Текст книги "Night passage"

Автор книги: Robert B. Parker

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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

Chapter 50

“You know about the militias,” Ploughman said.

Buck nodded.

“Well, I know some guy from one of the militias, come to me, said he needed something done for a comrade in arms back east. That’s what he called him, a comrade in arms.”

Buck waited.

“They talk funny as a bastard, these guys, you ever notice? He says that there’s a guy out here that threatens the comrade in arms back east and he has to be deactivated.”

Ploughman waited for Buck’s reaction. Buck had no reaction and Ploughman looked disappointed.

“Deactivated! They want him clipped, why don’t they just say so, you know? So I tell this guy, No. I steal shit, but I don’t kill people. I mean I’ll carry a piece sometimes and make people think I would, you gotta make them think so, otherwise whaddya do, go in the bank and say gimme the money or I’ll yell at you? But I never used it. I ain’t a life taker. So I says no. And the militia guy kind of nods and looks at me like I’m a freaking enemy of the people and he says, well perhaps they will have to send someone.”

Ploughman stopped, looking pleased. Buck waited.

“And that’s it,” Ploughman said.

“That’s what you got to buy off twenty years?”

“Hell, it’s good. It tells you who ordered the hit and that they probably sent their own man. That’s golden, for crissake.”

“Who did they send?” Buck asked.

“I don’t know. They found out I wasn’t the man, they didn’t have anything else to say to me.”

“You hear of them approaching anyone besides you?”

“No.”

“How much were they going to pay you?”

“Five.”

“Five thousand?”

“Yeah. They’re all cheap bastards,” Ploughman said. “I never saw a militia guy willing to go first class.”

“Where in the east?”

“Didn’t say. But I figure you guys know where he came from.”

Buck didn’t answer. He stood with his arms folded, leaning on the wall, admiring his boots. Then he shifted his look to Ploughman.

“Tell your lawyer to see me,” Buck said finally.

“Can you work something out?” Ploughman said.

“Have him call me,” Buck said and went and knocked on the door.

Chapter 51

Jesse was drinking scotch at the counter in his tiny kitchen when Jenn called.

“Is it later there or earlier,” Jenn asked.

“It’s eight o’clock where you are,” Jesse said, “and eleven o’clock where I am.”

“Are you drinking?”

“I’m having one scotch before bed,” Jesse said.

“Just one?”

“Funny thing, Jenn. There’s a lot of pressure here all of a sudden, and it seems like I don’t need a drink. I haven’t had more than one since the pressure began.”

“Are you in trouble?”

“There is trouble,” Jesse said. “I don’t know yet if I’m in it.”

“Can you tell me about it?”

“The trouble? Sure. The guy I replaced in this job got murdered in Wyoming. A woman got murdered and I think it’s a way of getting at me.”

“Was she close to you?”

“No, I didn’t know her. But I know who did it, and I think he did it to challenge me.”

“Are you scared?”

“Yes,” Jesse said. “It’s probably why I only have one drink.”

“So you’ll be ready?”

“Something like that.”

“Can’t you arrest the man?”

“I can’t prove anything,” Jesse said.

“Is the man in Wyoming part of this?”

“I don’t know. It’s crazy that a town like this, where there hasn’t been a killing in fifty years, suddenly has two in a month. It makes you want to think they’re connected.”

“But you don’t see a connection.”

“No. There’s some kind of militia group in town. Not like the National Guard, the other kind, and there’s something funky about them.”

“Do you like the men you work with?”

“I like them, but I don’t know who I can trust.”

“No one?”

“Well, I’m sort of forced to trust one of them. My guess is he’s okay.”

“What about that woman. Weren’t you seeing a woman?”

“Abby. She’s mad at me.”

“Have you broken up?”

“I don’t know. The last time I saw her she walked away in a huff.”

“What is she mad at?”

“I wouldn’t tell her about this.”

“ ‘This’ being the stuff you’re telling me?”

“Yes. She said it meant I didn’t trust her.”

“Does that mean you trust me?”

“Yes.”

“Even though . . . ?”

“Even though,” Jesse said.

The phone line made phone line noise while both of them remained silent.

“You should come home,” Jenn said after a time.

