

  “But not enough?”

  Jesse shrugged.

  “She was here last year doing a TV special on Race Week,” he said, “and she stayed with me. It went well. I thought both of us had turned a corner.”

  He looked at his glass but didn’t drink. He looked at mine. I had some left.

  “When the special was through shooting, she went back to her place in Boston,” Jesse said. “We agreed we could be together without living together. Our only rule was monogamy.”

  He was silent. I sipped my drink and waited. He looked at his drink again, and again didn’t drink any.

  “She only sleeps with people who can help her: producers, casting agents, station managers, news directors.”

  I nodded. Whatever else Jenn was, she was a powerful presence. I could feel her in the room.

  “This time she’s fucking the new station manager,” Jesse said.

  His voice was harsh. His choice of the ugliest verb, I knew, was deliberate. I’d made the same choice several times. I wanted to ask him how he knew, or if he was sure. I didn’t. I knew how irrelevant and maybe embarrassing questions like that were.

  “Last straw?” I said.

  He nodded slowly.

  “It’s over,” he said.

  I nodded. There was nothing to say. He finished his drink in a swallow. He stared at the empty glass for a moment, then put it on the coffee table. I drank the remainder of mine.

  “Make you another?” he said.

  “No,” I said. “Not right now. Maybe wine with dinner.”

  He nodded and smiled at me. It was a real smile, though not awfully happy.

  “Okay,” he said. “I showed you mine. You want to show me yours?”

  “It seems only fair,” I said.

  38

  ITALKED ABOUT Richie. About the marriage, and the divorce, and his remarriage.

  “And now his new wife is pregnant,” I said.

  Jesse nodded.

  “Over?” he said.

  “Over.”

  We both sat for a time with our glasses empty and no sound in the room.

  “So we’re both feeling pretty bad right now,” Jesse said.

  “And we’re pretty desperately in need of consolation,” I said.

  “And would be inclined to make a casual something into more than it was.”

  “We both know that,” I said.

  “On the other hand,” Jesse said. “There’s nothing wrong with consolation.”

  “Or revenge,” I said.

  Jesse smiled. I smiled. We sat still for a moment and looked at each other.

  “Do you think we should be careful?” I said.

  “I think we should have sex,” Jesse said.

  “But carefully,” I said.
>
  “Let’s agree beforehand,” he said. “Not to marry right away.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  He stood. I stood. We looked at each other for a moment. Then we put our arms round each other. We kissed each other. I could feel it starting. Here we go, I thought.

  “Do you need to sit on the couch,” Jesse said, “and have kissyface foreplay first?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Good.”

  We walked together to his bedroom.

  “Do you prefer under the covers?” Jesse said.

  “No,” I said, “restrictive.”

  He nodded and began to unbutton his shirt. I began to undress with him. I had given it such thought when I’d dressed. Maybe I was expecting sex, maybe I wasn’t. I dropped my shirt on the floor. I didn’t want to show up in thong underpants, a frilly skirt, and fuck-me shoes, carrying a sign that said, I’m here to bop your brains out! On the other hand, I didn’t want to look like somebody’s maiden aunt with white cotton panties and Hush Puppies. My high boots, with no side zipper, looked great. But they were nearly impossible to get off. So were my front-button jeans. I opted for a skirt. It would be easy to remove, and, if it came to that, he could help me with the boots. It had come to that. I sat on the bed in my bra and skirt.

  “Jesse,” I said. “You’ll have to help me with the boots.”

  He was down to his shorts, black watch boxers. He wasn’t terribly big, but every muscle in his torso was defined. Each abdominal muscle was distinct. He smiled at me.

  “Plan ahead,” he said.

  “I was ambivalent,” I said.

  He took hold of one boot and I leaned back on the bed and we wrestled it off. When we got the other one off, Jesse ran his hand along my calf.

  “On the other hand,” he said, “you shaved your legs.”

  “I said I was ambivalent.”

  Jesse lined my boots up neatly in front of his bedroom chair. His back was as muscular as his front, and, thank God, not hairy.

  I stood and unzipped my skirt and let it drop to the floor.

  “Black undies?” he said. “How ambivalent were you?”

  “Black, yes, cut high, yes,” I said. “But no ribbons, no lace, no bows, no see-through.”

  “Prim,” Jesse said.

  I unsnapped my bra and shrugged out of it, letting it slide down my arms.

  “The dead giveaway,” I said, “was the shaved legs. I spent some time thinking about it. If I shaved them, was I committing ahead of time to sex?”

  “And you shaved them.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “That’s key,” Jesse said.

  “Uh-huh.”

  I slipped my thumbs inside the waistband of my middle-of-the-road black panties, and slipped them off, and stepped out of them. Jesse took off his shorts. We looked for a moment at each other, and then, in some kind of mutual moment, we both jumped on the bed together, giggling. We put our arms around each other, and, pressed tight together, we began to kiss. We kissed for a while. We explored a bit. Then Jesse paused and rolled onto his back.

  “What?” I said.

  “A symbolic thing,” he said.

  He reached over to his night table and took the picture of Jenn and turned it facedown.

  “Over,” he said.

  And rolled back toward me.

  “Was it the leg shave?” I murmured.

  “Probably,” Jesse said.

  And then neither of us said anything coherent for quite a long time.

  39

  WE LAY NAKED TOGETHER getting our breathing under control. The bedclothes had long since been discarded and were somewhere tangled on the floor with my clothes. My head was on Jesse’s shoulder. Both of us felt a little damp. Our breathing slowed. It was as if I had been a long way and was slowly returning.

  “Agile,” Jesse said.

  “Vigorous,” I said.

  We both smiled and lay quietly, taking in air.

