Текст книги "High profile"

Автор книги: Robert B. Parker

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Текущая страница: 9 (всего у книги 11 страниц)

49

Jenn had dressed her apartment for Jesse’s arrival. The bed was made with a dressy spread and ornamental pillows. She had lighted candles, put out crystal, filled the silver ice bucket.

She hugged him when he came in.

“Oh boy,” she said. “I feel so safe with you. I mean, Sunny’s great, and Spike, but I never feel with anyone the way I feel with you.”

“That’s probably true for me, too,” Jesse said.

“With me?” Jenn said. “Safe?”

“Something,” Jesse said.

They stood with their arms around each other for a moment, then stepped apart.

“What’s in the envelope?” Jenn said.

“I’ll show you in a while,” Jesse said.

Jenn brought him a drink and one for herself and sat on one corner of the couch with her legs tucked under her. Jesse sat at the other end. Jenn raised her glass to him.

“Well,” she said. “Here we are.”

“Yes.”

“No matter what happens,” Jenn said, “somehow we keep blundering along, connected to each other.”

“I know,” Jesse said.

“What is wrong with us, Jesse?”

“Different things, maybe.”

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe what’s wrong with me isn’t what’s wrong with you.”

“And yet,” Jenn said, “here we are.”

Jesse nodded. He picked up the brown envelope from the coffee table and took out two eight-by-ten photographs. Enlargements of the pictures Sunny had found. He put them down on the table side by side in front of Jenn. Jenn leaned a little forward to look at the pictures.

The moment she saw the photograph, Jenn said, “Oh!”

Jesse waited.

“What are these pictures?” Jenn said.

“You and a guy,” Jesse said.

“Where’d you get them?”

Jesse shrugged.

“I don’t know this man,” Jenn said.

“The guy with his arm around you?” Jesse said. “This guy? With your head on his chest? Him?”

“Oh, Jesse, don’t be jealous,” Jenn said. “You know how I am.”

“If I knew how you were for sure,” Jesse said, “maybe my life would be simpler.”

“I don’t even know that man, we were just at some beach party somewhere. Just kidding around.”

“His name is Timothy Patrick Lloyd.”

“Could be,” Jenn said.

“You know him?”

“Not really,” Jenn said.

“His e-mail address is in your computer,” Jesse said.

“My computer?”

“Tpat at cybercop-dot-com,” Jesse said.

“Goddamn you, you searched my apartment.”

Jesse shook his head.

“I didn’t give you a key so you’d come snooping around,” Jenn said.

Jesse didn’t speak.

“You bastard,” Jenn said.

Jesse said nothing.

“I had a nice dinner ready,” she said.

She began to cry. Jesse took in some air and sat. Jenn sobbed. Jesse waited.

After a time, Jenn said to Jesse, “Give me a napkin or something.”

Jesse handed her a cocktail napkin from the pretty arrangement on the coffee table. Jenn patted at her eyes with the napkin.

“It was going to be a nice evening,” Jenn said.

Jesse nodded.

“I don’t have many of those anymore,” Jenn said.

Jesse nodded at the pictures on the coffee table.

“That’s your stalker, Jenn.”

“I don’t—”

Jesse put up his hand as if stopping traffic.

“We both know it,” he said. “Did he rape you?”

Jenn teared up again, and put her face in her hands and shook her head.

“No, he didn’t rape you?” Jesse said.

Jenn slid down the couch and pressed against Jesse with her face against his chest. He put an arm around her. She cried quietly.

“Did he rape you?” Jesse said.

She didn’t answer.

After a time, Jesse said, “There’s nothing so bad I can’t hear it, Jenn.”

His voice was hoarse.

“We had sex, when I didn’t want to,” Jenn said.

Her voice was muffled against his chest.

“If that were rape,” Jesse said, “most of the women in America would have a case.”

Jesse could feel her head nod slightly against his chest.

“Did he rape you?” Jesse said.

“You’ll never…”

“There’s no never, Jenn. I don’t know what’s wrong with us. I don’t know what we’re doing, and I have no goddamned clue where we are going. But whatever and wherever, there’s no never between us.”

She raised her face a little from his chest. Her eyes were red, and her eye makeup was streaking.

“Is there an always?” she said.

Jesse looked down at her. The question hung in the silent room like blue smoke.