“I don’t know where home is, Jenn.”

“Maybe it’s with me.”

“I got too much going on, Jenn. I can’t walk down that road right now.”

“Even if you don’t come home, why not get out of there? I’ve never heard you say you were scared before.”

“I can’t leave it, Jenn. You know when they hired me, I was drunk? Why would they hire a guy to be police chief who was drunk in the interview?”

“I don’t know,” Jenn said. “Maybe they didn’t know you were drunk.”

“They knew,” Jesse said.

Again the cross-country silence broken by the low-voltage sound of the circuitry.

“I’m scared, Jesse.”

Jesse didn’t say anything.

“Will you call me soon,” Jenn said.

“Yes.”

“I mean tomorrow, every day, so I’ll know you’re okay?”

“Yes.”

“I still love you, Jesse.”

“Maybe,” Jesse said.

“I do, Jesse. Do you still love me?”

“Maybe,” Jesse said.

After they had hung up he sat looking at the half-empty glass with the ice cubes melting into the whiskey. He picked it up and took a sip, and let it slide down his throat, warm and cool at the same time. His eyes felt as if they would fill with tears. He didn’t want them to, and he pushed the feeling back down.

Jenn, he thought. Jesus Christ!

Chapter 52

Michelle sat and talked with Jesse on the wall. A couple of other burnout kids sat farther down the wall pretending that they weren’t listening, and were too cool to pay any attention to the police chief if he chose to sit on the wall with them.

“You got a cigarette?” Michelle said.

“No.”

“You don’t smoke?”

“No.”

“You ever?”

“No.”

“How come?”

“I was a jock,” Jesse said. “I thought it would cut my wind.”

“That’s weird,” Michelle said.

Jesse stared at the leaves on the common, crimson now in places, and maroon, and yellow, the yellow tinged along the edges with green. It was something he’d never seen except on calendars, growing up in Arizona and California.

“I live next to your girlfriend,” Michelle said. “Abby Taylor.”

“That so?”

“Yes. Sometimes I see you come home real late with her and go in.”

“Un huh.”

“You have sex with her?”

“Why do you want to know?” Jesse said.

“I don’t, I don’t care. I just think if you’re going to be telling people what to do you shouldn’t be having sex with people.”

“Why not,” Jesse said.

“Why not?”

“Yeah, why shouldn’t I be chief of police and have sex with people?”

“I don’t care what you do, but it’s gross to do that and then be telling other people not to.”

“Have I ever told you not to?”

“You think I should?”

“There’s no should to it,” Jesse said.

“Well, that’s not what most adults think.”

“I’d be willing to bet,” Jesse said, “that you don’t know what most adults think. You know what a few of them think and you assume everyone thinks that.”

“Well, do you think it’s okay?”

“Sex? You bet.”

“For me?”

“For anyone,” Jesse said, “that knows what they’re doing, and why they’re doing it, and is smart enough not to get pregnant when they don’t want to, or get AIDS, or get a reputation.”

“I’ve had sex,” Michelle said.

Jesse nodded soberly.

“I figured you had,” Jesse said.

“I don’t think it’s such a big deal.”

“Sometimes it is,” Jesse said. “Depends, I guess, on who you have sex with and when and how you feel about them.”

Jesse paused and smiled.

“Though I gotta tell you,” he said. “I’ve never not liked it.”

Michelle glanced down at the two ratty-looking boys at the end of the wall and lowered her voice.

“If a guy, you know, shoots off, and you get some on you, can you get pregnant?”

“He needs to shoot off in you,” Jesse said.

“In . . . down there?”

“In your vagina,” Jesse said. “There may be someone who’s gotten pregnant by getting it on her thigh, but it’s not something I’d worry about.”

Michelle was silent, her feet dangling, looking at the ground between her feet.

Jesse looked across the common some more at the fall foliage. What made the leaves of the hardwoods so bright, he realized, was the undertone of evergreens behind and between them. The turning trees were made more brilliant by the trees that didn’t turn. Must be a philosophic point in there somewhere, Jesse thought. But none occurred.

“So are you?” Michelle asked.

She was still looking at the ground, and as she talked she pointed her toes in and then back out.

“None of your business,” Jesse said.

“Embarrassed to say?”

