“How in hell did you get to shoot like that?” Simpson said.
“Practice,” Jesse said.
They each fired the shotgun, taking turns with it. When they were through Jesse handed the shotgun to Simpson.
“You get to clean it,” Jesse said.
“ ’Cause you’re the chief?”
“Of course,” Jesse said.
Simpson nodded.
“But I’ll buy you coffee,” Jesse said. “Prove I’m a regular guy.”
They sat in Simpson’s cruiser outside the Salt Air Doughnut Shop behind the supermarket in the town’s only shopping center, and ate some donuts and drank coffee.
“You married, Suit?” Jesse said.
“Not yet,” Simpson said. “I’m still playing the field, you know?”
“Plenty of time,” Jesse said. “What’s your real name?”
“Luther. My mother teaches Sunday school, she’s a very religious person, named me after some famous religious guy.”
“Un huh.”
“Gym teacher started calling me Suitcase when I was in the fourth grade, and it stuck.”
“Better than Luther,” Jesse said.
“Yeah, I guess so. I never did know why he called me Suitcase.”
“After the ballplayer, don’t you think?”
“Ballplayer.”
“Harry Simpson,” Jesse said. “Cleveland, KC, the Yankees.”
“Never heard of him,” Simpson said. “Why’d they call him ‘Suitcase’?”
“Big feet, I suppose.”
Simpson ate half a donut.
“I never knew why he called me that,” Simpson said, “and I didn’t want to seem stupid, so I never dared ask.”
“So how come you asked me?” Jesse said.
Simpson paused and frowned for a time, which he did, Jesse knew, when he was trying to think.
“I dunno,” he said finally, “you don’t seem like you think things about people.”
“It’s a good way for a cop to be,” Jesse said.
“Not thinking things about people?”
“Something like that,” Jesse said.
Simpson frowned again and drank some coffee. They were quiet watching the junior high school kids, ill at ease and full of pretense, cutting through the parking lot to hang out in front of the shopping center.
“Man,” Simpson said finally, “you can really shoot.”
Chapter 23
When Jennifer called, Jesse was on his third drink, sitting on his tiny deck overlooking the harbor with his chair tilted back, balancing with one foot on the deck rail.
“I need to talk,” she said when he answered.
“Okay,” Jesse said.
He added some ice to his glass and poured more scotch over it. He took the drink and the portable handset back out onto the deck, and sat down again, and hunched the handset between his shoulder and neck, and drank some scotch.
“I’m through with Elliott,” Jennifer said.
“Un huh.”
“Are you glad?”
Jesse took another drink. Across the harbor, the lights on Paradise Neck seemed untethered in the thick night.
“I’m trying to get to a place where what you do doesn’t make me glad or sad,” Jesse said.
“You’re drinking, aren’t you, Jesse,” Jennifer said. “I can hear it in your voice.”
“Or you can hear the ice rattle in the glass when I take a sip,” Jesse said.
“Don’t you want to know why I broke up with Elliott?”
“He and Tommy Cruise decided to make the picture without you?”
“There’s no need to be hateful, Jesse.”
“Maybe there is,” he said.
Jennifer was silent for a time. When she spoke it was with a kind of desperate dignity.
“I can’t just sit here on the phone and let you beat up on me, Jesse.”
“No,” Jesse said, “you can’t. I’ll try not to.”
“Thank you.”
“So how come you broke up with Elliott,” Jesse said.
“And I don’t need to be humored, either,” Jennifer said.
“Jenn,” Jesse said, “I didn’t call you. You want to talk, I’ll listen.”
There was a pause. He heard the clink of glassware and realized she was drinking too. Probably white wine. Couple of lushes, Jesse thought, three thousand miles apart. . . . Better than drinking alone, I guess.
“Do you remember that ridiculous girlfriend Elliott had with him when we had dinner once at Spago?” Jennifer said.
“Taffy.”
“Yes, that’s right. God, Jesse, you always remember stuff. She was like an ornament, you know, like his Rolex.”
“A way to look successful,” Jesse said.
“That’s right, well, I suppose everyone wants to look successful, but . . .”
“There’s better ways,” Jesse said.
“Like being successful?” Jennifer said.
“That’s one,” Jesse said.
She wasn’t stupid. She was ditzy enough so you could think she was, but she wasn’t. She understood a lot, when she permitted herself to think.
“Well, he was starting to treat me like Taffy. You know?”
“I’m shocked,” Jesse said.
“Don’t make fun of me, Jesse. It’s too easy to do.”
“Yes,” Jesse said. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“So I called him on it. I told him I wasn’t, you know, like a new hat he could wear around and hang up when he wasn’t using it. And he got really mad, and said he was sick of getting used by all the stupid starlets that he tried to help and a lot of other things . . . and I started to cry and told him to go fuck himself and got up and walked out of the place.”
“Good for you,” Jesse said.
“I feel like an asshole for crying,” Jennifer said.
