Robert B Parker: The Jesse Stone Novels 1-5

by Robert B. Parker

  Without opening her eyes, Jenn said, “Don’t make too much of this.”

  “Okay,” Jesse said.

  “It doesn’t mean we should move in together or start dating each other exclusively or get married or any of those things.”

  “Right,” Jesse said.

  “It just means we are fond of each other and maybe love each other and probably want to date each other again, and we’re grown-ups.”

  “Correct,” Jesse said.

  Jenn gave him the look. The same look he knew she’d had when she spoke of the other weather woman being on weekends.

  “And,” Jenn said, “grown-ups fuck.”

  “Do they ever,” Jesse said.

  They lay together for a while, her head on his chest, his arm around her shoulder, then Jenn swung her feet off the bed and stood up.

  Her hair was messy, and her makeup was smeared. Naked, she walked from the bedroom, following the trail of discarded clothing to the deck.

  “Gee,” she said. “What possibly could have gone on here?”

  “Nothing bad,” Jesse said.

  “No,” Jenn said, “nothing bad.”

  Chapter 31

  “Harry Smith,” Macklin said when he came into Jesse’s office. “Thanks for taking the time.”

  “Happy to,” Jesse said.

  He stood while they shook hands. Macklin’s grip was stronger than Jesse had expected from a guy who looked like an amateur golfer. Macklin took a chair across the desk from him.

  “Here’s the deal, chief. I’m thinking about buying property on Stiles Island. I don’t need to tell you that I’m looking at a good-sized investment if I do.”

  “Good-sized,” Jesse said.

  “So I’m trying to size up the whole town, not just the island.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You don’t mind, do you, me talking to you?”

  “I don’t mind,” Jesse said.

  “How’s the crime situation?”

  “Good,” Jesse said.

  “You mean, there isn’t much,” Macklin said.

  “A lot of the time, there isn’t any.”

  Macklin smiled.

  “So what do you guys do?”

  “Write traffic tickets. Keep the kids from loitering. Had a case of arson a while ago.”

  “Really?” Macklin said. “Jewish lightning?”

  “No, teenage kids with a grudge.”

  “You catch them?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Cops one, teenagers nothing,” Macklin said. “Heard you had some trouble year or so ago.”

  “Yeah, couple of murders.”

  “Crimes of passion?”

  “You could say that.”

  “You catch the guy?”

  “Yeah.”

  Macklin smiled again.

  “Cops two,” he said.

  Jesse was quiet.

  “You got a big force?” Macklin said.

  “No. Twelve officers and me.”

  “Four per shift,” Macklin said.

  “That’s how the math works.”

  “You been chief long?”

  “Long enough,” Jesse said.

  “Work your way up from the ranks?”

  “No.”

  “Came from another department.”

  “Yes.”

  “Where?”

  “Elsewhere.”

  Macklin leaned back a little and studied Jesse.

  “You’re a pretty quiet guy,” Macklin said.

  “True.”

  “Probably the right way to be,” Macklin said. “Me, I’m a talker. My wife’s always telling me to quiet down.”

  Jesse didn’t say anything. He seemed attentive. Macklin sensed no hostility in him. He was just quiet. There was no way to know what went on behind his eyes.

  “How’s the security on Stiles?” Macklin said.

  “Secure,” Jesse said.

  “They got their own security force, I see.”

  “Um-hmm.”

  “They tied in with you guys?”

  “You need to talk to them.”

  Macklin nodded slowly, as if confirming a long-held assumption. He stood with a wide smile and put out his hand. Jesse shook it.

  “I’m encouraged, chief,” Macklin said. “You can usually count on a man who doesn’t say more than he has to.”

  Jesse smiled. Macklin smiled back and left.

  In the car with Faye, Macklin was silent.

  “How’d it go?” Faye said as she drove up Summer Street. “You find out what you wanted to know?”

  “I got a read on the chief,” Macklin said. “Which is what I wanted, I guess.”

  Faye slowed the car as they passed a couple of kids on bicycles.

  “But?”

  “But he’s not what I wanted him to be,” Macklin said.

  Faye braked at the stop sign on Beach Street, looked carefully both ways, and drove on.

  “So what is he?”

  “I don’t know,” Macklin said. “But he’s not a shit-kicker.”

  “Well,” Faye said, “neither are you.”

  Macklin patted Faye’s thigh for a moment and smiled.

  “No,” he said. “I’m not.”

  Chapter 32

  Tony Marcus was a black man with a big moustache and a small Afro. He had on good clothes, Crow noticed. A dark pinstriped suit, a bright white shirt with a wide spread collar. His pink silk tie was tied in a big Windsor knot.

  “Who sold you this crap?” Tony Marcus said.

  Crow smiled and shook his head. They were in the back room of a restaurant called Buddy’s Fox. Marcus was sitting at his desk. Crow sat across from him. The two men with Marcus were standing. One was a huge man called Junior. The other one was a fidgety, skinny kid with his hair slicked back and a large gold ring in his ear. The kid’s name was Ty-Bop. He’d be the shooter, Crow thought.

