Night Passage

by Robert B. Parker

  Mr. Gennaro shrugged.

  Mrs. Gennaro said, “We get through the day.”

  “It’ll get better,” Jesse said. “I know it doesn’t feel like that now, but in time, it’ll get better.”

  Neither one said anything. Probably didn’t want it to get better right now, Jesse thought, probably were so into the grief that it was their life, and without it they wouldn’t have anything at all.

  “I see you have your daughter’s house on the market,” Jesse said.

  “Yeah,” Mr. Gennaro said. “No sense paying for an empty house.”

  “You selling it furnished?” Jesse said.

  “No,” Mrs. Gennaro said. “We got a man to come in and take everything out. He paid us for the furniture.”

  “That’s good,” Jesse said. “It would be painful doing that yourself.”

  Mrs. Gennaro nodded. The steam began to spout from the kettle. She turned the heat down beneath it and came to the table.

  “I hope you were able to keep some memories,” Jesse said.

  Mr. Gennaro shifted a little in his seat.

  “What do you mean,” Mrs. Gennaro said.

  “You know,” Jesse said, “pictures, letters, diaries, stuff like that.”

  They were silent.

  “She keep a diary?” Jesse said.

  Simultaneously, Mr. Gennaro said “Yes” and Mrs. Gennaro said “No.”

  Jesse smiled politely and didn’t say anything. The Gennaros looked at each other. Jesse waited. No one said anything. Jesse could hear the hot water in the teakettle stir restlessly on the stove over the low heat.

  “If she kept a diary it might help us find who killed her,” Jesse said.

  The Gennaros looked at each other and back at Jesse. Still they didn’t speak. Jesse knew they were silent because they didn’t know what to say. He needed to get them started.

  “I want to punish the man who killed your daughter,” Jesse said.

  Silence. Mr. Gennaro shifted again in his chair. Mrs. Gennaro’s face was clenched like a fist. Her cheeks were red.

  “I know there are diaries,” Jesse said.

  Mrs. Gennaro shook her head.

  “I need to see them.”

  Still she shook her head. Jesse looked at her husband.

  “You want the man that killed your daughter?” Jesse said.

  His voice was still quiet, but, the pleasantness was gone.

  “You embarrassed by what’s in there?” Jesse said. “What would she say? Would she say, ‘Cover up for me and let the man who killed me get away’? Would she say that?”

  “No,” Mr. Gennaro said.

  “Eddie,” Mrs. Gennaro said sharply.

  Gennaro stared at the tabletop, shaking his head slowly.

  “No,” he said again.

  Then he stood and walked into the next room.

  “Eddie,” Mrs. Gennaro said again, louder, and sharper.

  Gennaro came back into the kitchen with a cardboard beer case filled with small books covered in red imitation leather, each little book with a brass lock. Gennaro put the diaries on the table in front of Jesse and went back to the other side of the table and sat down.

  “This is them,” he said. He nodded at his wife. “She got the keys.”

  “I won’t give them to you,” Mrs. Gennaro said.

  “You don’t have to, ma’am,” Jesse said.

  “I raised a decent girl,” Mrs. Gennaro said. “She was a decent girl until that Portugal…”

  “She was decent anyway,” Gennaro muttered.

  “I don’t want him prying into those books, Eddie,” Mrs. Gennaro said.

  “He’s going to,” Gennaro said and kept his eyes on the table. “I want him to.”

  “Don’t you care what I want?” Mrs. Gennaro said.

  “I want the guy caught,” Gennaro said.

  Jesse picked up the beer case with the diaries carefully stacked in it.

  “How you going to open them without the keys?” Mrs. Gennaro said.

  “Probably pry them open,” Jesse said, “with a screwdriver.”

  Mrs. Gennaro looked at the diaries without speaking for a moment, then she said, “Wait a minute.”

  She left the kitchen. Jesse waited. Gennaro sat silently staring at the kitchen tabletop. After a moment Mrs. Gennaro returned and gave Jesse a collection of little brass keys tied together with a red ribbon.

