Текст книги "Night passage"

Автор книги: Robert B. Parker

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Текущая страница: 14 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

Jesse nodded to himself. Comden had been dispatched. He was not a good choice. He was too dull to carry on a conversation. Poor Abby.

“Your ex ever fool around?” Hasty said.

He wasn’t looking at Jesse. Arms resting on the railing, he stared out across the water.

“Yes.”

“How’d it make you feel?”

“Bad.”

Hasty nodded.

“You fool around?” he said.

“Not till we separated,” Jesse said.

“You ever wonder why you weren’t enough?”

“Yes.”

Hasty nodded again. He was silent for a time. Through the glass doors behind them the band had finished its set and the sound of conversation and glassware replaced the sound of music.

“When we were dating,” Hasty said, “she was hotter than a cheap pistol. Part of the reason I married her, I suppose. I never had many girlfriends, and when I started dating her . . .” He shook his head at the memory. “But as soon as we got married she wasn’t interested anymore. The funny thing is when we dated we did everything but it, you know. Heavy petting, I guess you’d say. But never the dastardly deed itself. Didn’t want to cheapen the relationship.”

Hasty laughed at himself derisively.

“Talked a lot about saving it for marriage,” he said. “Then we got married and she wasn’t interested. You know? She’d lie back and close her eyes and think of England. But it was pretty much of a duty.”

“I guess marriage is different from dating,” Jesse said.

“I guess it is,” Hasty said.

Across the harbor a small tender plugged in toward the town wharf from one of the yachts moored in deeper water. Its running lights looked like slow shooting stars in the dark. Hasty finished his drink. Jesse had already finished his.

“I finally just decided that she was frigid and that the hot stuff before marriage was a way to get me. But you know how it is in a marriage. You figure you’re supposed to stick it out. After a while the way it is gets to seem like the way it’s supposed to be.”

“Yes,” Jesse said. “I know.”

“She seem frigid to you?” Hasty said.

“Hard to say.”

“Come on, Jesse. She embarrassed us both on the dance floor ten minutes ago. She seem frigid to you then?”

“No.”

“So how come she’s frigid at home, and hot with other men?”

“I’m a cop, Hasty. That’s a shrink question.”

“Aw, they’re all crazy themselves,” Hasty said.

Jesse didn’t say anything.

“Well, anyway, I’ve come to terms with it. We have our life together. Except for the sex, I like her. We get along good. What she does when I’m not home, I know she sees other men. I’m sure she’s hotter than Cleopatra with them. I . . . I . . .” Hasty made an aimless hand gesture. “We get along,” he said.

“Whatever works,” Jesse said. “You have anyone?”

“On the side, you mean? No.”

Jesse nodded.

“Anyway,” Hasty said, as if finishing a difficult chore, “I wanted you to know that I don’t blame you. I apologize for my wife.”

“Sure,” Jesse said. “No problem.”

Again they were quiet, the two men looking at the black harbor, forearms resting on the railing, each holding an empty plastic cup in his hand. The tender had reached the wharf and disappeared. Its running lights were out. The darkness between the men and the town across the water was unbroken and palpable. Hasty clapped Jesse on the back.

“Well, look at all that food,” Hasty said. “Better go in and get some before they eat it all up.”

“That’s right,” Jesse said. “That’s what we better do.”

Chapter 57

Jesse was at his desk when Molly brought Bobby Portugal in.

“Remember me?” Portugal said.

“Sure,” Jesse said. “Have a seat.”

“They’re cleaning out the house,” Portugal said.

“Where you and Tammy lived?”

“Yeah, and I had to come in from Springfield to get some stuff I left there. Probably hoping it would give me an excuse to come back. So I thought I’d stop by, see how the case was coming.”

“Not much hard evidence,” Jesse said.

“You got her diary?”

Jesse was silent for a moment. Then he got up and walked around Portugal and closed the office door.

When he was back behind his desk again he said, “Diary.”

“Yeah. You didn’t mention it when you was in Springfield, but I figure, cops. You know? I’m not bad-mouthing the police, I’m just figuring you got it and don’t see no reason to talk about it with me.”

