Robert Parker - Night Passage

“You’re right,” Jesse said to Simpson. “It’s kind hard to say who it is. You find any I.D. on him?”

Simpson looked like he might he a little seasick. “Once we got him in the boat,” he said, “I didn’t touch him.”

Jesse nodded. He rolled the body over and found the pants pockets and with some trouble got a soaked wallet out. He opened it.

“It’s Lou’s wallet,” Jesse said.

“Jesus,” Simpson said.

The two divers and the boat captain looked elaborately elsewhere.

“Yeah,” Jesse said. “We’ll get a positive I.D. from the M.E., I guess. But it sure seems to be Lou.”

“Why’d you suspend him, Jesse?”

“I’ll tell you about it later,” Jesse said.

“Did you really suspect him of murder?”

“Later, Suit.”

“Yeah, sure, Jesse. Lou didn’t seem the type, you think?”

“I don’t know if there is a type,” Jesse said. “But if there is, no, Lou didn’t seem to be it.”

“I guess there’s a lot we don’t know yet,” Simpson said.

“Yes,” Jesse said, “there sure as hell is.”

Jo Jo recognized the voice on the phone. It belonged to the pretty young man who worked for Gino Fish.

“Mr. Fish asked me to tell you that the product you asked for is now available.”

“How do we pick it up?” Jo Jo asked.

“Go to the information booth at the South Shore Plaza with the correct amount of money, in cash, as specified. Someone will meet you and tell you the rest. You’ll be expected at two o’clock today.”

“I gotta talk to my guy,” Jo Jo said.

“You can talk to anyone you want,” the pretty boy said. “But you’re there at two or the deal is canceled.”

“For crissake,” Jo Jo said.

But the pretty boy had hung up.

“Faggot bastard,” Jo Jo said aloud.

Then he called Hasty Hathaway and at 12:30 they were in Hasty’s Mercedes, with a suitcase full of small bills, heading for the South Shore.

“It’s right there where Route Three splits off from the expressway for the Cape,” Jo Jo said.

“Well, how are we to transport the arms?” Hasty said. “Didn’t they say anything?”

“Just what I told you,” Jo Jo said.

They parked near the entrance to Macy’s and walked through the mall, it was busy in the early afternoon. The stores were already pushing Christmas. There were Christmas trees and pictures of Santa Claus, and miniature village scenes and railroad trains that circled endlessly through the fake snow. There were Salvation Army troopers with their bells and buckets, and tinsel and shiny ornaments and a lot of people, mostly women, often with small bored children dressed too warmly. Jo Jo and Hasty stopped beside the information booth. Jo Jo was carrying the money in a green sports equipment bag that said Adidas on it in white letters. The women behind the information desk were wearing Santa Claus hats. There was a big clock on the booth. It read ten minutes of two.

At 2:15 a smallish man in a longshoreman’s cap and a Patriots warm-up jacket walked up to Hasty and said, “I’m from Gino.”

“Money’s in the bag,” Jo Jo said.

With the bag still on Jo Jo’s shoulder, the smallish man zipped it open enough to peer in. He nodded.

“Okay,” he said. “You give me the bag. I give you the keys to the truck and tell you where it’s parked.”

“You don’t get the dough until we see the product,” Jo Jo said.

“Nope, deal goes down like I said, or it don’t go down at all.”

“And maybe I grab your scrawny little fucking neck and squeeze it until you tell me where the truck is,” Jo Jo said.

The smallish man shrugged, and glanced over toward a bookstore fifty yards down the mall. Vinnie Morris was leaning against the wall outside the bookstore with his arms folded across his chest.

“Maybe not,” the smallish man said.

“You know if you double-cross us,” Hasty said, “I can bring an army down on you.”

“Sure,” the smallish man said. “You want the deal or not?”

“Give him the money, Jo Jo.”

Jo Jo shrugged. The sight of Vinnie Morris had taken a lot of the ferocity out of him. He took the bag off his shoulder and handed it to the smallish man. The smallish man handed him a set of two keys on a small orange plastic key tag.

“It’s a Penske rental truck,” the smallish man said, “Mass plates 354-6AV. It’s parked outside the entrance next to Charlie’s Saloon.”

Then the smallish man turned and walked away down the mall. Jo Jo and Hasty looked after him for a time then looked back at Vinnie Morris, but Morris wasn’t anywhere in sight. They turned then and headed back down the mall toward the parking lot outside of Charlie’s. Hasty could feel the excitement in his stomach. Things had gone badly for a while. This was a good thing. They’d be armed properly. They could hold off anyone. State police, ATF, FBI, Marshals, anybody. At 2:35 in the afternoon, the parking lot was full. By 2:45 they hadn’t found the truck. By three o’clock they realized they weren’t going to.

There was no truck.

Jesse stood with Abby Taylor on Indian Hill, looking over the railing down at the rocks where they had found Lou Burke.

“Right here?” Abby said.

“Yes.”

“How could he do it?” Abby said. “I mean, maybe I could put a bullet through my brain, or take too many sleeping pills, or whatever if I were really depressed. But to climb over this fence and jump off the cliff...” She shuddered.

“May he didn’t,” Jesse said.

“Didn’t jump?”

“Maybe.”

Abby stepped back from him and stood with her hands pushed into the pockets of her long blue coat.

“Jesse,” she said and stopped.

He waited.

“Jesse, a lot of people think you’ve gone off the deep end here. You see conspiracy everywhere. Yet you don’t talk to anyone about it. People are wondering about you.”

“And you?” Jesse said.

She took another step away from him. Jesse knew she was unaware of it.

“I don’t know. I mean, we’ve been so intimate, and yet, you don’t trust me. You don’t trust anyone. That’s not healthy, Jesse.”

Jesse leaned his forearms on the railing and looked at the gray water. It was like the last night in L.A., except he wasn’t drunk. L.A. seemed much longer than six months ago.

“I’m not going to explain myself, Abby. I’ve done this kind of work most of my adult life. I’m doing it the best way I know how.”

“A lot of people blame you for Lou’s death.”

“Because I suspended him?”

“Yes. The thinking is that if you had anything on him, arrest him for it, otherwise leave him alone. People in town liked Lou. He grew up here. He’s part of the militia.”

“And that’s a good thing?”

“The militia, oh for God’s sake, Jesse. They’re like the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company. They march in the Fourth of July parade, for God’s sake. Sure I think they’re silly, and so do you. But they aren’t some criminal enterprise.”

“I hadn’t heard you defend them so strongly,” Jesse said.

He was still staring at the choppy gray water below him. Above them a splatter of herring gulls soared and stooped. The sound of them was as constant as the movement of the sea. Abby seemed cold, she thrust her hands deeper into her pockets, hunched her shoulders so that the high collar of her coat was a little higher.

“Jesse, I live here and I work here. I am with a good law firm, I have a chance to be a partner.”

Jesse nodded silently.

“What are you nodding about?” she said.

“I’m agreeing that it is not going to be good for your career if you stick by me.”