Robert B Parker: The Jesse Stone Novels 1-5

by Robert B. Parker

  “Suit’s in the squad room,” Molly said when Jesse came into the station. “He says to come see him.”

  Simpson was at one of the computers.

  “I got a hit,” he said when Jesse came into the room.

  “On what?” Jesse said.

  “Gino Fish. I got a connection with Paradise.”

  “Which is?”

  “This’ll knock your socks off,” Simpson said.

  “Sure,” Jesse said.

  “Norman Shaw,” Simpson said. “How about that?”

  “Knocks my socks off,” Jesse said. “What’s the connection?”

  “Article in the Globe five years back,” Simpson said. “Shaw was going to write a book about Gino and they were going to make a movie out of it.”

  “You print it out?”

  “Yeah.”

  Simpson handed Jesse a sheet of paper.

  “Anything else?” Jesse said.

  “Not that helps us. He did ten years at Walpole for killing a guy with a straight razor.”

  “Nice,” Jesse said.

  “Was one of the people they covered when they did that big spotlight thing on organized crime.”

  “Anything about girls?”

  “Says in here he is alleged to be gay.”

  “I know. Anything about prostitution?”

  “Nothing specific. Just says he’s the alleged boss of all criminal activity in Downtown and Back Bay.”

  “Well,” Jesse said and gestured with the printout. “I’ll take this. You print out the rest and put it on my desk.”

  “Print out all of it?”

  “Yep.”

  “There’s 5,145 entries for Gino Fish.”

  “Most of them are for fish markets, or tropical fish collectors, or sportsmen or other guys named Fish, or Papa Gino’s pizza,” Jesse said. “Internet’s not too selective.”

  “Don’t I know it,” Simpson said.

  “So just print out the ones about Gino Fish, and don’t duplicate.”

  “I hate the Internet,” Simpson said.

  “Information highway,” Jesse said.

  “Mostly bullshit highway,” Simpson said.

  “No one ever said crime busting was pretty,” Jesse said.

  33

  When she opened the front door Joni Shaw said, “Oh, oh, the fuzz.”

  “May I come in?”

  “Are you planning to search the place?” Joni Shaw said.

  “No, I just want to talk.”

  She smiled widely at him and stepped away from the door.

  The entry hall of Norman Shaw’s big house was twenty feet wide with a curved staircase to the second floor. At the turn a full-length window was full of sunlight. To the right of the front door there was an umbrella stand made from the lower part of an elephant’s leg, and a dark wine-colored Persian rug lay across the width of the hall at the foot of the stairs.

  “Let’s sit in the atrium,” Joni Shaw said.

  She led Jesse through a room lined with bookshelves and scattered with heavy nineteenth-century furniture, into a glass atrium where the ocean was visible a hundred yards below, tossing spray toward the house as it broke on the rocks. Jesse sat on the end of a green leather chaise.

  “Coffee?” Joni Shaw said. “A drink?”

  “Coffee would be nice,” Jesse said.

  “That will make it a social call,” Joni Shaw said.

  “Sure,” Jesse said.

  Joni Shaw was dressed in black shorts and a white silk tee shirt that stopped short of her waist so that her stomach showed. An Asian woman brought coffee. Jesse added cream and sugar and drank some.

  “Is your husband at home?” Jesse said.

  “Oh, damn,” she said. “I thought you’d come calling on me.”

  Jesse smiled and didn’t say anything.

  “Norman is working,” Joni Shaw said. “He works every morning in his study with the door locked.”

  “Here in the house,” Jesse said.

  “Yes. But it might as well be on Mars,” Joni Shaw said. “He is simply not here when he’s working.”

  “Well, maybe you can help me,” Jesse said.

  “I hope so,” Joni Shaw said.

  Jesse noticed that everything she said seemed to imply something more.

  “Do you know a man named Gino Fish?”

  “The gangster?”

  “Un-huh.”

  “Sure.”

  “Talk about him a little,” Jesse said.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “His name has come up in a case I’m working on,” Jesse said.

  “Oh my, are we suspects?”

  “No. I’m just looking for help.”

  Joni Shaw was sitting on the couch across from Jesse, with one leg on the couch so that he could see the inside of her thigh. She sipped her coffee, looking at Jesse over the rim of her cup.

  “Aren’t we all,” she said.

  Jesse waited. Joni Shaw let him wait.

  “Gino Fish?” Jesse said after he had waited long enough.

  “You may remember that about five years ago one of Norman’s books was being made into a movie, here, in Boston.”

  Jesse nodded as if he remembered. Five years ago he’d been in L.A., on the cops, still with Jenn.

  “Norman was an executive producer on the movie. He didn’t really have to do anything, it was just a title, extra money. Gino used to visit the set. He knew some of the crew. Then when we had some trouble with the union, Gino was very helpful.”

  “How nice,” Jesse said.

  Without leaving the couch, Joni Shaw leaned forward and poured him some more coffee. Very flexible.

  “Oh,” Joni said, “I don’t doubt that Gino has done some terrible things. But he’s a very interesting person.”

