Robert B Parker: The Jesse Stone Novels 1-5

by Robert B. Parker

  Jesse shook his head.

  “Doyle’s got a wife and five kids, Kelly told me. Says he wastes his free time with them.”

  Simpson shook his head.

  “I hate when that happens,” he said.

  Jesse smiled. Across the street and down from where they were parked, Gino’s black Lexus pulled in at the curb. Gino Fish and Vinnie Morris came up the stairs from the office and got in. The car pulled away down Tremont.

  Simpson looked at Jesse.

  “Aren’t we going after them?”

  “No.”

  “We’re not?” Simpson said. “What the hell are we sitting here in the heat for?”

  “Alan Garner hasn’t come out.”

  “So?”

  “It’s why we need more people,” Jesse said. “We can either follow Gino or stay with Alan.”

  “We haven’t had a lot of luck following Gino,” Simpson said.

  Jesse nodded.

  “Pretty Boy comes out and walks, I’ll take him on foot,” Jesse said. “You trail in the car, but not close. You lose us, come back here.”

  They exchanged places so that Simpson was at the wheel. Suit was wearing a bright, flowered, short-sleeved shirt, the tails of which hung outside his jeans and covered the service pistol on his belt. Jesse wore a white tee shirt. He had a short gun in an ankle holster. Traffic went by with windows up and air-conditioning on high. Ahead of them, three guys in tank tops and yellow helmets, protected by a folding yellow barrier, were in and out of a manhole.

  “I wonder if it’s cooler underground,” Simpson said.

  “Cellars are usually cooler,” Jesse said.

  Alan Garner came up the steps from the Development Associates office and began to walk toward them on the other side of the street.

  “Here we go,” Jesse said.

  Garner continued past them. When he was far enough past, Jesse got out.

  “Don’t U-turn right here,” Jesse said. “Sit for a couple minutes, then go down a ways.”

  Simpson nodded and Jesse began to walk up his side of the street in the same direction that Garner was walking on the other side. Garner walked as if he weren’t going anyplace. In fifteen minutes they were at the south corner of Boston Common where Boylston crosses Tremont, near the old cemetery. Garner crossed Boylston Street with the light and waited patiently for the walk signal. Jesse was too close behind him. He paused and looked down Boylston Street uncertainly for a moment and let Garner get farther ahead. Garner had seen him once, in Gino’s office. He tilted the blue L.A. Dodgers hat farther forward over his eyes and put both hands in his pockets. Tremont Street was one-way now, he knew Suit would have to go around. Jesse smiled. I hope he doesn’t get lost.

  They walked up Tremont Street across from the Common where a lot of people carrying backpacks, wearing shorts and sunglasses, were looking at maps. One of them was taking a picture of a fat woman standing so that the McDonald’s across the street would serve as a background. Garner went into the McDonald’s and came out in a moment carrying a large diet Coke in a big paper cup with a clear plastic lid. There was a straw stuck through the little hole in the lid, and Garner took a thoughtful pull on the diet Coke as he walked.

  At the corner of Tremont and Park, where the entrance to the Park Street subway station spread out into a kind of plaza, Garner crossed. There was a newspaper vendor on the plaza and somebody selling souvenirs from a pushcart, and somebody else selling popcorn. Kids with lavender hair and nose rings lingered on the corner. Jesse lingered on the far side of Tremont, waiting to see which way Garner would go. If he turned in to the subway entrance, Jesse could sprint if he needed to, without Garner seeing him. Garner went and sat on a wooden bench at the edge of the plaza, across from the Park Street Church. Jesse walked a block past Park Street, up Tremont, and crossed and went back down and stopped in front of the church to read the historical plaque out front. Garner was to Jesse’s left across Park Street. An adolescent girl came and sat on the bench beside him. She had on cowboy boots over black spandex tights. An oversized white tee shirt hung to her thighs. A small black purse hung on a gold chain from her shoulder. Her lipstick was black. Her face was pale. She had a great deal of shoulder-length black hair. Garner patted her thigh. The girl said something to him and giggled. He offered her a sip of his diet Coke and she took a long pull on the straw.

