Blue Screen

by Robert B. Parker

  “You got a gun?” Spike said.

  The man was not out, but his brain was scrambled. He just stared up at Spike.

  “If you got a gun,” Spike said, “go for it, so I can break your neck.”

  The bald man spread his hands as if to say no, no. Spike bent over and patted him down and took a short semiautomatic pistol from under his warm-up jacket. Spike stuck it in his hip pocket, then reached down and dragged Baldy to a semi-sitting position.

  “If you bother her again,” Spike said softly, “I will break your back and throw you in the harbor.”

  The bald man nodded floppily, as if his coordination wasn’t very good. Spike got him all the way to his feet. The restaurant was completely silent. Spike walked the man to the door and opened it and they both went outside. Spike was out there for maybe two minutes. Then he came back in. Under the table, I put my gun back in my purse.

  “Drinks on the house,” Spike said to the bartenders, “next round, everybody.”

  Then he came and sat with me at the table.

  “I put him in a cab,” Spike said.

  Rosie looked at him to see if he had the dog biscuit. He didn’t, but he saw the look and gestured at a waitress. She came with the biscuit and gave it to Rosie.

  “So tell me about him,” Spike said.

  41

  THE WAITRESS came while I was talking. Spike looked at my empty glass.

  “You want another drink?” Spike said.

  “Diet Coke,” I said.

  Spike raised his eyebrows.

  “Jack Daniel’s on the rocks,” Spike said. “And a Diet Coke.”

  Then he listened silently while I told him most of the rest of my story.

  “So you think there might be some connection between this pimp,” Spike said, “what’s his name…?”

  “Gerard,” I said.

  “Between Gerard and Moon?”

  “When I can,” I said, “I try not to think what is and what isn’t before I know. It’s just a possibility to look into.”

  The waitress brought our drinks, and another cookie for Rosie.

  “After this one,” I said, “no more cookies for Rosie. I don’t want her to get fat.”

  “Nothing wrong with fat,” Spike said.

  “You’re not fat,” I said.

  Spike smiled.

  “I just look fat,” Spike said. “Like Rosie.”

  “She does not look fat,” I said. “Neither one of you does.”

  “In fact, we’re built pretty much the same.”

  “The scale is different,” I said.

  Spike grinned. Rosie finished her cookie and lapped a crumb up off the tabletop.

  “You think Moon is the one?” Spike said.

  “If it were a guessing game,” I said, “he’d be the best guess. But there’s no real evidence against him.”

  “So you’re looking for a way in?” Spike said.

  “Yes. Moon simply denies everything, and we have no leverage to make him do otherwise.”

  I sipped my Diet Coke. Spike watched me.

  “We would be you and the police chief up there,” Spike said.

  “Yes,” I said.

  He nodded and looked at my Diet Coke.

  “Like that stuff?” he said.

  “Not very much,” I said. “But I thought I was drinking too much lately.”

  Spike nodded.

  “Does that mean you thought I was?” I said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, I’ve decided to cut back.”

  “Starting now?” Spike said.

  “Starting a couple of days ago, I guess.”

  “What happened a couple of days ago?” Spike said.

  I drank some Diet Coke. “None of your business,” I said.

  Spike took a sip of his drink and looked at the glass for a time.

  “You get along with that police chief?” he said.

  “Don’t be so nosy,” I said.

  “I heard he used to have a drinking problem,” Spike said.

  “He did, but he’s got it under control now,” I said.

  “You too,” Spike said.

  Rosie watched him closely. Experience had taught her that Spike was an excellent cookie source.

  “I don’t think I really had a problem,” I said. “But things were piling up….”

  “And now they aren’t?” Spike said.

  “I…”

  “Yes?”

  “Are you suggesting that Jesse Stone and I have some sort of relationship?”

  “Yes.”

  “You son of a bitch,” I said.

  “I’ll take that as a yes?”

  “How did you know.”

  “I’m a sensitive gay man,” Spike said.

  “You didn’t seem so sensitive a while ago with that bald man.”

  “I have my dark side,” Spike said.

  “What if he comes back,” I said, “looking for you, for revenge?”

  “I’ll kill him,” Spike said.

  We were silent for a moment. We both knew that Spike meant it.

  “Let me withdraw the question,” I said.

  The restaurant was almost full by now. Many regulars recognized Rosie; a couple waved at her. An occasional person saw her sitting there and smiled and nudged a companion. Now and then someone looked askance. But no one complained. There was something about Spike that discouraged askance.

  “So,” Spike said, “you and the chief had sex yet?”

  “God, you are sensitive,” I said.

  “And it worked out well?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re celebrating with a Diet Coke,” Spike said.

  I smiled. “It worked out well enough so I don’t feel the need for anodynes.”

  “Ano-what?”

  “Pain relievers,” I said. “You know what anodyne means as well as I do.”

  Spike leaned across the table with his hand up, palm facing me. I slapped it.

  “I like Richie,” Spike said.

  “Me too.”

  “But it is in your best interest to move on.”

  “Day at a time,” I said.

  “Day at a time,” Spike said.