  Jesse nodded.

  “I try to make my own judgments of people,” Joni said, “and so does Norman. Gino has been very nice to us, and good fun at a party.”

  “So he’s become a friend?”

  “I guess you could say that,” Joni Shaw said. “Not perhaps the first circle of intimacy, but certainly more than just an acquaintance.”

  She made “first circle of intimacy” sound seductive.

  “Do you know anyone named Bishop?” Jesse said.

  “I don’t think so. Is he involved in your case?”

  “When’s the last time you saw Gino?” Jesse said.

  “Oh . . . two, no, three, weeks ago. In fact he was at the party where you were going to arrest us.”

  “Anyone with him?”

  Joni smiled.

  “A very good-looking young man,” she said.

  “And, I wasn’t going to arrest you,” Jesse said.

  Joni Shaw drank a small sip of her coffee, holding the cup in both hands, like in a television commercial, and looking at Jesse.

  “Oh, well,” she said. “Can’t blame a girl for hoping.”

  34

  Jesse sat beside Brian Kelly with the windows open in an unmarked gray Ford that belonged to the Boston Police Department. They were a half block up Tremont Street from Development Associates of Boston. It was a hot, clear day.

  “OCU got no surveillance on Gino Fish?” Jesse said.

  “Nope. He’s down the list,” Kelly said.

  “How come?” Jesse said.

  “Everything in his part of the city is quiet,” Kelly said. “Commissioner likes it.”

  “How come it’s so quiet?”

  “Gino’s a good administrator,” Kelly said. “There’s not much street crime on Gino’s turf. Commissioner hates street crime.”

  Jesse looked at the bri
ck-and-brownstone rehab that was spread over the South End like brocade.

  “Doesn’t look like a street-crime neighborhood.”

  “It isn’t anymore.”

  “And Gino cleaned it up?”

  “Not really. Economics did that. But Gino keeps it that way,” Kelly said. “Him and Vinnie.”

  “So I guess you people aren’t going to be a big help.”

  “Can’t give you manpower. Happy to offer advice.”

  “Why should you be different,” Jesse said.

  “You spare anybody?”

  “I got twelve people,” Jesse said.

  “How are they at covert surveillance?”

  “Not much call for that in Paradise,” Jesse said.

  A black Lexus sedan with tinted windows pulled up in front of Development Associates and sat at the curb, its motor idling.

  “This is exciting,” Kelly said.

  The car sat for five minutes and then Vinnie Morris came out of the office and up the steps and stood outside the car. In a moment Gino Fish came out with the good-looking young man. The young man locked the office door, and they came up the steps together and got into the backseat of the Lexus. The door closed. The Lexus pulled away from the curb.

  “You want to follow them?” Kelly said.

  “Alone?”

  “We got nobody else,” Kelly said.

  “I don’t want to let him know,” Jesse said. “We can’t tail him in one car.”

  The Lexus turned up Dartmouth Street and disappeared. On the sidewalk in front of the office, Vinnie Morris fiddled with a Walkman on his belt for a moment, then put on the earphones and turned and walked up Tremont Street with his hands in his pockets.

  “You want to commit an illegal burglary?” Kelly said.

  “Not yet,” Jesse said. “Place is probably alarmed.”

  “Probably,” Kelly said. “You got a plan?”

  “I don’t want to tip him,” Jesse said. “I want him conducting business as usual.”

  “And?”

  “And I guess all I can do is come in every day and watch him. See what develops.”

  Kelly’s hands were resting on the steering wheel. He drummed his fingers for a moment.

  Kelly said, “I’ll help you when I can.”

  “We do and it’s your collar,” Jesse said.

  “Whose ever collar it is, it would be a pleasure to haul him off.”

  “And, it’ll be our secret,” Jesse said.

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning your captain doesn’t find out you’re cheating on him. And nobody else on the job knows I’m chasing Gino.”

  “You think he’s got a cop on his tab?” Kelly said.

  “What do you think?”

  “I think guys like Gino usually do.”

  “That’s what I think, too,” Jesse said.

  35

  When Jerry Snyder came out of the car dealership where he worked, Jesse, in jeans and a gray tee shirt, was leaning on the fender of the aging Ford Explorer in which he had driven east when he left L.A.

  “Whaddya want?” Snyder said. “You ain’t even a cop in this town.”

  “We need to talk,” Jesse said.

  “I don’t want to talk with you, pal.”

  “Why would you?” Jesse said, and opened the door on the passenger side of the Explorer. “Get in.”

  Jesse’s tee shirt was not tucked in. It hung down over his belt, partially hiding the gun on his right hip.

  “Are you arresting me?”

  “Hell no,” Jesse said.

  “Then I don’t have to go.”

  He held the door open. Another salesman walked by with a customer. Both of them looked uneasily at Jesse and Snyder.

  “Sure you don’t,” Jesse said. “We can talk about domestic violence right here.”

  The salesman and the customer looked again and quickly away, trying to act as if they hadn’t heard.