“Yes,” Jesse said. “I don’t know what kind of always, or what kind of life it implies, but yes. There will always be an always between us.”

The blue smoke that was only a metaphor seemed to dissolve. Jenn put her head back against his chest. She stopped crying. They were quiet.

Then she said softly, “No. He didn’t rape me.”

Jesse patted her shoulder.

“I told him I’d been an actress. He was impressed,” Jenn said. “He told me he’d love to use me in some of his marketing and promotion venues. Public appearances, modeling, it would have been a wonderful career boost.”

Jesse continued to pat her shoulder. Jenn’s voice was tranquil, as if she were talking of a happy childhood.

“So we had a little fling,” she said.

Jesse nodded.

“But nothing worked out much. He didn’t ever seem to have the right spot for me in what he was doing…and he wasn’t that much fun.”

They were quiet while Jenn remembered how much fun Tim Lloyd hadn’t been.

“There’s a lot of men like him,” she said. “A surprising number of them. They’re eager for sex, but not very good at it. They just want to sort of…” She paused, aware of Jesse.

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

“They’re mostly interested in their own experience,” Jenn said. “And they’re just not very adroit.”

“So sex with Tim Lloyd wasn’t worth it for its own sake,” Jesse said.

“God,” Jenn said. “That sounds ugly.”

“It is what it is,” Jesse said.

“It wasn’t working out,” Jenn said. “The last time we were together, I told him that it wasn’t.”

“And?”

“He wanted to know why, so I told him.”

“Including the part about not being adroit?”

“Yes.”

“Ouch,” Jesse said.

“He asked,” Jenn said.

“And you were sick of him.”

“Yes,” Jenn said. “He said he wasn’t going to take that answer. He said it was my fault because I never told him. He said he wanted to have sex again and I should show him what I wanted.”

Jesse felt the muscles tighten in his back and shoulders. Jenn felt them, too.

“Are you all right?” she said.

“There’s nothing I can’t hear, Jenn. It needs to be said.”

“I told him no. I told him we were talking about impulse and emotion, not, for God’s sake, training.”

“If he had to ask…” Jesse said.

“Exactly,” Jenn said. “He was furious. I could tell he wanted to force me. But he was too spent. He wouldn’t be able to erect, and we both knew it. Tim never had a fast recovery.”

“So he left?”

“Yes, but he said he wasn’t accepting what I said, and that I’d be seeing him again.”

“So there was the threat of rape.”

“That’s what I heard,” Jenn said.

“And then he began to stalk you.”

“Yes.”

“And you were scared and came to me claiming you had been raped.”

“Yes.”

“Did you think I’d kill him?”

“No, oh God no, Jesse. I was just scared, and when I’m scared I run to you.”

“And you didn’t identify him as the stalker because you didn’t want to get caught in the lie.”

She nodded her head against his chest.

“That was one reason.”

“And you didn’t want people to know the nature of your relationship,” Jesse said.

Jenn nodded again.

“I’d been fucking him as a career move,” she said.

“You were in a box,” Jesse said. “You didn’t want to be unprotected, and you didn’t want him confronted.”

“Yes.”

“So what did you think was going to happen?”

“I didn’t know. I was paralyzed. I just denied everything.”

“I know,” Jesse said.

“You remember that time in L.A. when I found the scotch in the glove compartment.”

“Yes,” Jesse said. “I understand.”

They sat quietly. Jenn had stopped crying.

After a time, Jenn said, “What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. I’ll ask Sunny to stay with you until I figure it out.”

Again they were quiet.

Then Jenn said, “I’ve never even asked you about that murder case in Paradise.”

“Coming down all over me,” Jesse said.

“You didn’t need me to add in my own troubles,” Jenn said.

“I did,” Jesse said. “I do. I just need a little time to figure everything out.”

“Will you tell Sunny?”

“Yes.”

Jenn nodded. “She’ll think I’m awful,” Jenn said. “Sunny doesn’t make that kind of judgment,” Jesse said. “Do you love her?” “Sort of,” Jesse said. “More than me.”

Jesse took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Less,” he said.

Jenn nodded again. “What’s going to become of us, Jesse?” “God knows,” Jesse said. “No,” Jenn said. “I don’t think He does.”