“Everybody cries,” Jesse said. “The important thing is you didn’t let him use you.”
“Thank you,” Jennifer said.
They were silent across the continent while each of them drank.
Then Jennifer said, “But now what am I going to do?”
“What are you going to do about what?” Jesse said.
“I don’t have a job,” Jennifer said. Her voice was shaky and he knew that she wasn’t far from crying. “My career is going nowhere. I’m alone, and I’ve lost the only decent thing that ever happened in my life.”
“Meaning me?”
“Yes.”
“It’s not like we’re enemies, Jenn.”
“Oh, Jesse, I want to see you.”
“Until the next producer comes along?”
“Don’t, Jesse. I need to see you.”
“Not right now, Jenn. Let things settle. Get yourself organized a little before you decide what you need. Maybe you might get some help, a shrink or somebody.”
“I have some friends in therapy,” Jennifer said.
“If you do get help, Jenn, try to get real help. Not some nitwit that reads your aura or does crystal therapy.”
“You think I’m a dreadful fool, don’t you, Jesse.”
“I think you do foolish things, sometimes, Jenn. I don’t think you’re dreadful.”
They drank. Jesse’s glass was empty; he got up, holding the phone, and refilled his glass with ice and scotch.
“Have you met anyone, Jesse?”
“Yes.”
“Do you love her?”
“Not yet,” Jesse said.
“I still love you, Jesse.”
Across the harbor the lights were fewer now as people went to bed. And the ones that still glowed in the black night were
more separate and much farther apart.
“Do you still love me, Jesse?”
“I’m trying not to, Jenn.”
“I know, I don’t blame you. But I . . . I don’t like to think about life without you.”
Again Jesse was silent, looking at the disconnected pinpoints of light in the overreaching darkness.
“Can I see you sometime, Jesse?”
“Sure,” Jesse said. “But right now we both need to be a little separate so we can get our heads back in order, I think.”
“Can I call you again?”
“Sure, Jenn. You can call me anytime.”
“I still love you, Jesse.”
“Take care of yourself, Jenn. Don’t do anything impulsively. It’s time to go slow and think things through. If you feel crazy, call me up.”
“Are you succeeding?” Jennifer said.
“Succeeding?”
“You said you were trying not to love me, Jesse. Are you succeeding?”
Jesse took a long breath and let it out and drank some scotch. In the harbor, invisible in the darkness, a bell buoy sounded.
“Not so far, Jenn.”
Chapter 24
Jesse was sitting in the middle booth at the Village Room restaurant a block from the town hall having lunch with Abby Taylor.
“Jenn called me the other night,” Jesse said.
“Oh?”
“She broke up with Elliott.”
“The producer?”
“Yes.”
“So what does that mean?” Abby said.
“I don’t know.”
“Well, what does it mean to us?” Abby said.
“Us?”
“Us. You know, you and me, who have been sort of dating and sleeping together and stuff like that. Us.”
“I don’t know.”
“Christ!” Abby said. “Think about it. Does it mean you’re going to annul the divorce?”
“No. Can you do that?”
“No. Does it mean you are going to dash back to L.A. and move back in with her?”
“No.”
“See, you can think about this. Do you still love her?”
The waitress came to the booth.
“Who gets the tuna?” the waitress said.
Jesse pointed at Abby. The waitress set the plate down in front of her.
“And you must get the club.”
Jesse nodded. The waitress put it down in front of him and went off. Jesse picked up a wedge of sandwich.
“Do you?” Abby said.
“Still love her?”
“Un huh.”
Jesse put the sandwich wedge back down on the plate and leaned back in the booth.
“I don’t know where it will go with Jenn,” Jesse said. “I don’t even know where I want it to go.”
“That’s comforting,” Abby said.
“What I know is that I’m not a good basket to put all your eggs in at the moment, you understand. I don’t know if I love Jenn or not right now. I don’t know if I can love anybody but Jenn right now. I like you, and we have fun together, but I don’t know what it will be like between us next week or next month. Until I get myself clear about Jenn . . .” He didn’t finish the sentence because he didn’t know how to. So he let it hang unfinished. Abby met his look for a moment and took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Her eyes glistened. Then she looked down at her sandwich.
They were quiet for a time neither talking nor eating.
Then Abby said, “Well, consider myself warned, I guess.”
She looked up at him and smiled very brightly.
“Doesn’t mean we can’t eat lunch,” she said and her voice was as bright as her smile. Jesse didn’t feel very hungry at the moment, but he started on his sandwich because he didn’t know what else to do.
Jo Jo Genest came into the restaurant and took a seat at the counter. He was wearing a sleeveless black tee shirt and his arms bulged obscenely. He swiveled on the counter stool and rested his back and elbows against the counter and looked at Jesse. Jesse finished chewing a bite of his sandwich and looked back at Jo Jo. He was a city cop, and he had long ago mastered the dead-eyed city cop stare. Jo Jo’s stare was more of a smirk, Jesse thought. They held the stare for about a minute, which to Abby, sitting in the booth watching them, seemed like an hour. Then Jo Jo wheeled slowly around on his stool and faced the counter and ordered a steak sandwich.