  “Not since I first married Jenn…” Jesse said.

  “Have you had sex like this,” I said.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Is that something you say to all the girls?”

  “It is,” Jesse said. “But this time I mean it.”

  “I know,” I said.

  The stillness in Jesse’s condo was soothing. The faint smell of the ocean was clean and pleasant. I rubbed my forehead against his jaw.

  “You shaved, too,” I said.

  “Ever hopeful,” he said.

  “And,” I said, “the bed is freshly made.”

  “It’s good to be ready,” he said.

  The room was bright. We had not bothered to turn out the lights. Jesse’s breathing was easy now. So was mine.

  “Did you ever hear of a story called A Clean, Well-Lighted Place?” I said.

  “No.”

  “I read it in college,” I said. “I didn’t get it then. Now I do.”

  “Is it about sex?” Jesse said.

  “No,” I said. “More about peace, maybe, or refuge.”

  Jesse didn’t say anything for a while. Neither did I.

  Then Jesse said, “This is pretty peaceful.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  Jesse’s left arm was under my shoulders. His right hand rested on my stomach. Faintly, in the kitchen, I could hear the refrigerator cycle on. Somewhere outside, a car door closed. I continued to rub my forehead softly against his jaw.

  “Everything seems to go back to Los Angeles,” Jesse said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “The case,” Jesse said. “Misty’s murder. All the connections seem to connect back to LA.”

  I laughed to myself. Jesse felt the silent laughter.

  “Insufficiently romantic?” Jesse said.

  “The downside of sleeping with a cop, I guess.”

  “It has its upside,” Jesse said. “So to speak.”

  “And thank God for it,” I said.

  We both laughed.

  “But think about it,” Jesse said. “Erin and Misty are from LA. Buddy’s from LA. They are connected to Moon Monaghan through an LA film financial outfit.”

  “Erin’s former pimp is still in LA,” I said.

  “Erin and Misty’s former pimp,” Jesse said.

  “So he’s connected to them,” I said. “And they’re connected to Buddy and he’s connected to Moon, and Moon’s connected to Delaney and Newton.”

  “And…” Jesse said.

  “And the chain stops,” I said. “As far as we know.”

  “Maybe we should know more,” I said.

  “Can’t hurt,” Jesse said.

  He moved his hand gently down my stomach.

  “You work through…Cronjager,” I said. “I’ll…work…through Erin.”

  “See if we meet somewhere,” Jesse said.

  His hand continued to move.

  “Do we have an…ah…upside…again?” I said.

  “I believe so,” Jesse said.

  “Good for you,” I said.

  We didn’t get to the Chinese food until very late. Jesse reheated it in the oven, and we ate it for breakfast at his dining-room table, and watched the sun come slowly up over Paradise Neck, across the harbor.

  40

  ROSIE AND I sat in Spike’s restaurant at a table near the door. There were no dogs allowed, but Rosie had a special relationship with the owner. It was the drink-after-work crowd, and the bar was busy. Spike was behind the bar, lending a hand. I ordered a Diet Coke and looked at the menu. If your taste ran to the ordinary, Spike put out a decent meal. Rosie sat in the chair beside me and waited patiently for the dog biscuit that she knew someone would bring her.

  A squat man with a shaved head and a big mustache came into the restaurant wearing a gray warm-up jacket with red sleeves. He brushed by the hostess and sat down at my table. The word Hurricanes was stitched in red script across the front of the jacket. His hands were thick and he had the look of a bodybuilder. Rosie looked hard at him to see if he ha
d a dog biscuit. He ignored her.

  “You’re Sunny Randall,” he said.

  “Yes,” I said. “This is Rosie.”

  “Fuck Rosie,” he said. “Moon wants to know why you’re nosing around him.”

  “We explained that not long ago to Moon himself,” I said.

  “You and that cop.”

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe we can’t do nothing about the cop,” the bald man said, “but we can sure do something about you. Why you asking Moon a bunch of questions?”

  “I’m flirtatious,” I said. “And Moon is so cute.”

  “Don’t fuck with me,” the bald man said. “I’ll drag you outta here right now and beat the shit out of you.”

  “You think?” I said.

  He reached across the table and grabbed my face with one hand and squeezed. I knew that from behind the bar, Spike had seen him.

  “I’d like it,” he said. “I can make you squeal like a pig. Be fun.”

  He gave me a little shake and let go. Spike came around the bar.

  “So you can tell me now, nice and calm, or you can tell me squealing and crying and blubbering for me to stop,” the bald man said.

  I smiled. I think he felt Spike’s looming appearance before he actually saw Spike. He may have been struck by how big Spike was, but Baldy was a professional tough guy. He stuck to his guns.

  “Who the fuck are you?” he said.

  “My name’s Spike.”

  “Well get lost, Spike. I’m talking to this lady.”

  Spike looked at me.

  “Get lost, Spike?” he said to me.

  I smiled and nodded.

  “Is he as annoying as he seems?” Spike said.

  “Don’t fuck with me, pal,” Baldy said. “You don’t know what you’re getting into.”

  Spike kept looking at him. The bald man stood suddenly and put his hand on Spike’s chest and shoved. Nothing happened. Spike didn’t move.

  “Okay, pal,” Baldy said, “it’s your choice.”

  He swung at Spike with a left hook. Spike caught it almost casually on his right forearm. He took hold of the man’s shirt front with his left hand and yanked him off balance. He put his right hand into the bald man’s crotch and picked him up bodily and raised him about chest level and slammed him flat on his back on the floor. It hadn’t seemed that Spike was moving fast. But the whole thing took maybe a second. The bald man lay stunned. Spike put his foot on the bald man’s neck.