Robert B. Parker's The Devil Wins

by Reed Farrel Coleman

  When Suit was shot, Jesse had been only a hundred yards away. Jesse didn’t like thinking about that day last spring when it had happened. A thousand things had gone through Jesse’s head when he reached Suit and saw the wounds. Not least among them was rage. Rage not at the man who had shot Suit, but at Suit for getting himself in a position to get shot. He thought he’d done a good job of keeping that to himself.

  “What is it, Jesse? Did I screw something up?”

  “Why would you say that?”

  “Because you mostly seem pissed off at me all the time.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “If you say so, Jesse. You’re chief.”

  “I didn’t call you in here because you screwed something up, and I’m not mad at you.”

  “Okay. Then what?”

  “You up for a little overtime tonight?”

  Suit couldn’t hide his unhappiness at the thought of more hours answering phones and brewing coffee. On the other hand, he didn’t want to ruin his chances of getting back on the street by whining.

  “Sure, Jesse, if that’s what you need.”

  Jesse laughed.

  Suit was confused. “I say something funny?”

  “You got it wrong. I don’t want you in here.”

  Suit’s confused expression turned to joy before Jesse’s eyes.

  “Relax, Suit, it’s not full duty, either.”

  “But—”

  “Go home and throw on some civilian clothes. Then I want you to help canvass the blocks around the two fires. Peter and Ed are out there now, but you’re better with people than either of them. Somebody must have seen something. Those two fires didn’t start themselves and they’re miles apart.”

  “You’re thinking somebody must have seen a vehicle, otherwise how could the arsonist have gotten from one place to the other.”

  Jesse smiled. “That or there were two firebugs at work. Go find me something.”

  Suit asked, “Should I carry?”

  “Not your service weapon. This is officially unofficial. Remember, you’re on light duty. If anyone asks, you volunteered to help after your shift. I’ll take care of your overtime.”

  “Thanks, Jesse.”

  Don’t get yourself shot. “You’re welcome” is what Jesse said. “Now get out of here.”

  It seemed to Jesse that Suit was moving even better than he was when he walked into his office. After Suit closed the door behind him, Jesse made two calls. One was to Tamara Elkin. The other was to Dix.

  56

  Tamara Elkin reached over Jesse to fill his wineglass. Jesse was glad he had a friend like Tamara, someone to talk to if he wanted to talk. It wasn’t all roses. He knew that at least for a little while yet there would be tension between them, that Tamara would want to move beyond friends and that he, too, would have to fight the temptation to move in that direction. If she kept coming over and they kept hanging out and drinking together, that temptation was bound to get stronger.

  Tamara liked a lot about Jesse. For one thing, he was sure of himself. He didn’t need the constant reassurance that most men seemed to require. So many men she had known were still little boys who were interested either in themselves or in trying to re-create that one someone they had lost in high school. Jesse was in the moment. She cringed at thinking those words, but there it was. Another thing she liked about him was that he wasn’t a talker. No fishing for compliments for him. But the truth was she was attracted to him and didn’t know how much longer she could play the role of Tonto to his Lone Ranger.

  “Cheers,” she said, lifting her glass.

  “Cheers.”

  He sipped, staring out into space and seeming to lose himself in the music playing on his stereo. She wasn’t much for jazz, but she understood how someone who liked it could get lost in it. She sat down on the couch, staring at him staring into space. She ascribed it to him zoning out to escape from the pressure he’d been under and wondered if now was the right moment to revisit a discussion of their friendship. She opened her mouth to say it, but those weren’t the words that came out.

  “I heard about the fires in Paradise today.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What do you think it means, both of the dead girls’ houses being torched like that?”

  That got Jesse’s attention. “Torched? Who said anything about arson?”

  “Come on, Jesse. I am the ME. I hear things.”

  He nodded. “They were torched, all right. What does it mean? Means my misinformation’s got someone worried.”

  “You might say you lit a fire under someone’s ass.”

  He laughed. “No, you might say that. I never would.”

  “Puns beneath you?”

  “No, Doc, just bad ones.”

  Tamara said, “You have an idea who you upset?”

  “I thought I did, but the suspect had an alibi. Guy always seems to have an alibi.”

  “Can’t you shoot holes in it?”

  “The alibi? Not this one,” he said. “He was under police surveillance while the fires were being lit.”

  “Bummer.” Fortified by her wine, Tamara decided now was as good a time as any to broach the subject of the nature of their friendship. “Listen, Jesse, I—”

  He raised his hand to cut her off and reached into his pocket for his phone. He waved the phone at her. “I better get this. Jesse Stone,” he said without checking the screen.

  “Jesse, are you all right?” It was Jenn.

  He sat up straight, tensed.

  Tamara mouthed, “Who is it?” He shook his head.

  Jenn asked, “Jesse, is something wrong? You’re breathing funny.”

  “I was just relaxing. I’m fine, Jenn.” He emphasized the name so Tamara would understand. He stood up and lowered the stereo.

  “No you’re not,” Jenn said. “I’ve seen all the stuff on TV. I read the papers.”