“She kept a diary.”

“Long as I knew her, every night, last thing. Even if we had sex, when we was done, she’d write in the freaking diary.”

“You ever read it?” Jesse said.

“No. It was one of those leather ones with a lock on it. She wore the key on a chain around her neck. Little gold key. She had a lotta ambition. I think she thought she could write down everything she did and someday she could get someone to help her and they’d write a book about all her exciting adventures.”

Portugal shook his head and smiled grimly.

“Like getting knocked up by me.”

Jesse was quiet.

“So if you had the diary I figured it might tell you something, who she was seeing, who she went out with that night. Something. She wasn’t somebody to stay home and watch TV.”

Jesse shook his head slowly.

“You don’t have it, do you?” Portugal said, slowly surprised.

“No. Did you see the drawer where she kept it?”

“Yeah, sure. It’s what made me think of it. It wasn’t in there. You find the key on her when you . . . found her.”

Jesse shook his head.

“You might have missed it.”

“No.”

“She always had it on her.”

“She was stark naked,” Jesse said as gently as he could. “We’d have seen it.”

Portugal sat still a minute, looking at nothing.

“Yeah, sure,” he said after a moment, “you’d have seen it. You find her clothes?”

“No.”

Portugal nodded as if that were meaningful.

“If you keep a diary for a long time,” Jesse said, “you fill up the pages. Did she keep the old ones?”

“Yeah. I think so. She bought a new one when we got married and that’s the only one I know. She probably left the other ones home, at her mother’s house, when she got married.”

“You think her mother took it?”

Portugal shrugged.

“She could have. They were in there cleaning out the place. It’s going on the market Monday. I don’t get any. They get it all. Her old lady didn’t even want me in there to get my things. She never got over me knocking up her baby girl. But the old man’s not a bad guy. He called me, told me to come get my stuff. The old lady woulda chucked it in the Dumpster.”

Jesse tapped gently on the desktop with his fingers.

Finally he said, “I have your phone number. I know anything, I’ll let you know.”

“I’d appreciate it.”

“You can count on it,” Jesse said. “And I’d appreciate it if the diary was something you didn’t talk about with anybody else.”

“Sure,” Portugal said. “No sweat.”

“Thanks,” Jesse said.

“I already told my girlfriend how Tammy used to keep a diary,” Portugal said.

“Well, ask her not to discuss it as well,” Jesse said.

“Well, since her husband don’t know about me,” Portugal said, “I guess she can keep a secret.”

“You better hope so,” Jesse said.

And they were both laughing as Portugal left.

Chapter 58

Lou Burke was getting into his car when Jesse opened the passenger door and got in beside him.

“Patrol supervising?” Jesse said.

“Yeah.”

“Mind if I ride along?” Jesse said. “I spend too much time in the office.”

“Come ahead,” Burke said.

Burke backed the car out of the parking lot and turned up Main Street. Between them was a shotgun, locked barrel up on the transmission hump.

“See if there’s any gum wrappers in the barrel,” Burke said. “Peter Perkins had the car before me.”

Jesse looked into the shotgun barrel. He blew some dust out.

“No gum wrappers,” he said.

“Boys don’t seem to have the proper respect for a weapon,” Burke said, “do they?”

“Never make it in the Corps,” Jesse said.

“You in the Marines?”

“Semper Fi,” Jesse said. “You?”

“Navy.”

“What was your job?”

Burke smiled.

“Lot of stuff. I was a lifer.”

“Twenty years?”

“Yeah. This is my retirement.”

Jesse smiled. Burke drove the car up Indian Hill Road. The startling leaves had finished turning, Jesse noticed. Many of the trees were leafless, or nearly so. And, puzzlingly, some of them still had leaves and the leaves were still green.

“Ever do any demolition work?” Jesse said.

Burke’s eyes shifted almost imperceptibly as he glanced involuntarily at Jesse and then looked back at the road.

“Yeah, some.”

Jesse nodded. At the top of Indian Hill, Burke drove the patrol car slowly into the park. It was during school hours, and it was chilly. There was no one in the park except a white-haired man in a black-and-red wool jacket walking an aging yellow Lab.