  42

  JESSE CAME TO my loft in the evening with a bottle of Iron Horse champagne. I put it in an ice bucket to chill while I gave him a tour. Touring my loft is not a long affair, even if you stop, as we did, to look at the half-done painting on the easel under my skylight.

  “Park Street subway entrance,” Jesse said.

  “Yes.”

  “When it’s done,” Jesse said, “I’ll like it.”

  “You’re interested in art?”

  “No,” Jesse said. “I’m interested in you.”

  I nodded.

  “That would be the better choice,” I said.

  Lying on her side on my bed, Rosie watched us as we walked around. She had wagged her tail when she saw Jesse, but she was too deeply into lying on her side to get up and greet him. When the tour was over, I put out two champagne flutes, some cheese and fruit, and a loaf of French bread. Jesse opened the champagne and filled the glasses. We sat at my little table by the window. The cheese and bread did what Jesse couldn’t. It stirred Rosie from the bed, and brought her to us.

  “May I give her something?” Jesse said.

  “She’ll eat a grape,” I said.

  Jesse pulled one from the cluster, put it in the palm of his hand, and handed it to Rosie. She took it happily, chewed it carefully, and swallowed.

  “Lot of dogs don’t like grapes,” Jesse said.

  “Rosie is not like other dogs,” I said.

  “Of course she’s not,” Jesse said.

  We clinked champagne glasses and drank.

  “So,” I said. “Is this business or pleasure?”

  “I have a little information,” Jesse said, “that Cronjager dug up for me.”

  “So it’s business,” I said.

  “You are always a pleasure, Sunny.”r />
  I nodded and took a small piece of cheese and ate it.

  “So is it both?” I said.

  “That would be something for both of us to say.”

  I nodded again.

  “When I knew you were coming over,” I said, “my plan was to observe you closely, assess whether you were thinking we made a mistake the other night, see if you were feeling that maybe it was too much too fast, and never let on that I was worried about such matters. But the hell with that. Should I back off or jump in your lap?”

  “Is there a third option?” Jesse said.

  “Of course,” I said. “I was being a little simplistic.”

  Jesse gave Rosie another grape. She was pleased.

  “I turned her picture over when I was with you the other night,” Jesse said. “I wish it were that easy.”

  I felt a little tightness in my stomach.

  “Jenn,” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “She’s still part of the equation,” I said.

  “Yes,” he said. “But so are you.”

  I nodded.

  “And, I guess, so is Richie,” I said.

  He nodded. I hoped he felt a tightness in his stomach.

  “When we started,” Jesse said. “The other night. We both noticed that it was a time to be careful.”

  “And that hasn’t changed,” I said.

  “But there’s something going on here,” Jesse said.

  “So we’ll proceed,” I said, “carefully.”

  He smiled at me. “Have you shaved your legs?”

  “Yes…”

  “But?”

  “But it might be a part of being careful,” I said, “not to jump into bed every time we’re together.”

  “It might be,” Jesse said.

  “Damn,” I said.

  “Damn?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I was hoping you’d talk me out of it.”

  “I wish you were wrong,” he said.

  “I love having sex with you,” I said, “and I want to again.”

  “Yes,” Jesse said.

  “But we have to know we are not just fucking each other to relieve pain.”

  “Fucking is a one-way verb,” Jesse said. “We were doing more than fucking.”

  “I think we were too,” I said. “But we need to know that.”

  “Yes.”

  “So let’s not, tonight.”

  Jesse nodded.

  “Just to see what it’s like,” I said.

  “To see,” Jesse said.

  “I don’t want to lose you,” I said.

  “I don’t think you’ll lose me,” Jesse said.

  “And I don’t think you’ll lose me,” I said.

  “If we can’t survive a sexless evening,” Jesse said. “We have no future anyway.”

  “And if we do survive it, there will be other evenings.”

  “Yes,” Jesse said.

  “Meanwhile,” I said, “we can proceed like two professional investigators, working together on a case.”

  “You bet,” Jesse said.

  We drank some champagne. I looked at Rosie. She did not seem caught up in the conversation.

  “Too bad,” Jesse said, “that you wasted the leg shave, though.”

  “It will just make it easier next time,” I said.

  43

  IFELT DRAINED. Jesse was quiet. I couldn’t tell what he felt. But it seemed to me we had done something. On the other hand, I knew in moments of strong feeling, things took on meanings that they might not really have. And maybe all we had done was pass on a fun evening….

  “What did Captain Cronjager tell you?” I said.

  “You met a guy named Sol Hernandez out there?”

  “Yes. He went with me to see Gerard.”

  “He took an interest in the case”—Jesse smiled—“or you, and has made it a kind of a hobby, trying to figure out what happened.”

  “It was probably me,” I said.

  “How could it not be?” Jesse said. “This started, Cronjager says, right after you were out there. He didn’t just start when I called.”

  “Sol seemed very intense about things.”

  “He is,” Jesse said.

  “Could be a good thing or a bad thing,” I said.

  “Could be,” Jesse said.

  “Intensity can get you in trouble,” I said. “If you get too involved.”

  Jesse smiled.

