Nelson DeMille: The book case

“Confessions or suspicion?”

“Confessions.”

“Good work.”

“Thank you.”

“You coming to work today?”

“After lunch.”

We hung up, and I looked at Mia Parker and Jay Lawrence, both sitting now side by side in the wingback chairs, cuffed and quiet. They were together, finally, but they didn’t seem to have much to say to each other. I had the thought that the marriage wouldn’t have worked anyway.

I also thought about telling Jay that his girlfriend had banged the clerk to get the kid to do what Jay wouldn’t do. But that would make him feel bad-and he felt bad enough-though it might shut her up about Jay banging his publicist. I resisted the temptation to stir the shit a little, and I let it go. They’d find all this out in the pretrial anyway.

Later, while we were waiting for the three squad cars to take the perps away, I asked Jay Lawrence to sign a book for me. He graciously agreed, and I took his book out of the display window.

He was able to hold a Sharpie with his cuffed hands, and I held the book open for him. “To John,” I requested. “The greatest detective since Sherlock Holmes.”

He scrawled something, and I said, “Thanks. No hard feelings.”

I put thirty bucks in the cash register.

When all the perps were in the cars, I opened the book and read the inscription:

To John, Fuck You, Jay.

Well…maybe it will be worth something someday.