  “You know me. I’ll be okay.”

  “You say that.”

  Tamara Elkin walked out of Jesse’s living room and began clearing the dishes off the dining room table and tossing the cartons away from their takeout dinner.

  “Why are you calling, Jenn?”

  “Because of what you’re going through. Just because we’re not together anymore doesn’t mean—”

  “Cut it out,” he said. “We haven’t spoken since last spring and then you call in the middle of the evening out of the blue.”

  “What time is it there?” she said, innocent as a lamb. “It’s not that late, and why shouldn’t I call to see how you are?”

  Jesse recognized the pattern. When Jenn called him like this, it meant she was in trouble or was feeling needy.

  “I’m not doing this anymore, Jenn. I thought we had an understanding.”

  The dishwasher came on in Jesse’s kitchen and Tamara came back into the living room. She poured herself another glass of wine. Jesse shrugged his shoulders at her as Jenn talked into his ear about how he was wrong about her and how it was different now. He held up his left hand to Tamara and showed her two fingers. He mouthed, “Two minutes.” But she made a face at him and left the room. Ten minutes later, he heard the front door slam. Twenty minutes after that he realized he was still on the phone with Jenn.

  57

  He had lost track of the last few days as he had lost his sense of self since his third tour in Afghanistan. He thought he’d been solid until then, but it was impossible to hold on to things these days. Facts moved around on him like water bugs behind a kitchen wall. They were oily things for him, facts. Even when he had a grasp of one, it would slip away. He remembered people calling him a good soldier, a good man, and a good friend. He didn’t have friends anymore. His life was too scattered for that. There just didn’t seem to be enough of him left to spare for friendship. Sometimes late at night in the de
sert, he’d look up and see all the millions of stars and he’d think he still had a soul. They couldn’t take that from him. Not that, too.

  He panicked for a second. Where is that ticket to Boston? He clutched at the back left pocket of his filthy jeans, relaxing only after he felt the paper in his fingers. The ticket was still there. He’d spent his last money on it and he meant to make it to Boston no matter what. He tried to remember if he had ever been to Boston, but that was another one of those things he had lost in Helmand Province. He figured he’d hitch from Boston to Paradise. He’d tried to buy a ticket from New York to Paradise, but the lady at the counter stared at him funny and kind of laughed. No tickets to Paradise.

  “Like the song,” she’d said. “You know, ‘Two tickets to Paradise . . .’”

  But he didn’t know. Maybe he did, once.

  She said you can’t get there from here. He wondered what that meant. It kept going around and around in his head until he wanted to tear the words out of his brain. That’s when he ran outside, out of the bus terminal and into the New York City night.

  It was good that he ran. All the headlights, neon lights, traffic lights, all the blaring horns, all the people pushing, the aroma of chestnuts burning on hot charcoals, all of it took the words out of his head and the panic out of him. It was like that. One minute his head was full to exploding and the next it was empty. One minute he was back in country. The next he wasn’t. He even managed a smile at a little brown girl who stared at him with happy eyes. The smile didn’t last. Nothing lasted. He caught a whiff of something heartbreaking and familiar, the scent of grilling lamb. It sent him running again, this time far away as fast as his wrecked legs would move him.

  To calm himself as he ran, he tried to count how many buses he’d taken, how many rides he’d hitched just to get this far. A guy at the motel had let him catch a ride from Diablito to Tucson. From Tucson, he’d taken a bus to El Paso. He’d hitched a few rides from El Paso to San Antonio. Then there was that blackout period where he couldn’t remember anything, but somehow he’d woken up on a sewer grate in a little town in the Missouri Ozarks. He’d hitched from there to Saint Louis. In Saint Louis, he spent a day begging for money on the street and bought a bus ticket for New York City. He couldn’t recall why he hadn’t just bought a through ticket to Boston. But all that was in a jumble of yesterdays. By the time his legs hurt so much they wouldn’t move anymore, he found himself at a river. He sat down on a bench, gazing out at the lights across the way and letting their broken reflections on the black water hypnotize him. He felt his eyes close.

  He was so very cold and felt something hard against his face. Then he felt something else: a hand on him, more than one hand. Hands were pulling at him. One reached into his back pocket and pulled at the bus ticket to Boston. The last thing he remembered was reaching his own hand back and grabbing hold of the wrist of the hand in his pocket. When he came back into his body he was on his back on the concrete. He had a man’s forearm clamped between his. His legs were draped across the man’s chest and the man was screaming in pain, writhing in pain. An arm bar. He released the man’s forearm, but the damage had been done. When he let go he could feel the broken bones. He jumped to his feet, alive with adrenaline, and assumed fighting position. There was no need. The fight was over. Three men, including the man with the broken arm, were on the ground near the bench. One was unconscious. The other one’s face was a mess of blood. He was holding his hand on his broken nose and choking for air.

  Then he noticed the flashing lights. Heard the low, electronic whoop whoop of the siren, the screech of tires and brakes. More important, he heard the slide of a nine-millimeter as someone at his back racked a bullet into the chamber.