“Funny how quiet a town is during school hours,” Jesse said.

Burke didn’t say anything.

“Ever been to Denver?” Jesse said.

“Denver?”

“Yeah.”

“Why you asking?”

Jesse smiled at him.

“Why not?” Jesse said.

“Jesse, you got something on your mind, I think you just better say it right out.”

“I am saying it right out,” Jesse said, still smiling. “You ever been to Denver?”

“Yeah.”

Jesse’s smile was gone.

“When’s the last time you were in Denver?” Jesse said.

From Indian Hill, you could see the whole harbor, uneventful in the late fall, and the old town, weathered shingle, red brick, and church steeples beside the dark water. You could see across the harbor to Paradise Neck, the big glass facade of the Yacht Club teetering over the water. And you could see across the Neck, mostly evergreen trees, with white and gray houses among them, and look at the Atlantic Ocean.

Burke didn’t answer. He turned the car back down the hill toward the center of town.

“When’s the last time you were in Denver, Lou?”

Burke shook his head.

“Drive us back to the station, Lou.”

Burke was silent. Jesse let the silence stand. There was no reason to let Burke in on what Jesse knew. Jesse had never gotten in trouble saying too little. The patrol car pulled into its slot outside the station.

“I’m going to ask you to take a leave of absence, Lou.”

Burke turned toward him and started to speak, and stopped.

“Leave the handgun and the badge with Molly,” Jesse said.

As they got out of the car Burke turned and looked across the roof at Jesse.

“You sonova bitch,” he said.

Burke’s voice was thick, as if forced out through a closing throat. And there was something in Burke’s face that Jesse felt with a force he wasn’t used to. You didn’t work South Central without seeing hatred. But the passion in Burke’s face was beyond hatred. Jesse felt something like revulsion, as if he’d seen something grotesque for a moment. He felt as if he needed to hold steady against it, the way you lean into a strong wind.

“Gun and badge to Molly, Lou,” Jesse said.

Chapter 59

Tammy Portugal’s maiden name was Gennaro. Her mother and father lived in a small ugly house that had once been a summer cottage, facing a swampy saltwater estuary which the local kids called the eel pond. The process of converting the cottage to a full-time home had been apparently a slow one. The rear wall of the kitchen above the sink was still unfinished, the area between the studs filled with the silvery foil backing of the fiberglass insulation.

The kitchen table where Jesse sat was made of metal covered with white enamel. There was a small fold-up leaf at either end. The mug from which Mr. Gennaro was drinking instant coffee was formed in the shape of a gnomish-looking man with a beard. Mrs. Gennaro, in a flowered housedress and white sneakers, was at the stove boiling water, in case there was a call for more instant coffee. The sneaker on her right foot had a hole cut to relieve pressure on her small toe. She was a sturdy woman, not fat, but wide in the hips and shoulders. She had white hair which she wore in a tight perm, and rimless glasses.

“You sure you won’t have coffee?” Mrs. Gennaro said.

“No, thank you, ma’am,” Jesse said.

Jesse hated instant coffee. Across the table from him, Mr. Gennaro put a spoonful of Cremora in his coffee and stirred. He was a wiry little man, no taller than his wife. He worked sometimes as a fisherman, and sometimes as a landscaper, and in snowstorms he drove a plow for the town.

“How are you both doing?” Jesse asked.

Mr. Gennaro shrugged.

Mrs. Gennaro said, “We get through the day.”

“It’ll get better,” Jesse said. “I know it doesn’t feel like that now, but in time, it’ll get better.”

Neither one said anything. Probably didn’t want it to get better right now, Jesse thought, probably were so into the grief that it was their life, and without it they wouldn’t have anything at all.

“I see you have your daughter’s house on the market,” Jesse said.

“Yeah,” Mr. Gennaro said. “No sense paying for an empty house.”

“You selling it furnished?” Jesse said.

“No,” Mrs. Gennaro said. “We got a man to come in and take everything out. He paid us for the furniture.”