  “I want them books back,” she said, “with no damage.”

  “I'll get them back to you, ma’am,” Jesse said.

  Neither of Tammy Portugal’s parents said anything else as Jesse carried the diaries from the house.

  Chapter 60

  THEY SAT IN HASTY’S CAR in the parking lot of the Northshore Shopping center. The nose of the car pointed north so that the afternoon sun streamed in over Hasty’s shoulder and made him a dark silhouette as Burke turned in the seat to look at him.

  “Something will have to be done about Stone,” Burke said, squinting, trying to look at Hasty. But the sun was too fierce. Burke gave up and looked away.

  Hasty was silent.

  “He knows,” Burke said. “He knows I was in Denver. He knows more than that. Sonova bitch doesn’t say much, but he knows.”

  “Maybe he doesn’t say much because he doesn’t know,” Hasty said.

  “He knows,” Burke said. “We made a bad mistake with him.”

  “Mistakes are part of life,” Hasty said. “The important thing is to overcome them.”

  To Burke, Hasty’s voice seemed disembodied, coming as it did out of an unseeable place in the hard middle of the sun glare.

  “Well, we better overcome this one pretty quick,” Burke said. “Or he’s going to overcome us.”

  “What do you recommend?”

  “We have to kill him.”

  “The death of a second police chief from this town in less than a year?”

  “Better than having him take us all down,” Burke said. “We can find a way to cover it, an accident or something.”

  “All of us?” Hasty said.

  “Well, you know what I mean, he gets me, sooner or later he’ll get you, and… everybody.”

  “You are required in these circumstances to give only your name, rank, and serial number.”

  “For crissake, Hasty, I’m not a fucking prisoner of war.”

  “Of course you are. If our movement is about anything, it is about war with the forces of international mongrelization.”

  “I know,” Burke said. “I understand that. But they’re going to arrest me for murder, Hasty.”

  “What they do has no effect on what we know to be true,” Hasty said.

  “Hasty, I can’t afford theory right now. My ass is on the stove, you know? We need to get Stone out of the way.”

  In black silhouette Hasty nodded slowly.

  “To save us all,” Hasty said.

  “Absolutely,” Burke said.

  “What have ‘us all’ to do with your trip to Denver, Lou?”

  “Christ, Hasty. You sent me.”

  “To do what?”

  “To blow Tom Carson up.”

  “Because?”

  “Because he knew too much and you didn’t trust him to he quiet about it.”

  “Un huh.”

  There was silence in the car. Across the parking lot, people in bright fall clothing surged in and out of the vast mall. Shop early for Christmas. Take advantage of pre-holiday sales. No payments until January. Many of the people in the late-afternoon surge were teenaged mall rats. For them the mall had replaced playground, Boys Club, street corner, home. The new marketplace.

  “I wouldn’t tell them, of course,” Burke said. “But once they start they’re bound to find out.”

  “How?”

  “Well, I mean they investigate.”

  “What?”

  “Well, you know, they backtrack my story…”

  “And?”

  “And who the hell knows what physical evidence they have. Who
knows what the Wyoming militia might tell them. They get somebody in jail they can squeeze them, make a deal, go easy on you if you give us the others, you know… I would never do that, but we don’t really know the Wyoming people.”

  “Yes,” Hasty said. “Of course. Who’s to do the killing?”

  “I figured you could get Jo Jo to do it. He’s got a mad on about Stone anyway.”

  “Well,” Hasty said. “I don’t know, Lou. I can promise at least to give it serious theoretical consideration.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “I’ll think about it, Lou. Meanwhile you sit still, and keep your mouth shut. Until you hear from me.”

  “We need to move fast,” Burke said.

  “I’m aware of that, Lou. And we will, but we will move with deliberate speed. I agree with you that we’ve underestimated Stone, and we don’t want to underestimate him further.”

  “Yeah, sure, Hasty. Just as long as we get him before he gets us.”

  “He won’t get us, Lou,” Hasty said. “You’re on suspension. Go home, sit in your house, stay there, and say nothing.”