“Doesn’t he scare you?” Abby said softly.
Jesse shrugged.
“Like hell,” Abby said. “No shrugging. I asked you a question I want you to answer.”
Jesse didn’t like her tone and it showed in the look he gave her. But Abby held his look.
“Talk about yourself, Jesse. I want to know you.”
“What’s to know?” Jesse said.
“Well, for instance, are you scared of Jo Jo Genest?”
Through his nose Jesse took a long inhale and a long exhale, and pursed his lips. His right hand rested on the tabletop and he tapped it several times, as if listening to music that Abby couldn’t hear. She waited.
“On the one hand,” Jesse said, “Jo Jo’s big and strong and stupid and mean and he’s mad at me. I’d be an idiot not to be scared of him. On the other hand, if I have to, I can shoot him just as easy as if he were small and weak and smart and kindly.”
“And you’d be willing to do that?” Abby said.
“I’d be willing,” Jesse said.
“You ever shoot anyone?”
“Yes.”
“Kill him?”
“Yes.”
“Will you tell me about it?”
Jesse shifted uncomfortably.
“He had a machete,” Jesse said. “Nine years ago.”
“You would have been, what? Twenty-six?”
Jesse nodded. Abby waited. Jesse didn’t continue.
“So you shot him dead?” Abby said.
“Yes.”
“Did you mean to?”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t try to wound him, you know, shoot him in the leg or something?”
“You shoot, you always shoot to kill. It’s not the movies. You’re in a crisis situation, you got about a half second to do what needs to be done. Your heart’s pounding, you can’t swallow. It feels like you can’t get your breath and you got some guy with a machete. You aim for the middle of the mass and you try to remember not to jerk the trigger.”
Abby nodded slowly as she watched his face.
“Listening to you talk,” Abby said. “It’s in there.”
“What exactly?” Jesse said.
“I don’t know exactly. I sensed it when we made love. I guess I thought of it as, you know, ‘My he’s strong,’ ” Abby said. “But that wasn’t really it.”
“Jenn said I was very fierce.”
Abby nodded. “Something like that. I suppose you need to be that way if you’re a policeman.”
“Maybe I’m a policeman because I’m that way,” Jesse said.
“And that’s why you’re not scared of Jo Jo.”
Jesse smiled.
“It is prudent to be scared of Jo Jo. It would also be prudent of Jo Jo to be scared of me.”
Chapter 25
Pat Sears found Captain Cat when he got off the eleven-to-seven shift and parked the cruiser out front and went in to log off. There were three steps up to the front door of the police station. The cat was on the bottom step, dead, with a small sign hanging around its neck. On the sign was written slut in black Magic Marker. By the time Jesse got there most of the police had heard about Captain Cat and several of them had come in, though they weren’t on duty. Nobody said much. He was, after al
l, only a cat. But he had been their cat and they liked him and they all could see that his death was about them.
“I find the little punk asshole that did this,” Suitcase Simpson said, and realized he didn’t quite know what he’d do and so didn’t finish the sentence. But his round face was bright with anger.
“What the hell does ‘slut’ mean?” Pat Sears said. “For crissake he’s a male cat.”
Jesse picked up the cat and his head flopped loosely.
“I’d say his neck is broken,” Jesse said.
He put the cat back down.
“Peter,” Jesse said to the evidence officer, “when you’ve done what you can do here, take the cat down to the vet and see what he died of. And dust that tag on him.”
Perkins nodded. Jesse stood and went into the police station. He closed his office door and sat in his chair and put his feet up on the desk. “Slut” again, he thought. It didn’t fit with spray painting the cruiser, and it doesn’t fit with killing the cat. But of course it was not about the cruiser, Jesse knew that, or about the cat. It was about the police department and about somebody’s private connection to the word “slut.” Is it the whole department? Is it one cop? Is it me? Jesse laced his hands behind his head and let his mind go empty, letting the problem drift at the periphery of his consciousness, looking at it obliquely. He was still sitting, hands behind his head, feet up on the desk, lips pursed slightly, when Peter Perkins knocked on the door.
“Vet says the cat’s neck is broken,” Perkins said. “Says he would have died immediately.”
Jesse nodded.
“There’s a little trace of dried blood on the cat’s claws,” Perkins said. “Not enough really to do me much good, but I figure Captain scratched the guy.”
“Can you get a blood type?”
“Not enough,” Perkins said. “It’s microscopic.”
“How about state forensic?”
“For what,” Perkins said. “A felinicide?”
Jesse smiled slightly.
“Might be a little embarrassing, I guess.”
Perkins stood without speaking in front of Jesse’s desk.
“You find anything else?” Jesse said.
“No.”
Jesse waited.
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