“That’s good,” Jesse said. “It would be painful doing that yourself.”

Mrs. Gennaro nodded. The steam began to spout from the kettle. She turned the heat down beneath it and came to the table.

“I hope you were able to keep some memories,” Jesse said.

Mr. Gennaro shifted a little in his seat.

“What do you mean,” Mrs. Gennaro said.

“You know,” Jesse said, “pictures, letters, diaries, stuff like that.”

They were silent.

“She keep a diary?” Jesse said.

Simultaneously, Mr. Gennaro said “Yes” and Mrs. Gennaro said “No.”

Jesse smiled politely and didn’t say anything. The Gennaros looked at each other. Jesse waited. No one said anything. Jesse could hear the hot water in the teakettle stir restlessly on the stove over the low heat.

“If she kept a diary it might help us find who killed her,” Jesse said.

The Gennaros looked at each other and back at Jesse. Still they didn’t speak. Jesse knew they were silent because they didn’t know what to say. He needed to get them started.

“I want to punish the man who killed your daughter,” Jesse said.

Silence. Mr. Gennaro shifted again in his chair. Mrs. Gennaro’s face was clenched like a fist. Her cheeks were red.

“I know there are diaries,” Jesse said.

Mrs. Gennaro shook her head.

“I need to see them.”

Still she shook her head. Jesse looked at her husband.

“You want the man that killed your daughter?” Jesse said.

His voice was still quiet, but the pleasantness was gone.

“You embarrassed by what’s in there?” Jesse said. “What would she say? Would she say, ‘Cover up for me and let the man who killed me get away’? Would she say that?”

“No,” Mr. Gennaro said.

“Eddie,” Mrs. Gennaro said sharply.

Gennaro stared at the tabletop, shaking his head slowly.

“No,” he said again.

Then he stood and walked into the next room.

“Eddie,” Mrs. Gennaro said again, louder, and sharper.

Gennaro came back into the kitchen with a cardboard beer case filled with small books covered in red imitation leather, each little book with a brass lock. Gennaro put the diaries on the table in front of Jesse and went back to the other side of the table and sat down.

“This is them,” he said. He nodded at his wife. “She got the keys.”

“I won’t give them to you,” Mrs. Gennaro said.

“You don’t have to, ma’am,” Jesse said.

“I raised a decent girl,” Mrs. Gennaro said. “She was a decent girl until that Portugal . . .”

“She was decent anyway,” Gennaro muttered.

“I don’t want him prying into those books, Eddie,” Mrs. Gennaro said.

“He’s going to,” Gennaro said and kept his eyes on the table. “I want him to.”

“Don’t you care what I want?” Mrs. Gennaro said.

“I want the guy caught,” Gennaro said.

Jesse picked up the beer case with the diaries carefully stacked in it.

“How you going to open them without the keys?” Mrs. Gennaro said.

“Probably pry them open,” Jesse said, “with a screwdriver.”

Mrs. Gennaro looked at the diaries without speaking for a moment, then she said, “Wait a minute.”

She left the kitchen. Jesse waited. Gennaro sat silently staring at the kitchen tabletop. After a moment Mrs. Gennaro returned and gave Jesse a collection of little brass keys tied together with a red ribbon.

“I want them books back,” she said, “with no damage.”

“I’ll get them back to you, ma’am,” Jesse said.

Neither of Tammy Portugal’s parents said anything else as Jesse carried the diaries from the house.

Chapter 60

They sat in Hasty’s car in the parking lot of the Northshore Shopping Center. The nose of the car pointed north so that the afternoon sun streamed in over Hasty’s shoulder and made him a dark silhouette as Burke turned in the seat to look at him.

“Something will have to be done about Stone,” Burke said, squinting, trying to look at Hasty. But the sun was too fierce. Burke gave up and looked away.

Hasty was silent.

“He knows,” Burke said. “He knows I was in Denver. He knows more than that. Sonova bitch doesn’t say much, but he knows.”

“Maybe he doesn’t say much because he doesn’t know,” Hasty said.

“He knows,” Burke said. “We made a bad mistake with him.”