  “I’m counting on you, Hasty,” Burke said.

  “Of course,” Hasty said.

  Chapter 61

  JESSE BEGAN READING Tammy's diaries from the most recent entry back. It took him a day to reach the parts that seemed interesting, and yet another day to cut and paste them together into a narrative that he could study.

  May 11 — Talked to Hasty Hathaway at the post office. He is the most important man in Paradise, kind of old.

  Memorial Day — Hasty Hathaway was talking to me today at the Parade. He acts kind of interested. Its hard to tell with a guy as geeky as he is, but a girl can listen.

  June 28 — Had a drink at the 86 last night. Looking good if I do say so. New white sweater, the black jeans I got that make my butt look really good. Hasty Hathaway bought me a drink, took me home. We stopped at Indian Hill on the way, and I thought he was going to come on to me, but we just talked. He’s really kind of nice, sort of a sad person. Who’d think so, all that money and everything. But he says him and his wife haven’t got much going in the sex department. Says he’s pretty lonely. Said he needs somebody like me to talk with. I told him he could take me out to dinner sometime if he wanted. He said he had to be careful in town, him being a married man and all, but we could go into Boston maybe. I said sure. He said did I mind him being married, and I said no. His wife’s married I said, not him. He thought that was pretty cute. Then be took me home and never even touched me. Strange guy. Fun, maybe.

  July 9 — ate at the Ritz — Wow!!! — fancy as hell, lotta food I didn’t know what It was. We had caviar. I didn’t like it much. Hasty was asking me a lot of questions about Bobby and me and how come we got divorced and did I have a boyfriend. Mostly I think he was trying to find out about our sex life, sort of weird, but he can show a you pretty nice time.

  July 13 — We had lunch at a place in town called Loc Ober’s. Really fancy. Had French Champagne too. After, he said he had a room at the Parker House and would I want to go there with him. Just like that, he said it. Like he was inviting me to go fishing or something. I didn’t answer him at first, cause I was thinking about how he’d be kind of funny looking with his clothes off, but I’ve done worse than Hasty, and I was feeling no pain and a girl needs to think about her future. So I say, sure, I’d love to, and we did. I figured a guy his age and all I’d have to work pretty hard to get his motor going, but Hasty was so excited when we got into bed that I thought he was going to come on the bedspread. No work at all. In fact it was over so quick I never really got going myself. After, Hasty gave me a nice ring. Solid gold with a little diamond in it. A real one.

  July 29 — Hasty’s getting better. He lasts long enough now so I get something out of it. I mean it’s not like Bobby and me, but he’s getting the idea about touching me a little bit, first. I’m teaching him different positions. It’s like he thought there was only one. No wonder his old lady isn’t interested. I hope what I teach him doesn’t get her interested. He’s a good thing for me. I don’t want to lose him.

  August 13 — Hasty says he loves me. He gave me a real pearl necklace for our one month anniversary (since we first did it).

  August 24 — We had our first fight. Hasty doesn’t want me dating any other guys and I say to him “what about you. You got a wife. Maybe you should stop fucking her, you want me to stop.” Hasty says they only do it twice a month, but he can’t stop because she’d be suspicious. And I tell him he stops fucking her, I’ll stop dating other guys. I told him everybody knew his wife was fucking other people. And he said he didn’t like that kind of talk, like if he didn’t talk about it it wasn’t happening. At the end he cried and said he loved me and we did it twice and he gave me a nice gold ankle bracelet.

  August 31 — Hasty heard about me dating Joe Hudson. He wanted to know what we did, and I told him none of your business and he got real mad and said he was going to break up with me if I kept going out with Joe. I told him you do what you want Mister nosy. I go out with anybody I want, unless you want to divorce the old lady and marry me. Well you should have seen his face. But then we did it and he cried while we were doing it and said he could never lose me and after he gave me a really nice set of pearl earrings to match the necklace.

  September 7 — I told Hasty I thought it was sick, him asking all that stuff about Joe Hudson and if we had sex and what we did. He said he loved me so much he needed to know everything, and nothing would be as bad as what he imagined. Divorce your wife I told him and marry me, and then we can talk about whatever you want.