  Jesse saw his Explorer coming down Park Street toward him. Way to go, Suit, Jesse said to himself. He didn’t look at the car. It turned onto Tremont and moved on.

  The girl took a pack of Virginia Slims out of her purse and got out a cigarette. Garner lit it for her. She took in a long drag and then let the smoke out slowly through her nostrils. Garner took an envelope from the inside pocket of his silk tweed jacket and handed it to the girl. She giggled again. About the same age as Billie Bishop. Garner got up and patted the girl on the head and started back down Tremont Street. The girl sat for a minute looking at the envelope, then stood and started down across the Common. The lady or the tiger? Jesse thought. I can always find Garner again. He set off across the Common after the girl.

  The girl was easy to follow. She paid no attention to anyone around her as she walked diagonally across the Common and crossed at Charles Street into the Public Gardens. She walked as if she were listening to something and walking to its beat. They crossed the miniature bridge over the swan boat pond and past the statue of Washington. The girl paused, dropped her cigarette butt into the water, took out another one, lit it, and walked on. As they walked up Commonwealth Avenue along the mall, Jesse took off his sunglasses and turned his Dodgers cap around so that he wouldn’t look quite the same if she happened to look back.

  At Exeter Street the girl paused, took out her envelope and looked at it again. Then she turned into a brownstone building. Jesse was close now. He saw her press the top button of a row beside the front door. She waited for a moment, then opened the door and walked in. The door swung shut behind her. Jesse crossed the street, read the name on the top bell and copied it down. T. P. Pollinger. Then he went back to the mall and sat on a bench and waited.

  In an hour and twenty minutes the girl came out, looking just as she had when she went in. He followed her back down Commonwealth, his hat now stuffed in his back pocket, his sunglasses back on. She turned up Dartmouth Street. Crossed Boylston to Copley Square. Crossed the square to the Copley Plaza Hotel, got in a cab and drove away.

  Jesse stood on St. James Avenue outside the hotel and watched as the cab disappeared up Huntington Avenue.

  Well, he thought, I’ve still got T. P. Pollinger.

  45

  “How are you doing with Dix?” Jenn said.

  “He’s tough,” Jesse said.

  They were walking on Newbury Street. It was Saturday and the street was crowded with thirtyish men and women dressed in high-styled weekend casual clothes.

  “He’s in a tough business,” Jenn said.

  She stopped to look at some shoes in a store window.

  “I love those shoes,” Jenn said.

  “So why don’t you buy them?” Jesse said.

  “Because I haven’t looked enough,” Jenn said. “I might see something down the street that I like better.”

  They moved on.

  “Do you like him?” Jenn said.

  “Dix? He’s hard.”

  “So are you,” Jenn said.

  “Glad you noticed.”

  “Not like that,” Jenn said. “You are like a cold stone when you need to be.”

  “So?”

  “So you are not hard with me, or with people who don’t require it.”

  “Yeah?”

  “So maybe that’s how it is with Dix. I mean, how hard can he be if he chooses to do what he does?” Jenn said.

  “True,” Jesse said.r />
  “Is he doing you any good?” Jenn said.

  “Yeah, I think he is.”

  “Can you say?”

  “Not yet,” Jesse said. “We’re ranging pretty far afield.”

  “Are you talking about us?” Jenn said.

  “Yes.”

  Jenn paused to look at a pantsuit on a mannequin in another window.

  “That’s adorable,” Jenn said.

  “Don’t you have one just like it?”

  “No. I used to have one that color. But I’ve never owned one with that cut.”

  “Of course not,” Jesse said.

  “Is there a connection between me and your drinking?” Jenn said.

  “I drank too much before I met you,” Jesse said.