“No,” Jesse said. “But you don’t go out with someone and then tell everybody what you did.”

“I’ll bet you talk about it with the other cops.”

“No,” Jesse said.

“That’s weird. You ever been married?”

“Yes.”

“You divorced now?”

“Yes.”

“Is it because you didn’t love each other?”

“No. I think we love each other.”

“So what is it?”

“None of your business,” Jesse said.

“Jeez, another thing you won’t talk about.”

“I don’t talk about you and me, either,” Jesse said.

Michelle was startled.

“We’re not doing nothing,” she said.

Jesse grinned at her.

“That makes it easier,” he said.

Michelle tried not to, but she couldn’t help herself. She giggled.

“Jesse, you are really crazy,” she said. “You are really fucking-A crazy.”

“Thank you for noticing,” Jesse said.

And Michelle giggled some more and looked at the harlequin leaf bed beneath her dangling feet.

Chapter 53

Madeline St. Claire, M.D., had her office in a building on Bedford Drive in Beverly Hills a block north of Wilshire, on the corner of Brighton Way. Jenn liked the location. It made her feel important to go there twice a week. Jenn loved Dr. St. Claire and hated her. She was so implacable.

“What we are after in here,” Dr. St. Claire had said to her in one of her early visits, “is the truth.”

“So how come you are an authority on truth? Maybe your truth isn’t my truth.”

“We want your truth,” Dr. St. Claire said. “We want you to know why you do what you do.”

“Who’s to decide my truth?”

“You will.”

“So why do I need you?”

“Why do you?” Dr. St. Claire had said and Jenn had felt the stab of panic that she often felt when she realized that something was up to her.

She had gotten past that and now she understood why she needed help with the truth. But the rebellious child angry at the stern teacher never entirely disappeared, and many of the therapy sessions were combative. Sometimes Jenn cried. Dr. St. Claire remained unmoved. She was kind, but she was firm, and nothing Jenn did, no trick from Jenn’s considerable repertoire, could divert her. Under Dr. St. Claire’s steady gaze the strictures of pretense with which Jenn had defended herself for so long began to loosen.

They were talking about Jesse.

“The thing is,” Jenn said, “that I feel so much more than I used to feel when I talk to him. I feel stronger. It’s like, sometimes I imagine the skin of a valley girl lying shriveled on the floor, and a kind of new pink me standing up, a little damp, kind of scared, but genuine. Is that too fanciful?”

Dr. St. Claire made one of her little head movements which managed to encourage Jenn while remaining noncommittal.

“I know I haven’t been here long enough to be what I’m going to be. But when I talk to Jesse I know he’s in trouble, and I know he’s a little scared. Jesse is never scared.”

“Or never shows it,” Dr. St. Claire said.

“He’s really very brave,” Jenn said.

Dr. St. Claire nodded.

“And the funny thing is, when he sounds a little scared, I feel a lot braver. You know. I feel like I could help him.”

“Why do you suppose that is?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I’m glad he’s not so damned perfect, you know? That he can be scared?”

“Perhaps you don’t need to be quite so much less than he,” Dr. St. Claire said.

“What do you mean?”

“You have learned to get what you want by submitting to men. They had power. You, as I believe you said once, knew how to ‘bat your eyes’ when you needed something.”

“And now I don’t?”

“Now you may need to less,” Dr. St. Claire said. “I don’t think you are all the way yet.”

The room was very plain. The walls were beige. The rug was gray with a pink undertone. The only thing to look at other than Dr. St. Claire was her framed diplomas. Her medical degree was from UCLA. There was some kind of psychoanalytic certificate too, and other things behind her that Jenn had never turned around to look at.

“But I am taking care of myself.”

“Yes,” Dr. St. Claire said.

“You mean more than earning my own money.”

“Yes.”

“You mean this too, don’t you.”

“Yes.”

“So I’m starting to take better care of myself, and that means I can take better care of Jesse.”

“Or whoever,” Dr. St. Claire said.

Jenn sat back a little in her chair and thought about that.

“Often,” Dr. St. Claire said, “circumstances of heightened intensity can accelerate things.”

“Like rising to the occasion,” Jenn said.

“Yes,” Dr. St. Claire said. “Very much like that.”