50

Suitcase Simpson came in with his notebook and sat down in front of Jesse’s desk.

“Master detective,” he said.

“You enjoy Baltimore?” Jesse said.

“Yeah. It’s pretty cool. They got like this huge Quincy Market on the harbor. Lotta places to get crab cakes.”

“You detect anything?” Jesse said.

“Besides the crab cakes?” Suit said. “Yeah. I did.”

Jesse tipped his chair back and waited.

“I went to the Baltimore County police, and talked with a nice woman in the personnel department.”

“You get to her right away?”

“Pretty quick. I turned on the charm.”

“Wow,” Jesse said.

“It helps in detective work, you know, if you’re charming.”

“I didn’t know that,” Jesse said.

“Anyway, when Lutz worked there the beneficiary of his life insurance was Lorraine Pilarcik. She was on his medical insurance, too.”

“And what was her relation to him?” Jesse said.

“He listed her as his wife.”

“Lorraine,” Jesse said.

“It gets better,” Suit said.

“Good.”

“I got his address during the time he worked there and went and talked with people in his old neighborhood,” Suit said. “There were three, four people that remembered both of them. They all called her Lorrie.”

“Tell me you showed them the picture of Lorrie Weeks?” Jesse said.

“I did.”

“And?”

“It was her.”

“Suit,” Jesse said, “you’ll probably be chief of detectives.”

“When we have a detective unit.”

“Immediately after that,” Jesse said.

“They hedged a little. You know what license photos are like. And they knew her like fifteen years ago. But they all thought it was her.”

“Happy marriage?” Jesse said.

“As far as anyone can remember,” Suit said.

“When did they get divorced?”

“Nobody knew they were divorced.”

“When did they leave the old neighborhood?” Jesse said.

“Hard to pin it down, you know. But the consensus was late eighties, early nineties.”

“You find any records of divorce?”

“Nope,” Suit said. “Not in Baltimore. Got a marriage license issued to Walton Weeks and Lorrie Pilarcik, and a marriage announcement from The Baltimore Sun. August twenty-sixth, 1990.”

“They could have divorced elsewhere,” Jesse said.

“I thought of that,” Suit said.

“Okay,” Jesse said, “take your time. Enjoy it.”

“I said to myself, Why would you not get divorced locally?”

“Because maybe they had moved to another state?” Jesse said.

“Maybe, or, I thought to myself, maybe they’re looking for a quickie. And where can you get a quickie divorce?”

“Dover-Foxcroft, Maine?” Jesse said.

“Las Vegas,” Suit said. “It did no harm to check.”

“And?”

“Lorraine Pilarcik and Conrad Lutz got a divorce on August fifteenth, after six weeks of residency in Vegas,” Suit said.

“Eleven days before she married Walton Weeks,” Jesse said.

“Makes your head hurt a little,” Suit said.

“It does. Did Weeks steal Lutz’s wife and continue to employ him as a bodyguard?”

“Maybe Lutz is a really forgiving guy,” Suit said.

“Maybe,” Jesse said.

51

Jesse came into Sunny’s loft at nine p.m. Rosie jumped down off Sunny’s bed and hustled down the loft to see him. He picked her up and patted her stomach, and got a lap on the nose, before he put her down.

“Drink?” Sunny said.

“Sure.”

They sat in her window bay with their drinks.

“Here’s what’s going on with Jenn,” Jesse said.

As Jesse talked, Rosie came over and stared up at Sunny and yapped. Still focused on Jesse’s recital, Sunny shifted a little in the chair to make room, and Rosie jumped up and wiggled around until she was comfortable.

When Jesse finished, Sunny shook her head.

“Poor thing,” she said.

Jesse nodded.

“She seeing a shrink these days?” Sunny said.

“She has,” Jesse said. “I don’t know if she is seeing one now.”

“She should,” Sunny said. “I know someone.”

“Not everybody can do it,” Jesse said.

“She should be able to,” Sunny said. “Maybe I’ll talk to her about it.”

Jesse shrugged.

“What would you like me to do?” Sunny said.

“I have to go to New York,” Jesse said. “If you could keep her together until I get back.”

“Would you like me, or Spike, to deal with Lloyd?” Sunny said.

“No,” Jesse said. “I’ll do that when I can. Just keep him away from her.”