  “Do you see him regularly?” Jenn said.

  “Twice a week if I can,” Jesse said. “Sometimes I can’t.”

  “Will you stay with it?”

  “Yes.”

  Jenn patted him lightly on the back.

  “You?” Jesse said.

  “Stay in therapy?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, God, yes,” Jenn said. “I may be a lifer.”

  Jenn stopped suddenly and looked across the street.

  “Come on,” she said and slid through the motionless traffic to a store window on the other side of Newbury. Jesse followed. Jenn was staring at a pair of jewel-studded bright blue silk shoes with a high heel and a strap and long, pointed toes.

  “Those are the shoes,” she said.

  And they went into the store.

  46

  “Maybe it was his niece,” Kelly said.

  Jesse rang the bell.

  “We can ask him,” Jesse said.

  Over the intercom a voice said, “This is Pollinger.”

  “This is Brian Kelly. I’m with the Boston Police Department.”

  “Police?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’ll come down,” Pollinger said.

  The intercom fell silent. Jesse took his badge out and put it on his belt so it would show. In about a minute a man opened the door as far as the chain bolt would allow.

  “There are two of you,” the man said.

  Kelly showed his badge.

  “Yes sir. I’m Kelly, this is Jesse Stone.”

  The man looked hard at Kelly’s badge.

  “Could you hold it a bit closer to the door?” the man said. Kelly held it right up to the small opening. The man took a long time examining it.

  “Will you need to come in?” he said.

  “You T. P. Pollinger?” Kelly said.

  “Yes.”

  “It would be better if we came in,” Kelly said.

  “Excuse me, I have to close the door to take the chain off.”

  “Sure,” Kelly said.

  The door closed. The chain slid back, and the door opened.

  “I’m Trip Pollinger,” the man said. “What is this about?”

  He was slender and white-haired. His face was young and evenly tanned. He wore a dark brown silk tweed jacket over a light tan silk tee shirt, tan linen trousers and coffee-colored loafers and no socks. On a Tuesday morning? Jesse thought. At home? I normally sit around the house in sweatpants.

  “Perhaps we shouldn’t talk in the hall,” Kelly said.

  “Oh, excuse me. Where are my manners,” Pollinger said. “Please come this way.”

  The room was long and narrow and brightened by a floor-to-ceiling window at the far end. There were two skylights in the ceiling. It was furnished with the kind of angular modern furniture that Jesse had seen in showroom windows, but never in a home. A Picasso hung over the sofa. It showed a man/bull having his way with a woman. Jesse assumed it was a reproduction copy. Pollinger didn’t look that affluent.

  “Would you like coffee?” Pollinger said. “Something to drink? A Coke? Perrier? I assume I can’t offer you anything hard while you’re on duty.”

  Kelly said, “No, thank you,” and nodded at Jesse.

  “Mr. Pollinger,” Jesse said. “Yesterday afternoon I followed a very young woman to your apartment and waited outside for an hour and twenty minutes until she came out. She then walked over to Copley Square and caught a cab and I lost her.”

  “A young woman?”

  “A girl,” Jesse said. “Maybe fifteen.”

  “You followed her?”

  “Yes, sir. She rang your bell, and went in, and stayed for eighty minutes.”

  “I don’t know anything about it,” Pollinger said.

  “I want to find that girl,” Jesse said.

  “There wasn’t any girl,” Pollinger said.

  “She was sent by Alan Garner.”

  “Did he tell you that?”

  “I’m not after you, Mr. Pollinger. I’m after the girl.”

  “I don’t know anything about a girl,” Pollinger said.

  Jesse sighed. He looked at Kelly. Kelly shrugged.

  “Easy or hard,” Kelly said. “Doesn’t matter to me.”

  “What do you mean?” Pollinger said.

  He looked at Jesse.

  “What does he mean by that?”

  Jesse didn’t answer for a time, letting the question hang in the quiet.