“Mistakes are part of life,” Hasty said. “The important thing is to overcome them.”

To Burke, Hasty’s voice seemed disembodied, coming as it did out of an unseeable place in the hard middle of the sun glare.

“Well, we better overcome this one pretty quick,” Burke said. “Or he’s going to overcome us.”

“What do you recommend?”

“We have to kill him.”

“The death of a second police chief from this town in less than a year?”

“Better than having him take us all down,” Burke said. “We can find a way to cover it, an accident or something.”

“All of us?” Hasty said.

“Well, you know what I mean, he gets me, sooner or later he’ll get you, and . . . everybody.”

“You are required in these circumstances to give only your name, rank, and serial number.”

“For crissake, Hasty, I’m not a fucking prisoner of war.”

“Of course you are. If our movement is about anything, it is about war with the forces of international mongrelization.”

“I know,” Burke said. “I understand that. But they’re going to arrest me for murder, Hasty.”

“What they do has no effect on what we know to be true,” Hasty said.

“Hasty, I can’t afford theory right now. My ass is on the stove, you know? We need to get Stone out of the way.”

In black silhouette Hasty nodded slowly.

“To save us all,” Hasty said.

“Absolutely,” Burke said.

“What have ‘us all’ to do with your trip to Denver, Lou?”

“Christ, Hasty. You sent me.”

“To do what?”

“To blow Tom Carson up.”

“Because?”

“Because he knew too much and you didn’t trust him to be quiet about it.”

“Un huh.”

There was silence in the car. Across the parking lot, people in bright fall clothing surged in and out of the vast mall. Shop early for Christmas. Take advantage of pre-holiday sales. No payments until January. Many of the people in the late-afternoon surge were teenaged mall rats. For them the mall had replaced playground, Boys Club, street corner, home. The new marketplace.

“I wouldn’t tell them, of course,” Burke said. “But once they start they’re bound to find out.”

“How?”

“Well, I mean they investigate.”

“What?”

“Well, you know, they backtrack my story . . .”

“And?”

“And who the hell knows what physical evidence they have. Who knows what the Wyoming militia might tell them. They get somebody in jail they can squeeze them, make a deal, go easy on you if you give us the others, you know . . . I would never do that, but we don’t really know the Wyoming people.”

“Yes,” Hasty said. “Of course. Who’s to do the killing?”

“I figured you could get Jo Jo to do it. He’s got a mad on about Stone anyway.”

“Well,” Hasty said. “I don’t know, Lou. I can promise at least to give it serious theoretical consideration.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“I’ll think about it, Lou. Meanwhile you sit still, and keep your mouth shut. Until you hear from me.”

“We need to move fast,” Burke said.

“I’m aware of that, Lou. And we will, but we will move with deliberate speed. I agree with you that we’ve underestimated Stone, and we don’t want to underestimate him further.”

“Yeah, sure, Hasty. Just as long as we get him before he gets us.”

“He won’t get us, Lou,” Hasty said. “You’re on suspension. Go home, sit in your house, stay there, and say nothing.”

“I’m counting on you, Hasty,” Burke said.

“Of course,” Hasty said.

Chapter 61

Jesse began reading Tammy’s diaries from the most recent entry back. It took him a day to reach the parts that seemed interesting, and yet another day to cut and paste them together into a narrative that he could study.

May 11—Talked to Hasty Hathaway at the post office. He is the most important man in Paradise, kind of old.

Memorial Day—Hasty Hathaway was talking to me today at the Parade. He acts kind of interested. It’s hard to tell with a guy as geeky as he is, but a girl can listen.

June 28—Had a drink at the 86 last night. Looking good if I do say so. New white sweater, the black jeans I got that make my butt look really good. Hasty Hathaway bought me a drink, took me home. We stopped at Indian Hill on the way, and I thought he was going to come on to me, but we just talked. He’s really kind of nice, sort of a sad person. Who’d think so, all that money and everything. But he says him and his wife haven’t got much going in the sex department. Says he’s pretty lonely. Said he needs somebody like me to talk with. I told him he could take me out to dinner sometime if he wanted. He said he had to be careful in town, him being a married man and all, but we could go into Boston maybe. I said sure. He said did I mind him being married, and I said no. His wife’s married I said, not him. He thought that was pretty cute. Then he took me home and never even touched me. Strange guy. Fun, maybe.