Sunny got Jesse another scotch, and poured herself more white wine.

“You think Lloyd is dangerous?” Sunny said.

“I doubt it. Usually stalking is all stalkers do.”

“Except when they do more,” Sunny said.

“Except then,” Jesse said.

“We’ll be there,” Sunny said.

“Thank you.”

“How’s the double murder going?”

“It’s starting to move, I think.”

“That why you’re going to New York?”

“Yes.”

Jesse rattled the ice in his glass. Sunny sipped her wine. Rosie looked out from her spot in the chair, in back of Sunny’s hip.

“What are you going to do, Jesse?” Sunny asked.

“About Jenn?”

“Yes,” Sunny said. “Of course about Jenn.”

“I’ll take Lloyd off her back,” Jesse said.

“I’m sure you will,” Sunny said. “And then?”

Jesse drank some of his scotch and tilted his head back with his eyes closed while it eased down his throat.

“If I said to you,” Jesse said, “‘Sunny, will you marry me,’ what would you say?”

“I’d say it was a lovely offer,” she said.

“And would you say yes?”

Sunny was silent for a time.

Then she said, “No.”

“Because?”

“Because I can’t quite let go of Richie.”

Jesse nodded. He drank the rest of his scotch and put the empty glass down on the little table.

“And so it goes,” Jesse said.

52

Lorrie Weeks still lived in the Village, in the condo she had shared with Walton Weeks, in a shiny new skyscraper that had gone up at the far-west end of Perry Street with a big view of the Hudson River. Jesse stood with Suit outside the building.

“We couldn’t afford to live in there,” Suit said, looking up at the glass towers.

“No,” Jesse said.

“Fits nice into the neighborhood,” Suit said.

“Like a hooker at a picnic,” Jesse said.

“What are we hoping, exactly, to see?” Suit said.

“Lorrie Pilarcik Weeks,” Jesse said.

“And when we see her?”

“We watch her,” Jesse said.

“Because she’s all we’ve got?”

“Exactly,” Jesse said.

“And we don’t know what else to do?”

“Precisely,” Jesse said.

“It’s great to train under a master,” Suit said.

“I envy you the experience,” Jesse said.

It was after five p.m. when Alan Hendricks pulled up in a cab and got out and went into Lorrie Weeks’s building. At six fifteen they came out and walked up Perry Street away from the river. Jesse and Suit followed. They went into a restaurant on Greenwich Street. Jesse and Suit waited outside. At nine o’clock they came out of the restaurant, arm in arm, and walked back to the west end of Perry Street.

“Take the picture,” Jesse said.

Suit took several.

They went in together. By midnight Hendricks had not come out. Jesse and Suit went to their hotel.

The next morning they were back outside Lorrie’s building before nine. It was after ten when Hendricks strolled out wearing the same clothes he’d had on last night and walked up Perry Street.

“Stay with him,” Jesse said to Suit. “I assume he’s looking for a cab. If he is, let him go and come back here.”

Jesse leaned on a yellow brick wall, in the sun, and looked at Lorrie’s building. In fifteen minutes, Suit was back.

“Cab uptown,” Suit said.

“Do you know uptown from downtown?” Jesse said.

“No, sir,” Suit said. “But I heard him say ‘uptown’ to the cabbie.”

Jesse nodded.

At quarter to twelve a cab stopped in front of Lorrie’s building and Conrad Lutz got out.

“Aha!” Jesse said.

“Aha?” Suit said.

“It’s chief talk,” Jesse said. “Apprentice detectives aren’t allowed to say aha!”

“Do you suppose he’s going to spend the night, too?” Suit said.

“We’ll find out,” Jesse said. “Get the pictures.”

Suit used the camera.

“Goddamn,” Suit said. “I stand around here another day, I’m going to take root.”

“I know it feels that way,” Jesse said. “But generally you don’t.”

“I suppose it would be too big a coincidence,” Suit said, “if they both came here and weren’t visiting Lorrie Weeks.”

“Yes,” Jesse said. “It would.”

Jesse and Suit stood outside, taking turns occasionally to go to a small restaurant two blocks up. Lutz stayed until late afternoon. When he came out, Suit followed him.

“Stay with him this time,” Jesse said. “Find out where he lives.”