  “Here’s what I think,” Jesse said finally. “I think that the girl, who is almost certainly underage, came here to have sex with you. I assume for money.”

  “Could be charm,” Kelly said. “He’s very charming.”

  “I don’t think he’s charming,” Jesse said.

  Kelly shrugged. “No accounting for taste,” he said.

  “And,” Jesse said to Pollinger, “I bet it’s not the first time. And I bet if we start asking all your neighbors, and everybody where you work, if you are having paid sex with underage girls, sooner or later I bet we’ll prove it.”

  “No,” Pollinger said.

  Kelly pulled a straight-backed chrome chair from the dining table and pushed it toward Pollinger.

  “You wanna sit down?” he said.

  Pollinger sat.

  “I don’t want you asking around about me. I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “So tell us about the girl?” Jesse said.

  “Maybe I should have a lawyer,” Pollinger said.

  “If you think you need one,” Jesse said.

  “No . . . I . . . If I tell you, will you leave me alone?”

  “Sure,” Jesse said.

  “I’m a financial manager,” Pollinger said. “I have fiscal responsibility. I can’t . . .”

  “Mum’s the word,” Kelly said.

  “Her name’s Dawn,” Pollinger said. “I don’t think she’s underage.”

  “And I know you would care,” Jesse said. “What’s her last name?”

  “I don’t know. But I have a phone number.”

  “Garner’s?”

  “No.”

  Pollinger stood and went to a sideboard and took a piece of notepaper from a drawer. He handed it to Jesse. There was a phone number written on it in black ink. The hand was childish. The zero had a smiley face.

  “I don’t think she was supposed to give it to me,” Pollinger said. “She made me promise not to tell Alan.”

  “Cut out the middle man,” Kelly said. “Enterprising girl.”

  “You get other girls from Alan?” Jesse said.

  Pollinger nodded. He was looking hard at the texture of his subtle gray wall-to-wall carpeting.

  “They all teenyboppers?” Kelly said.

  “They are young women,” Pollinger said.

  “I’ll bet,” Kelly said.

  “Ever spend time in Paradise?” Je
sse said.

  “I’ve been up there. They have a nice restaurant on the town wharf.”

  Jesse nodded.

  “Ever know a girl named Billie Bishop?” he said.

  “There was a girl named Billie,” Pollinger said. “Nice girl. They’re not really whores.”

  “Of course they’re not,” Kelly said. “Except that they fuck for money.”

  Pollinger didn’t look up from the carpet.

  “Where were you, the beginning of July?”

  “July?”

  “Yeah. First week, after the Fourth?”

  “I was in London. We went on a theater tour.”

  “Can you prove it?”

  “Yes. It was a package, Worldwide Theater Tours. They would have a record.”

  “We’ll check,” Kelly said.

  “Why? Why does it matter?”

  “Just routine inquiry,” Jesse said. “You know any of Billie’s other clients?”

  “No.”

  “She never mentioned any, even in passing?”

  “No. She was, we were, ah, very businesslike.”

  “Wham bam, thank you ma’am,” Kelly said.

  “No. It wasn’t like that. They are very nice girls. It’s just that we only talked about . . . each other.”

  “You romantic fool,” Kelly said.

  47

  “I ran into Mrs. Snyder at Stop & Shop,” Molly said.

  Jesse nodded. He was rocked back in his swivel chair drinking coffee. The air-conditioning hummed quietly.

  “She told me she’s getting divorced.”

  “Husband still beating on her?” Jesse said.

  “No. That’s the funny thing. She said he hadn’t touched her since the time you and he talked.”

  “So?”

  Molly smiled.

  “She didn’t quite put it this way,” Molly said. “But it sounds like all those years he was punching her around, she used to think if he’d only stop they could be happy. And then he stopped. And she found out she still didn’t like him.”

  “Can’t win ’em all,” Jesse said.

  “She might have won this one,” Molly said.