  “Let’s stick to this case,” he said. “Since Sol seems especially intense about Gerard Basgall, for our purposes, it’s a good thing.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Case is still open, though Cronjager admits not, ah, very, ah, active, and Sol has talked with the guys assigned, and has been accumulating information, whether it seems to be useful or not.”

  “Intensity and patience,” I said. “That’s usually good.”

  “Why do I feel we’re talking about two things at the same time?” Jesse said.

  “Probably because you are a trained and intuitive police officer,” I said.

  “And a chief, at that,” Jesse said. “So Sol’s got a big file and there’s a lot of stuff in it that seems aimless at the moment—where Basgall went to high school, Erin’s gyno, stuff like that. But he also found the law firm that Basgall used when he got busted, or when vice swept up some of his girls.”

  “It wasn’t Arlo Delaney?” I said.

  “Nope. It was an outfit called Jacobson and Fine. The guy that worked on Gerard’s cases was the criminal-law guy, Perry Kramer.”

  “So?”

  “So Sol, being an intense guy, went a little further. He checked the employment records at Jacobson and Fine back five years and there, doing the entertainment-law work, was the late Arlo Delaney, before he left to go into partnership with the late Greg Newton.”

  “This is beginning to make my head hurt,” I said.

  I got up and got some yellow paper with blue lines and a black Bic pen, and sat down.

  “Basgall was Erin and Misty’s pimp,” I said, and wrote down the names, “who had a lawyer who worked in the same firm as Arlo Delaney, who is Moon Monaghan’s cousin. Whom he connected to Buddy Bollen to make movies starring Erin, who is pimped by Basgall.”

  “Makes sort of a nice circle,” Jesse said.

  “It does,” I said. “Does it tell us who killed Misty?”

  “Not yet,” Jesse said.

  I looked at my list of names with little arrows I’d drawn connecting them.

  “It must lead somewhere,” I said. “This is just too many coincidental connections.”

  “Agreed,” Jesse said. “But does it take us to who killed Misty?”

  “We could look at motive,” I said. “Buddy owed Moon money. Moon has a history of collecting debts by killing off someone close to the debtor, to scare him.”

  “And killing off Erin wouldn’t work for Moon,” Jesse said. “Because if there’s a cash cow in Buddy’s barn, she’s it.”

  “And Moon is there, in Boston.”

  “So is Buddy,” Jesse said.

  “But what is his motive?”

  “Because we don’t know it,” Jesse said, “doesn’t mean he hasn’t got one.”

  “Gerard claims he loves Erin,” I said.

  “So why would he kill Misty?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “If we could prove that he wasn’t in Boston when Misty died, we could eliminate him.”

  “Healy is trying to find that out for me,” Jesse said. “State cops got more resources than the Paradise PD. They’re checking airline passenger lists and credit card records.”

  “Of course, it could be somebody we don’t know anything about and never heard of,” I said.

  “Except it would be hard to get in there unannounced with all the security.”

  “But not impossible,” I said.

  “No. But is it a useful hypothesis for us?” Jesse said.

  “No. Does Sol have anything else?”

  “Cronjag
er says that Sol just caught a case involving multiple murders,” Jesse said. “Maybe a serial killer, high-profile, some celebrities. Misty is on back order for now.”

  “So maybe I need to go out there again,” I said.

  “Maybe I should go with you,” Jesse said.

  “In the continuing spirit of professionalism,” I said.

  “You bet,” Jesse said.

  “See what we can accomplish when we’re not preoccupied with sex,” I said.

  “Who’s not preoccupied with sex?” Jesse said.

  I smiled and finished my glass of champagne.

  “Nobody I know,” I said.

  44

  GRIM OVERCAST. Cold sea smell. Logan Airport. American Airlines. 757. Bad lunch. Dumb movie. Neither of us drank. LAX. Hertz. Ford Taurus. 405 northbound. West on Wilshire. Smell of ocean and flowering trees. Temperature 73. No wind.

  At 1:11 in the afternoon, we parked the Taurus at a meter in front of a silly-looking cream-colored stucco building on 4th Avenue, at the corner of Wilshire, in Santa Monica, where Jacobson and Fine had offices.

  “Is this your first time back?” I said.

  He nodded.

  “It’s the way the air feels,” he said, “and the way it smells. Isn’t like anyplace else.”

  “That might be a good thing,” I said.

  There was an open two-story elevator shaft in the lobby of the small building, wrought-iron, filigreed and fanciful.

  “I liked it here,” Jesse said.

  “Except when you didn’t.”

  “Except then,” Jesse said. “But that wasn’t LA’s fault.”

  The cute blonde receptionist in the law office wore a hands-free headset and harlequin-shaped glasses with candy striped frames.

  “Stone and Randall,” Jesse said. “To see Perry Kramer.”

  The receptionist relayed that information into her headset.

  “You know, actually,” I said, “not for nothing, but if you were to be alphabetical, it would be Randall and Stone.”

  “God,” Jesse said, “what a blunder.”

  A door to the reception room opened and a guy said, “I’m Perry.”

  He was tallish and thin with a short, neat beard and too much black, curly hair. He wore horn-rimmed glasses, like you never see anymore, a flowered shirt, white duck pants, and leather sandals.

  “Come on in,” he said.