  “Jesus Christ,” Snyder said.

  Jesse still held the car door open. Snyder looked around, and then at Jesse, and got into the car. Jesse closed the door and went around and got in and started the car.

  “You wanna get me fired?” Snyder said.

  Jesse didn’t answer.

  “Where we going?”

  “Someplace where we can talk, and you won’t get fired,” Jesse said.

  “I ain’t done nothing wrong,” Snyder said.

  They drove south on Route 1, and crossed the Paradise town line. Jesse pulled the car off onto the little cul-de-sac near the lake where Billie Bishop had been found. He turned off the engine and took out his gun. Snyder’s eyes widened.

  “Open your mouth,” Jesse said.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Snyder said.

  Jesse tapped him on the upper lip with the muzzle of the handgun.

  “Open,” Jesse said.

  Snyder opened his mouth and Jesse put the gun barrel into it. Jesse didn’t say anything. Snyder tried to swallow. Behind them the traffic went routinely by on Route 1. The hot, damp smell of the lake came in through the open windows of the Explorer. Jesse looked at Snyder without expression.

  “This is the only chance I’m going to give you,” Jesse said after a time.

  Snyder was breathing in small gasps.

  “You hit your wife again and I’m going to kill you,” Jesse said.

  Again Snyder tried to swallow and failed. He raised both hands in front of his chest, palms toward Jesse. Jesse held the gun steady. His face was expressionless. Below them, down the hill toward the lake, a group of insects made a keening hum.

  “You understand that?” Jesse said.

  Snyder nodded his head maybe an inch.

  “You believe me?”

  Snyder nodded slightly as if it hurt to move his head.

  Jesse took the gun from Snyder’s mouth and put it back in its holster.

  “Get out of the car,” Jesse said.

  Snyder got out.

  “Close the door,” Jesse said.

  Snyder closed the door. Jesse started his engine, put the car in gear and drove away.

  36

  Lilly came down to the lakeside one evening to watch Jesse play. Though it was still bright, the lights were on. The players gathered in shorts and sweats and tee shirts and tank tops and baseball caps on backward. All of them had expensive gloves, and the talk among them was the same talk, she thought, that Cap Anson had heard, or Cobb, or Ruth, or Mickey Mantle: insulting, self-deprecating, valued for its originality less than for its tradition, like the ancient ballad singers she’d heard of, rearranging the same phrases to create something new. The music was the same. Beloved teammates. Beloved adversaries. Celebrating the same ritual, together on a summer evening. She felt entirely separate from this. She understood it, but she knew she’d never feel it. If there were real differences between the genders, she thought, she was observing one of them.

  Looking at the game, her eyes were drawn to Jesse. It wasn’t just because of their intimacy, she was pretty sure. It was the way he moved. Among twenty or more men who all valued the same thing, Jesse seemed most to embody it.

  It was darkening after the game. Jesse and Lilly walked across the outfield toward the parking lot. The coolers were open. The beer was out. The cans were popped. The bright, malty smell of the beer rode gently on the evening air. The men smelled of clean sweat. Jesse took two beers from a cooler and opened them and handed one to Lilly. She took it though she didn’t like beer much.

  “I don’t belong here,” Lilly said.

  Jesse smiled.

  “Can she play short?” someone said. “We need someone, bad, to play short.”

  Jesse held up
his hands, all five fingers spread.

  “Five for five,” Jesse said.

  He walked with Lilly across the parking lot toward his car. He had his glove under his left arm, and the open beer in his right hand.

  “Don’t you want to stay and drink beer with your friends?” Lilly said. “I could meet you later.”

  “No,” Jesse said. “I’d rather drink beer with you.”

  She liked that. They sat in his car in the quiet, drinking their beer.

  “You got a hit every time,” Lilly said.

  Jesse nodded.

  “People hit eight hundred in this league,” Jesse said. “Nobody’s throwing a major-league slider up there.”

  The beer was very cold. One of her husbands had insisted on drinking it at room temperature, claiming that you could experience the beer’s full complexity. Lilly found it more tolerable cold.

  “You’re being modest,” she said.

  “No,” Jesse said. “I’m being accurate. I’m supposed to go five for five. I was a professional ballplayer.”

  “And the other players never were.”

  “No.”

  “And professionals beat amateurs.”

  “Every time,” Jesse said. “You want another beer?”

  “God no,” Lilly said.

  “You don’t like beer.”

  “No.”

  “We don’t have to stay here,” Jesse said. “We could go someplace and get something you like.”

  “I like it here.”

  “Okay.”

  Jesse got out of the car and got another beer and brought it back.

  Someone yelled, “You doing something bad in that car, Jesse?”

  Jesse got back in the front seat and closed the door. He drank some beer. It didn’t have the jolt that scotch did, and it took longer. But it had enough.

  “Do you feel the same way about being a policeman?” Lilly said.

  “As?”

  “As being a ballplayer,” Lilly said. “You know—professionals and amateurs?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re a professional policeman.”

  “I am.”

  “And it matters to you.”