  “Well, whoever it was, they seen you coming.”

  “It’s been stepped on a little,” Crow said.

  “The sample you gave me’s been trampled on,” Marcus said.

  “So buy it cheap, sell it for double.”

  “How’d you get to me?” Marcus said.

  “I asked around.”

  “Where’d you get the blow?”

  Crow smiled again and said nothing.

  “Coke dealer named Bo Chang got clipped the other night in Chinatown. Know anything about that?”

  “Nope.”

  “Where you from?” Marcus said.

  “Out of town,” Crow said.

  “You Mexican or something?”

  “Apache,” Crow said.

  “Apache?”

  “Yes.”

  “Like fucking Geronimo Apache?”

  “Yes.”

  Marcus looked at Ty-Bop.

  “You know who Geronimo was, Ty-Bop?”

  Ty-Bop shook his head. He was restless. Never quite still, tapping his hands against his thighs, shifting his feet as if he were jiving to a music of his own.

  “How about Apache?” Marcus said. “You know about Apaches, Ty-Bop?”

  “You know I don’t know nothing about that shit, Mr. Marcus.”

  “That’s okay, Ty-Bop,” Marcus said. “You know what you need to know.”

  Ty-Bop nodded. Junior, taking up most of the wall he was leaning on, said nothing.

  “What you call cheap?” Marcus said.

  “Hundred for the lot.”

  “Hundred large?” Marcus said.

  “Yes.”

  “Dream on, Geronimo.”


  “What you call cheap?” Crow said.

  “Twenty.”

  “Apiece?”

  Marcus shook his head.

  “Twenty grand for the lot?” Crow sounded amazed.

  “For crissake,” Marcus said. “What I’m buying is about three keys of mannite.”

  “It’s not that bad,” Crow said.

  “You want to talk to my chemist?” Marcus said. “It’s shit. Means I got to market it to white college kids.”

  “Lot of them in Boston,” Crow said.

  “Why I’m offering you twenty.”

  “You got it here?” Crow said.

  “Yes.”

  “Count it out,” Crow said. “I’ll be right back.”

  Crow went out through the restaurant to where his car was parked on the street. He opened the trunk of his car, picked up the Nike bag, closed the trunk, and went back in through the restaurant. He put the bag on the desk. Marcus looked in it, sampled a little from each kilo, and shook his head in distaste.

  “Yeah, same shit,” he said.

  He pushed a stack of hundreds across the desk. Crow picked it up and counted it. There were 200 of them.

  “Okay,” Crow said.

  He stuffed the bills into his two side pockets.

  “You took kind of a chance, didn’t you?” Marcus said. “Come in here alone, selling me stuff. How’d you know we wouldn’t just take it away from you?”

  “Your reputation,” Crow said. “You’d have to kill me to do it, and I figured it wasn’t worth it to you for three kilos of baby laxative.”

  “I guess you figured right,” Marcus said.

  Crow looked at Ty-Bop, jittering near the door somewhere in his own world.

  “And maybe I didn’t think you could do it,” Crow said.

  Marcus grinned. “Don’t let Ty-Bop fool you,” Marcus said. “He’s pretty good.”

  “I guess we don’t need to find out now,” Crow said.

  “Bo Chang was a tough little fucker,” Marcus said.

  Crow shrugged and went out of the office.

  Chapter 33

  “Guy named Harry Smith,” Jesse said.

  “Never heard of him,” Suitcase Simpson said.

  “Said he’s buying property on Stiles Island, told me he wanted to get a feel for the town before he commits.”

  Suitcase shrugged.

  “So. That makes sense. Guy’s gonna lay out big bucks, wants to know he’s in the right place.”

  “Maybe.”

  “What else?”

  Suitcase was a big round kid with blond hair and red cheeks. He’d been a tackle on the Paradise High School team. He was ten years younger than Jesse and smarter than you thought he’d be.

  “I don’t know,” Jesse said. “I felt like I was getting hustled.”

  “What’d he say?”

  “He asked about crime and how many policemen we had and how Stiles Island Security tied in with us.”

  “You think he’s going to pull a job, and before he does, he comes and, like, checks with the chief of police?” Suitcase said.

  “Doesn’t seem likely, does it?”

  “Nope.”

  Jesse let his swivel chair back and put his feet up on the desk and looked out the window at the desultory traffic on Summer Street.

  “When I was working South Central,” Jesse said, “some of the gangbangers would see you parked on the street, and they’d come over and talk with you. Buddy-buddy like, couple of cops, couple of robbers passing the time.”

  “In L.A.?”

  “In L.A.”

  “Why would they do that?” Suitcase said. “I’d figure they hated cops.”

  “They did, and they didn’t,” Jesse said. “We were how they knew what they were, if you follow what I’m saying.”