  September 8 — Poor Hasty is so agitated about me and Hudson, and me wanting him to get divorced. I didn’t really mean I’d tell him about me and Joe. That would be tooo weird!!!!!! But if it gets him, it’s just a little white lie. I don’t really get it anyway. I do the same thing with Joe as Hasty. What’s so different about it???

  September 11 — I told Hasty I was going to go public about me and him. I got all his letters. I said it was time for him to either go or get off the pot.

  September 15 — Hasty says give him a week. He said he would make it right. I said okay, but I wouldn’t see him until he decided.

  September 17 — Got some new jeans at Marshall’s and one of those great mid rift sweaters. Going to take myself out for a few drinks tonight at the 86.

  September 17 was the last entry. Jesse read his cut-and-paste narrative sitting alone on the little balcony over looking the harbor. It was too cold to sit out there, even with his jacket on. But somehow it made the reading less painful to be out there, as if the openness of the setting compensated for the hermetic quality of the small life lived so briefly in the excerpted pages. When he was finished he sat for a long time looking across the harbor at the light from the Yacht Club.

  Chapter 62

  “I WANT YOU TO KNOW” Hasty said “that I fully support you in whatever decision you make about Lou Burke.”

  Jesse nodded without comment. They were sitting at the counter in the Village Room. Jesse had coffee. Hasty had coffee and a large cinnamon roll with white icing on it.

  “We both know it’s not a popular decision,” Hasty said. “But you’re the professional. You run the department your way.”

  Jesse nodded again. He poured some half-and-half into his coffee.

  “When I hire a man I back him until he proves I shouldn’t,” Hasty said.

  He took a bite out of his cinnamon bun. Jesse stirred two sugars into his coffee.

  “I just hope to God you know what you’re doing.”

  “Me too,” Jesse said.

  “You do, don’t you?” Hasty said.

  He was talking around his mouthful of cinnamon bun. There were crumbs on his tie.

  “I mean you better have some solid evidence, everybody likes Lou in town.”

  Jesse nodded and drank some of his coffee.

  “You do, don’t you?”
/>   “Yes.”

  ”It would help me support you if I knew what you know,” Hasty said.

  Jesse shook his head.

  “Why not,” Hasty said. “For God’s sake, Jesse, I’m the chairman of the Board of Selectmen.”

  “I've never gotten in trouble,” Jesse said, “being quiet.”

  “Jesse, damn it, I’m your boss.”

  Jesse smiled at him and said nothing. Hasty started to speak again, and caught himself. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

  “You are going to need me on your side,” Hasty said finally. “And don’t forget it.”

  “I’m counting on you, Hasty.”

  “You could count on me more,” Hasty said, “if I had a better idea of what you’re doing.”

  Jesse finished his coffee and put the cup down carefully in the saucer.

  “You’ll be among the first to know,” Jesse said and got off the stool. “Coffee on you?” he said.

  Hasty nodded. Jesse stopped at the end of the counter to say hello to a couple of postal clerks having pie and coffee on break. Then he left the Village Room and walked back across the common toward the police station.

  Chapter 63

  “STONE HAS TO GO,” Hasty said to Jo Jo.

  They were in Hasty’s car cruising Route 128, north toward Gloucester.

  “Mistake,” Jo Jo said.

  “No, he has to go. He’ll ruin everything if he doesn’t.”

  “You can’t kill the chief of police,” Jo Jo said, “and think it’ll keep things quiet. You seen that state cop, whatsisname.”

  “Healy.”

  “Yeah. You think that he’s going to kiss it off when the second police chief in less than a year dies in this fucking town?”

  “It’s a risk we’ll have to take,” Hasty said. “We’re too close to the arms deal. The arms deal is crucial.”

  “What’s this ‘we’ shit, paleface? I’m the guy has to do the clip.”

  “We’re in this together, Jo Jo.”

  Jo Jo looked almost amused.

  “Sure,” he said. “Why don’t we ace Lou Burke?”