“He gets a cab,” Suit said, “I get a cab?”

“Yep.”

“I gotta actually say ‘Follow that cab’ to a New York cabbie?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Jesse said. “He probably won’t understand English anyway.”

Suit went after Lutz. Jesse stayed. No one came. No one went. At six p.m. Suit came back.

“Lutz is staying at a hotel on Park Avenue South,” he said.

He took his notebook out and found the page and looked at it.

“The W Union Square,” Suit said. “They told me at the front desk that he was registered for the month.”

“Lot of dough,” Jesse said.

“Maybe Lutz has saved his pennies,” Suit said.

“Maybe.”

“Or maybe he knows a rich woman.”

“Maybe,” Jesse said.

“What’s shaking here?”

“Some guy went by walking a Welsh corgi,” Jesse said.

“That’s exciting.”

“It was downhill from there,” Jesse said.

At seven in the evening Hendricks showed up carrying a bottle of wine and some French bread.

“An evening in,” Suit said.

Jesse nodded.

“Lutz in the daytime and Hendricks at night?” Suit said.

“Seems so,” Jesse said.

“Hot dog!” Suit said. “We gonna just keep standing here watching. I feel like one of those guys, you know, what do they call them, that likes to watch.”

“Voyeur,” Jesse said.

“Yeah, I’m starting to feel like a voyeur.”

“They don’t have to be having sex all this time,” Jesse said.

“They don’t?”

Jesse smiled.

“Better to think they are, I guess.”

“Absolutely,” Suit said. “Are we developing a plan?”

“We’re awaiting developments.”

“How long are we going to await?” Suit said.

“Until they occur, or we can’t stand it anymore,” Jesse said.

Suit shook his head sadly.

“That’s pathetic,” he said.

“I know,” Jesse said. “But we got some nice photos.”

53

Their third morning on Perry Street, Lutz didn’t show up. At noon Jesse said to Suit, “See if he’s still at the hotel.”

Suit spoke on his cell phone for ten minutes before he broke the connection.

“Checked out this morning,” Suit said. “Arranged with the concierge for a limo to the Delta Shuttle at LaGuardia.”

“So he’s going to Boston or Washington,” Jesse said.

“That’s what the concierge told me,” Suit said. “He said it only flies those two places.”

Jesse smiled.

“Call Molly on that thing,” he said. “Tell her to see if he’s registered at the Langham again. If he isn’t, have her check other hotels.”

Suit made the call.

When he was through he said to Jesse, “What exactly is a concierge?”

“They are to hotel guests as you are to me, Suit.”

“Invaluable?”

“Something like that. Molly going to call us back?”

“Yes.”

“You got call waiting on that thing?”

“Sure.”

“While you’re waiting for Molly, call Healy, and when you get him, gimme the phone.”

“Can I tell him I’m your concierge?” Suit said.

“Just call him,” Jesse said and rattled off the number. “I am going to need a New York City cop to help with the jurisdiction issue.”

“And you figure Healy can help?”

“Better than wandering into the local precinct and explaining that I’m the chief of police in Paradise, Massachusetts,” Jesse said.

“You don’t think that would impress them?”

“It should,” Jesse said. “But sometimes it doesn’t.”

Suit dialed Healy, and when Healy came on he said, “Hold for Chief Stone,” and handed Jesse the phone.

“Hold for Chief Stone?” Healy said.

“That’s Suitcase Simpson,” Jesse said. “He amuses hell out of himself.”

“Me too,” Healy said. “Whaddya need?”

Jesse told him.

“Yeah,” Healy said. “I’ll make a couple calls.”

Jesse handed the phone back to Suit, who broke the connection and put the phone away. The Welsh corgi went by again, walking two guys this time. Lorrie stayed in her condo.

“What do you think she’s doing in there?” Suit said. “When she’s not bopping Lutz or Hendricks.”

“Looking at the view,” Jesse said.

At three fifteen Molly called to report that Lutz had in fact returned to the Langham, where he was registered for the rest of the month.

“He was registered for the rest of the month here,” Suit said.

“You check into a hotel, they usually ask when you’re departing,” Jesse said. “You don’t know, you just give them some date down the line.”

“What happens if you check out early?”

Jesse smiled again.

“They aren’t allowed to hold you captive,” he said.