  “You were what?” Suitcase said.

  “They were the other side of us. We were the law tough guys; they were the outlaw tough guys. They kind of flirted with us.”

  “Flirted?”

  “Like a woman,” Jesse said, “who wants you to be interested in her, but probably won’t go to bed with you.”

  “Like a cock-teaser,” Suitcase said.

  “Like that,” Jesse said. “Want us to know they were bad. Didn’t want us to catch them at it.”

  “And you’re saying Harry Smith is a cock-teaser?”

  Jesse grinned. “Talking to him reminds me of talking to those gangbangers.”

  “He’s letting you know he’s bad?” Suitcase said.

  “He might be,” Jesse said.

  “Why would he do that?”

  “Maybe he likes foreplay,” Jesse said.

  “Foreplay?”

  “Some bad guys are bad guys because they like the action. They get excited by the danger of being a bad guy. And it gets more exciting if you make it more dangerous. Not getting caught is even more fun if you almost get caught.”

  “Jesus, Jesse, sometimes you get these theories . . .”

  “You know any compulsive gamblers?”

  “Every cop knows a compulsive gambler,” Suitcase said. “They get in trouble.”

  “Right, what is it they like about gambling?”

  “The action?”

  “And what creates the action?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What makes gambling a gamble?” Jesse said.

  Suitcase stared at him, concentrating. Jesse waited. Then Suitcase’s wide pink face relaxed a little.

  “That you might lose.”

  “That’s it. You get it about the gangbangers and Smith?”

  “Yeah. If he’s that way. I mean, you’re the chief, Jesse, and I’m just a patrolman . . .”

  “Senior investigative patrolman,” Jesse said.

  “Yeah, sure, but whatever, but maybe Mr. Smith is just worried about the security of his real estate investment.”

  “Maybe he is,” Jesse said. “Let’s see if we can find out.”

  Jesse handed Suitcase a pink telephone message slip. There were numbers written on the back.

  “When Smith left here,” Jesse said, “his wife picked him up in a car with those plates on it. Why don’t you run them down.”

  Suitcase took the slip and folded it into his shirt pocket.

  “If he’s buying real estate on Stiles,” Suitcase said, “he must be doing business with one of the brokers.”

  “Marcy Campbell,” Jesse said. “I saw her with him and his wife at the regatta dance.”

  “You know I never been to one of them?”

  “I’ll get you a paid detail for the next one,” Jesse said. “See what you’re missing.”

  “Want me to talk to Mrs. Campbell too?”

  “No, I’ll do that.”

  Suitcase did a small double take.

  “Something going on, Jesse?”

  Jesse smiled. “What makes you think so?” Jesse said.

  “Just something about how you said that so quick,” Suitcase said. “You tagging Mrs. Campbell?”

  “We’re friends, Suit,” Jesse said. “I like her.”

  “Lotta people been friends with Mrs. Campbell.”

  “Find out about Harry Smith, Suit. I’ll talk with Mrs. Campbell.”

  “Sure, Jesse.”

  “Ask around a little too. But not too obvious. I’d rather he didn’t know we were asking.”

  “Okay,” Suitcase said.

  He stood and went to the door.

  “You know, I think Abby Taylor’s getting interested in you again too,” Suitcase said. “She was asking me about you when I was getting coffee at the Village Room.”

  “What wa
s she asking?”

  “About you and your ex, and were you going out with anyone. Stuff like that.”

  “Just polite conversation,” Jesse said.

  “No it was not,” Suitcase said.

  Jesse shrugged. Suitcase was a heavy-handed kidder but an enthusiastic one.

  “Man,” he said. “Mrs. Campbell, your ex, now Miss Taylor. You’re a damn golden boy, Jesse. I wish I was from California.”

  “I wish you were in California,” Jesse said. “Go investigate Harry Smith.”

  “Yessir, Chief Stone.”

  Chapter 34

  Macklin looked around happily. He had the whole crew with him, ranged in a semicircle in Faye’s living room. It was the first time he had them all together. Faye served drinks.

  “Drink up,” Macklin said. “Because when we get close, everybody goes on the wagon.”

  “How close are we now?” Crow said.

  “Still gathering data,” Macklin said. “What’s the ocean look like around the island, Freddie?”

  “Channel between the island and the neck is not navigable. Way the water churns in there, be like navigating a blender.”

  “So?”

  “So if I take you off on this side, at the boat club, which is the only place I can, I got to go all the way around the island to get to the open sea.”

  “Puts us between the town and the island for how long?”

  “Depends on which way the tide is and which way the wind’s blowing at the time.”

  “For crissake, Freddie, gimme a time. Ballpark.”

  “Half hour.”

  “Too long. Can you take us off the other side?”

  “Long as the weather holds. Take you right off by the restaurant, but you got to get to me. I can’t get in closer than maybe fifty yards.”

  “Too shallow?”