Chapter 54

After work on a Tuesday evening, Jesse bought a large sandwich with everything on it at a shop called the Italian Submarine near the town wharf, and brought it home for supper. He would have two drinks. One before the sandwich and one with it. He was on his first drink when Abby called him.

“I’m ready to forgive you,” Abby said.

“That’s good.”

“I wish you trusted me, but you don’t. Maybe you can’t. But I find that I’m missing you and decided that not seeing you was punishing me as much as you and so I want to see you.”

“Okay.”

“Control yourself,” Abby said. “I hate it when you get giddy with excitement.”

“You want to go with me to the Halloween dance at the Yacht Club?” Jesse said.

“Well, yes,” Abby said. “I mean I want to go with you, but I wish it didn’t have to be to the Yacht Club dance.”

“Sort of part of my job,” Jesse said.

“I know. Chief of police and all that,” Abby said. “Actually I guess I’m supposed to go too, being town counsel.”

“Want to come here first for a drink?” Jesse said.

“Yes. What time?”

“Say seven, we don’t want to get to the ball too early.”

“I guess,” Abby said.

They were quiet for a moment. Jesse sipped his drink. He suspected that Abby was sipping hers.

“How have you been?” Abby said.

“Good.”

“Any progress on who killed that young woman?”

“Some,” Jesse said. “I know who did it, but I need evidence.”

“You know who did it?”

“Yeah.”

“Well who . . . I guess you can’t say, can you? Have you heard from your ex lately?”

“Yeah.”

“She hasn’t let you go, has she,” Abby said.

“I hear from Jenn pretty regularly.”

“Have you let her go, Jesse?”

“No, I don’t suppose I have, altogether.”

“So where does that leave me?”

“Where you’ve always been, Ab. You’re a really wonderful woman. But I am not really finished with my first marriage yet.”

“I know.”

“You shouldn’t put all your eggs in this basket, Ab.”

“I know.”

“I’m sorry it’s that way,” Jesse said.

“Hell,” Abby said, “let’s play it as it lays. The worst we can do is have a hell of a good time for a while.”

“I don’t know how it will turn out, Ab.”

“Me either, but let’s start with the Halloween dance, and a drink beforehand.”

“And maybe we won’t have to stay long,” Jesse said.

“And have the rest of the night to kill,” Abby said.

“We’ll think of something,” Jesse said.

“I already have,” Abby said.

Chapter 55

The morning of the Halloween dance Jesse got a Federal Express envelope from Charlie Buck in the Campbell County, Wyoming, Sheriff’s Department. Inside was a letter and a list of names.

“We have a cooperative witness in custody,” Buck wrote, “who says that Tom Carson was killed by a man sent by a militia group back east. Since Carson was from Massachusetts, we got a list of everybody who flew from Boston to Denver a week on either side of the crime. See if you recognize any names. The witness may be selling us a plea. Or the killer may have flown from New York, or drove out in a 1958 Rambler. But it makes sense to start with Boston–Denver.”

There followed a list of names, three columns, eighteen pages. On the twelfth page was Lou Burke’s name. Jesse stared at it for a long time, then he reorganized the list and put it in a manila folder along with Buck’s letter and locked the folder in the file cabinet in his office. He took Lou Burke’s personnel file out and brought it back to his desk and looked at it. Lou had been a twenty-year man in the Navy, before he retired and joined the police. Jesse ran his eyes down the list of Lou’s military occupation specialties until he found the one he remembered.

1970–1972 Underwater demolition specialist

Jesse’s fingers tapped softly on the desk as he read the personnel sheet.

1970–1972 Underwater demolition specialist

Holding the file in his lap, he swiveled his chair so he could stare out the window, past the driveway where the fire trucks parked, and look at the full strut of the Massachusetts fall. Jesse was never one for nature’s grandeur, and he wouldn’t get in a bus and ride very far to look at the leaves either. But since it was there it was nice to look at. Nothing like it in L.A. He watched the bright leaves for quite a while holding Lou Burke’s personnel file facedown in his lap.

He was still sitting when Molly Crane came in from the dispatch desk, and stood in the doorway, leaning on the jamb. She often did that, didn’t really come in, didn’t really stay out, just lingered in the doorway to talk.