July 9—ate at the Ritz—Wow!!!—fancy as hell, lotta food I didn’t know what it was. We had caviar. I didn’t like it much. Hasty was asking me a lot of questions about Bobby and me and how come we got divorced and did I have a boyfriend. Mostly I think he was trying to find out about our sex life, sort of weird, but he can show you a pretty nice time.

July 13—We had lunch at a place in town called Loc Ober’s. Really fancy. Had French Champagne too. After, he said he had a room at the Parker House and would I want to go there with him. Just like that, he said it. Like he was inviting me to go fishing or something. I didn’t answer him at first, cause I was thinking about how he’d be kind of funny looking with his clothes off, but I’ve done worse than Hasty, and I was feeling no pain and a girl needs to think about her future. So I say, sure, I’d love to, and we did. I figured a guy his age and all I’d have to work pretty hard to get his motor going, but Hasty was so excited when we got into bed that I thought he was going to come on the bedspread. No work at all. In fact it was over so quick I never really got going myself. After, Hasty gave me a nice ring. Solid gold with a little diamond in it. A real one.

July 29—Hasty’s getting better. He lasts long enough now so I get something out of it. I mean it’s not like Bobby and me, but he’s getting the idea about touching me a little bit, first. I’m teaching him different positions. It’s like he thought there was only one. No wonder his old lady isn’t interested. I hope what I teach him doesn’t get her interested. He’s a good thing for me. I don’t want to lose him.

August 13—Hasty says he loves me. He gave me a real pearl necklace for our one month anniversary (since we first did it).

August 24—We had our first fight. Hasty doesn’t want me dating any other guys and I say to him “what about you. You got a wife. Maybe you should stop fucking her, you want me to stop.” Hasty says they only do it twice a month, but he can’t stop because she’d be suspicious. And I tell him he stops fucking her, I’ll stop dating other guys. I told him everybody knew his wife was fucking other people. And he said he didn’t like that kind of talk, like if he didn’t talk about it it wasn’t happening. At the end he cried and said he loved me and we did it twice and he gave me a nice gold ankle bracelet.

August 31—Hasty heard about me dating Joe Hudson. He wanted to know what we did, and I told him none of your business and he got real mad and said he was going to break up with me if I kept going out with Joe. I told him you do what you want Mister nosy. I go out with anybody I want, unless you want to divorce the old lady and marry me. Well you should have seen his face. But then we did it and he cried while we were doing it and said he could never lose me and after he gave me a really nice set of pearl earrings to match the necklace.

September 7—I told Hasty I thought it was sick, him asking all that stuff about Joe Hudson and if we had sex and what we did. He said he loved me so much he needed to know everything, and nothing would be as bad as what he imagined. Divorce your wife I told him and marry me, and then we can talk about whatever you want.

September 8—Poor Hasty is so agitated about me and Joe Hudson, and me wanting him to get divorced. I didn’t really mean I’d tell him about me and Joe. That would be tooo weird!!!!!! But if it gets him, it’s just a little white lie. I don’t really get it anyway. I do the same thing with Joe as Hasty. What’s so different about it???

September 11—I told Hasty I was going to go public about me and him. I got all his letters. I said it was time for him to either go or get off the pot.

September 15—Hasty says give him a week. He said he would make it right. I said okay, but I wouldn’t see him until he decided.

September 17—Got some new jeans at Marshall’s and one of those great midriff sweaters. Going to take myself out for a few drinks tonight at the 86.

September 17 was the last entry. Jesse read his cut-and-paste narrative sitting alone on the little balcony overlooking the harbor. It was too cold to sit out there, even with his jacket on. But somehow it made the reading less painful to be out there, as if the openness of the setting compensated for the hermetic quality of the small life lived so briefly in the excerpted pages. When he was finished he sat for a long time looking across the harbor at the lights from the Yacht Club.