  “On your knees, motherfucker. Hands above your head. On your knees now!”

  He did as he was told. At least, he thought, I won’t be cold anymore tonight.

  58

  Dix stared at Jesse not unlike the way Tamara Elkin had stared at him the night before.

  “Jenn called last night.”

  Dix asked, “Before or after you called to make this appointment?”

  “After.”

  “Then she’s not why you’re here.”

  “What does that matter? She called.”

  “And?”

  “And it was the same old thing. She called pretending she was concerned about me, with what’s going on in Paradise with the murders.”

  “Don’t you believe her?”

  “Do I think she’s concerned? Maybe. Sure. But is that why she called? No, probably not.”

  “Then why did she call?”

  “I don’t know. Her job isn’t working out or her most recent boyfriend is about to dump her or she saw a line on her face that wasn’t there the day before. Take your pick,” Jesse said.

  “Not my job. But you apparently understand Jenn very well.”

  “We worked it out in here. You know how she is. She needs me when things are broken. Then when things get fixed, she doesn’t.”

  “Were you tempted to fix whatever was broken this time?” Dix asked.

  “Not really, but I did stay on the phone with her for twenty minutes without getting anywhere.”

  “You sound angry about that.”

  “There was another woman with me when Jenn called.”

  Dix nodded.

  “I hate when you do that,” Jesse said.

  Dix kept nodding. “What happened?”

  “First she retreated, then she basically left without saying a word.”

  “Who’s responsible for that?”

  “Me.”

  “Is the damage irreparable, do you think?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Then why are we talking about this?” Dix said.

  “Weren’t you listening?”

  “Look, Jesse, your ex called. It took a lot of hard work on your part to figure out the patterns that kept you and Jenn locked together in a very unhealthy emotional pas de deux. You parted ways, but none of that means either of you stopped caring or that parts of you still don’t hunger for the old comfort you found with each other. It seems to me you get it. You see Jenn for who she is and for what she wants. You say the damage between you and this other woman is fixable. So let me ask you again, why are we talking about this?”

  “Because I don’t want to talk about Suit.”

  “The cop who got shot last spring.”

  Jesse nodded. Then sat silently, staring at anything but at Dix. After a few minutes of that, he said, “It’s almost time for him to get back on the street.”

  “And?”

  “And I’m scared for him.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the last time he was on the street he was two inches away from being killed. And I’m not joking about the two inches. An inch this way or that and he’d be dead.”

  “I point this out only as a matter of discussion, Jesse, but you’ve had other cops die under your command previous to this and I don’t recall you reacting this way. What do you think that means?”

  “Those other cops weren’t Suit.”

  Dix nodded. “What’s special about Suit?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Of course you do. You’ve spoken about him in here many times.”

  “I have? I guess I must have mentioned him.”

  Dix smiled. “I can tell you a lot about Luther ‘Suitcase’ Simpson, Jesse, but it will do you no good for me to tell you. What’s special about Suit?”

  “He wants to be a good cop so bad.”

  “Is he bad at his job?”

  “He’s fine for where he is.”

  “For Paradise, you mean?”

  “He’s good with people and he can handle himself in a fight.”

  “But . . .”

  “He couldn’t make it on a
big-city force. He’d get eaten alive. You know what it’s like. What you have to deal with.”

  “I do. Not everybody can handle it. But it’s more than that.”

  “I’ve tried to coach him up. I’ve encouraged him. Tried to get him to take the initiative.”

  Dix said, “And has he taken the initiative?”

  “It’s what nearly got him killed.”

  “Do you blame yourself?”

  Silence, a long silence. Then, “He was trying to impress me.”

  “Why would he want to impress you?”

  “Because I’m his boss,” Jesse said, unable to look Dix in the eye.

  “You’re fighting yourself pretty hard not to say what you’ve come here to say.”

  “When he was shot, I got madder at Suit than at the shooter.”

  Dix smiled, or what passed for a smile. “Why?”

  “Because he shouldn’t have been there.”

  “If it was another one of your cops, would you have felt that way?”

  “Maybe.” He shook his head. “No.”

  “Why?”

  Jesse said, “Because Suit was in way over his head. He wasn’t equipped for the situation.”

  “Who was responsible for that?”

  Silence. Jesse checked his watch.

  “Do you ever regret not having children, Jesse?”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “You tell me.”

  “Jenn and I would have made terrible parents.”

  “I didn’t ask about Jenn. I asked about you. Think about that. It’s time. We have to stop.”

  Jesse checked his watch again and looked more than a little relieved.

  “I can’t force you to come here, Jesse,” Dix said, “but I would urge you to come in next week.”

  Jesse grunted something about trying and was gone.

  59

  Robbie Wilson was waiting for Jesse when he got back from Dix’s. Robbie, built like a lumpy bowling ball, was in a fresh set of his fire-chief blues, his little white legionnaire-style cap looking silly on his balding head. Jesse waved to him that he’d be with him in a minute and stopped to talk to Suit at the desk.