“You thinking?” she said. “Or daydreaming.”

“Looking at the leaves,” Jesse said.

“I’m on break,” Molly said.

Jesse nodded.

“You going to that dance at the Yacht Club?” Molly said.

“Yeah. You?”

Molly laughed.

“Are you kidding? The police department dispatcher?”

“You’re a full-time police officer too,” Jesse said.

“Yeah, that’ll make a difference. See how many other guys from the force are there.”

“You ever been?”

“I never even been inside the Yacht Club, except once when some lady got drunk and started to strip right in front of all the guests, and I had to go over there and drag her out.”

“Drunk and disorderly?”

“Yeah, that was the charge. Pretty good-looking babe, too,” Molly said. “By the time I got her in the cell she had taken off every stitch. I gave her my coat but she wouldn’t wear it. Kept saying she was free and was going to live free, or something like that. She was pretty drunk. Anyway all of my fellow officers were really worried about her and kept checking on her regularly to make sure she didn’t hurt herself or escape or anything.”

Jesse smiled.

“She still in town,” he said.

“Oh sure. President of the little theater group, parent-teachers group, art association, you name it.”

“She ever talk to you?”

“Pretends she doesn’t know me,” Molly said.

“Maybe she doesn’t,” Jesse said. “Drunks don’t always, you know.”

“I’m Irish,” Molly said. “I know about drunks.”

“She still drink a lot?”

“I guess so. I don’t move in her circles, but she hasn’t required the cops again.”

“Kind of a status-conscious town, you think?” Jesse said.

“Oh yeah. Funny thing is that’s where all the prejudice is. The WASPs and the rich Jews get along fine. Neither one of them wants anything to do socially with working types.”

“Maybe you’re generalizing a little,” Jesse said.

“Oh yeah, whatever that means, I’m probably doing it. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t wish I was going to the Yacht Club. I’m just looking forward to your reaction.”

“Maybe I won’t have one,” Jesse said.

Molly smiled, still leaning on the doorjamb.

“I know what you’re like, Jesse,” she said and pushed herself erect. “You’ll have one. But you won’t show it.”

With that Molly walked away, letting the door swing shut behind her. That was also something she did. Molly was a great one for exit lines.

Jesse looked back out the window and sat for a while longer. Then he stood and carried Lou Burke’s personnel folder back to his upright file and put it away. Then he went back to his desk and dialed up Charlie Buck in Wyoming.

Chapter 56

Paradise Neck was a narrow jut of land that angled out to form the eastern shore of Paradise Harbor on its inner shoreline, while it kept the open ocean at bay with its outer. There were two roads on the Neck. One along the outer shoreline and one along the inner. They joined at Plumtree Point, where the lighthouse stood. The Yacht Club was off the inner coast road on the Neck, down a narrow drive thickly arched with trees and into a broad parking area beside some outdoor tennis courts behind a huge, haphazard, white clapboard two-story building. Jesse was amused that when you approached this tabernacle of Paradise high culture, you came at it from the rear. The Yacht Club faced the ocean, cantilevered out over the rust-colored boulders and bedrock that the sea had unearthed over time, its vast picture windows beaded with sea spray. Jesse was amused also at the understated arrogance of the membership, naming it simply The Yacht Club, as if there were no other. At night, coming from the leaf-thick tunnel into the brightly lit lot was rather like coming on stage. He parked nose in to one of the green composition tennis courts and got out and opened the door for Abby. She looked very elegant in black tuxedo trousers and a white blouse that looked somewhat like a boiled shirt. At her throat was a string of pearls. Jesse wore a dark suit.

In the ballroom, walled with windows, apparently floating over the harbor, the guests were generally in formal dress accented by Halloween-themed accessories. Several women sported satin half masks trimmed with rhinestones. Hasty Hathaway was wearing a black-and-orange bow tie with his tux. The bow tie had orange lights in it that flashed on and off. A four-piece orchestra in one corner was playing music by Andrew Lloyd Webber. At the far end of the room a bar was open, and along the wall opposite the water view a buffet table was laid with orange and black paper, covered with food, and anchored at each end by a large carved jack-o’-lantern.

“Hasty is drawing a crowd with his bow tie,” Abby said in Jesse’s ear as they pushed toward the bar. “It’s his party trademark. At Christmas he has one with red and green lights.”

“He’s a sporty guy,” Jesse said.

He got Abby a martini and himself a scotch and soda at the bar. They came in the same-sized clear plastic glasses. Abby sipped hers and made a face. Jesse needed to be careful with the scotch. This was not a good place for the chief of police to get drunk. Abby drank again.

“Got to get some of this in quick so that the rest of it won’t taste so awful.”

Jesse smiled. He started to drink his scotch and thought better of it. Take your time, he said to himself. Sip now and then. Nurse a couple of drinks. You don’t have to stay here forever. They edged over to the buffet table: potato chips; a boiled ham; salted peanuts; cream cheese and bologna roll-ups; pretzel sticks; potato salad; a large molded salad made of lime Jell-O and cabbage; pigs in a blanket; goldfish crackers; small meatballs in a sauce made from red currant jelly; a salad made with green beans, wax beans, and red kidney beans in oil-and-vinegar dressing; a platter of sliced American processed cheese food, two colors, yellow and white; some Ritz crackers; some salami chunks; a bowl of caramel corn; and a large bowl of something Jesse didn’t recognize. He asked Abby.

“That’s called nuts and bolts,” Abby said.

“Yeah, but what is it?”

“Cereal.”

“Cereal?”

“Yeah, Cheerios, Wheat Chex, bite-sized shredded wheat, stuff like that, sprayed with oil and salted and baked in the oven. Then you add pretzel sticks, maybe some peanuts if you’re at the cutting edge. Some people sprinkle on garlic salt, some people put on some Kraft grated Parmesan cheese. Toss lightly and serve.”

“Oh,” Jesse said.

“One year they had a Crock-Pot of blushing bunny,” Abby said.

“Which is?”

“Kind of a Welsh rabbit. Campbell’s cheese soup and Campbell’s tomato soup mixed equally and served over toast.”

“It’s gotta be Campbell’s?”

“Yes. WASPs are very brand-name loyal.”

Abby’s glass was empty. He stood near the end of the buffet table trying not to hear the music while she went for a refill. He looked at the buffet table and smiled. I hope I don’t get hungry, he thought. He took another drink. Carefully.

“You’re all alone, you poor dear,” Cissy Hathaway said.

Her speech was slow and careful, the way people speak when they’re drunk and trying not to show it. She had on more makeup than usual and behind the makeup Jesse could see that her cheeks were very red. She wore a long-sleeved formal gown, cream-colored with a red-and-green floral pattern and a high neck. The dress was very tight. Her high-heeled shoes were the same green as the leaves in the floral pattern.

“Abby’s getting a drink,” Jesse said.

“Well pooh on her,” Cissy said. “Come dance with me.”

If he said no, she’d insist. Jesse could see it in her face. Jesse put his glass down and let Cissy take him to the floor. The band played “We’ve Only Just Begun.” Jesse was a good dancer. He had good coordination and he could hear the music. But dancing wasn’t really what Cissy had in mind. She pressed against him as they moved among the dancers, pushing her pelvis against his and moving her hips slightly without regard to “We’ve Only Just Begun.”

“Do you like my dress?” she said. Her face was turned up to his and her lips almost brushed his face as she talked.

“Yes, ma’am,” Jesse said.

“You don’t think it’s too tight?”

“No such thing,” Jesse said.

“Men are all alike,” Cissy said. “They judge clothes by how much of a woman they show.”

“You’re probably right,” Jesse said.

“When a man is with a woman,” Cissy said, “clothes are just in the way.”

Jesse said, “Un huh,” emphasizing the second syllable, trying to sound both interested and noncommittal. Not easy, he thought, while being dry-humped on the dance floor.

“It’s why when I’m with a man,” Cissy said, her lips now actually brushing Jesse’s as she spoke, “I wear as little as possible.”

The band segued into “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.”

“Hasty’s a lucky man,” Jesse said. He was looking past Cissy’s shoulder for Abby.

“Oh, Hasty,” she said. “I can’t wait around all year for Hasty.”

Jesse smiled without speaking. He couldn’t think of anything to say to that. He was thinking of Suitcase.

“Can you tell,” she whispered against his mouth, “that I’m not wearing anything under this dress?”

“I wasn’t sure,” Jesse said.

Cissy had a good body under her ridiculous dress. It was becoming difficult for Jesse to remain detached.

“Is it something you might want to see?” she whispered.

Christ! Jesse thought. Where’s Suit when you need him.

“Is it?” Her mouth was against his.

“Not right here,” Jesse said.

“But somewhere you would, wouldn’t you. I can tell.”

Jesse was still struggling for gallantry.

“Anyone would,” he said.

Cissy clamped her mouth against his and began to kiss him aggressively. Jesse felt a tap on his shoulder. It was Hasty, his bow tie blinking steadily.

“Mind if I cut in?” Hasty said.

Cissy continued to kiss him.

Jesse pulled away and said, “No, not at all,” and turned Cissy, her eyes still half closed, into Hasty’s arms.

The band began to play an old Beatles tune. He found Abby near the bar, with a martini. The bar had cleared somewhat as people danced.

“Last Tango in Paris?” Abby said.

“Help,” Jesse said.

He ordered a fresh scotch from the bar.

“How’s she stack up as a kisser?” Abby said.

“There’s better,” Jesse said.

“Good to know.”

Abby’s eyes were bright and Jesse realized that she might be a little drunk too. He knew their relationship wasn’t helping her drinking. He picked up his scotch. Careful. He sipped a small sip and put the drink back down on the bar. Morris Comden, one of the other selectmen, came across the room and asked Jesse if he could have the next dance with Abby. It was the boldest thing Comden had done since Jesse had been in Paradise. At selectmen’s meetings, he sat quite still and watched Hasty so he’d know how to vote.

“Ask her,” Jesse said.

Abby smiled and said, “Of course,” and went to the dance floor with him. Over Comden’s shoulder on the floor, she stuck her tongue out at Jesse. Jesse smiled at her and sipped his scotch. Hasty Hathaway came to the bar.

“Wild Turkey,” he said to the bartender. “Straight, one ice cube.”

He got his drink and turned and put an arm around Jesse’s shoulder.

“Wife gets a little giddy,” he said, “when she drinks.”

“Sure,” Jesse said.

Hasty took a drink.

“Mother’s milk,” he said.

Jesse nodded. The dancers labored about the floor. Most people were terrible dancers, Jesse thought. He wondered if Comden had been dispatched to dance with Abby, so that Hasty and he could talk man to man. He didn’t see Cissy anywhere.

“Women are hard to figure, aren’t they, Jesse?”

“Yes,” Jesse said, “they are.”

“I guess you’ve had your share of trying to figure them out.”

“Un huh.”

“Being divorced and all.”

“Still trying to figure that out,” Jesse said.

“Well,” Hasty said, “that’s just how women are, I guess. When you want faster, they want slower. And when you want slower, they want fast.”

Hasty shook his head.

“You and Cissy seem happy,” Jesse said.

“Ciss? Oh hell, sure we are. But even a happy marriage isn’t easy, is it. There are adjustments.”

Hasty drank the rest of his Wild Turkey and ordered another.

“Sexual problems?” Hasty said.

“Who?” Jesse said.

“In your first marriage. It’s usually sexual stuff that makes a marriage hit the reef.”

“No,” Jesse said. “We didn’t have sexual problems.”

Unless, Jesse thought, your wife boffing a producer could be considered a sexual problem.

“What was your deal,” Hasty said.

Jesse shrugged.

“I’m not sure I know,” he said. “We didn’t seem to want the same things.”

“Let’s get some air,” Hasty said.

With his arm still on Jesse’s shoulder Hasty steered him toward the sliders and out onto the deck over the water. The strong salt smell reminded Jesse again of how far he was from home. The Pacific never smelled like this that he could remember. Maybe it was the cold weather made the ocean smell different. The light from the ballroom spilled out for a little way onto the black water. There was a small chop. Across the harbor the lights of the town were strung along the coastline and rose up from the water to Indian Hill, where the park was.

They leaned on the deck rail. Below them, Jesse could hear the water moving over the rocks.

“Man to man,” Hasty said.