Robert Parker - Death in Paradise

"Anything else?" Jesse said.

"Not that helps us. He did ten years at Walpole for killing a guy with a straight razor."

"Nice," Jesse said.

"Was one of the people they covered when they did that big spotlight thing on organized crime."

"Anything about girls?"

"Says in here he is alleged to be gay."

"I know. Anything about prostitution?"

"Nothing specific. Just says he's the alleged boss of all criminal activity in Downtown and Back Bay."

"Well," Jesse said and gestured with the printout. "I'll take this. You print out the rest and put it on my desk."

"Print out all of it?"

"Yep."

"There's 5,145 entries for Gino Fish."

"Most of them are for fish markets, or tropical fish collectors, or sportsmen or other guys named Fish, or Papa Gino's pizza," Jesse said. "Internet's not too selective."

"Don't I know it," Simpson said.

"So just print out the ones about Gino Fish, and don't duplicate."

"I hate the Internet," Simpson said.

"Information highway," Jesse said.

"Mostly bullshit highway," Simpson said.

"No one ever said crimebusting was pretty," Jesse said.

When she opened the front door Joni Shaw said, "Oh, oh, the fuzz."

"May I come in?"

"Are you planning to search the place?" Joni Shaw said.

"No, I just want to talk."

She smiled widely at him and stepped away from the door.

The entry hall of Norman Shaw's big house was twenty feet wide with a curved staircase to the second floor. At the turn a full-length window was full of sunlight. To the right of the front door there was an umbrella stand made from the lower part of an elephant's leg, and a dark wine-colored Persian rug lay across the width of the hall at the foot of the stairs.

"Let's sit in the atrium," Joni Shaw said.

She led Jesse through a room lined with bookshelves and scattered with heavy nineteenth-century furniture, into a glass atrium where the ocean was visible a hundred yards below, tossing spray toward the house as it broke on the rocks. Jesse sat on the end of a green leather chaise.

"Coffee?" Joni Shaw said. "A drink?"

"Coffee would be nice," Jesse said.

"That will make it a social call," Joni Shaw said.

"Sure," Jesse said.

Joni Shaw was dressed in black shorts and a white silk tee shirt that stopped short of her waist so that her stomach showed. An Asian woman brought coffee. Jesse added cream and sugar and drank some.

"Is your husband at home?" Jesse said.

"Oh, damn," she said. "I thought you'd come calling on me."

Jesse smiled and didn't say anything.

" Norman is working," Joni Shaw said. "He works every morning in his study with the door locked."

"Here in the house," Jesse said.

"Yes. But it might as well be on Mars," Joni Shaw said. "He is simply not here when he's working."

"Well, maybe you can help me," Jesse said.

"I hope so," Joni Shaw said.

Jesse noticed that everything she said seemed to imply something more.

"Do you know a man named Gino Fish?"

"The gangster?"

"Un-huh."

"Sure."

"Talk about him a little," Jesse said.

"Why do you ask?"

"His name has come up in a case I'm working on," Jesse said.

"Oh my, are we suspects?"

"No. I'm just looking for help."

Joni Shaw was sitting on the couch across from Jesse, with one leg on the couch so that he could see the inside of her thigh. She sipped her coffee, looking at Jesse over the rim of her cup.

"Aren't we all," she said.

Jesse waited. Joni Shaw let him wait.

"Gino Fish?" Jesse said after he had waited long enough.

"You may remember that about five years ago one of Norman 's books was being made into a movie, here, in Boston."

Jesse nodded as if he remembered. Five years ago he'd been in L.A., on the cops, still with Jenn.

" Norman was an executive producer on the movie. He didn't really have to do anything, it was just a title, extra money. Gino used to visit the set. He knew some of the crew. Then when we had some trouble with the union, Gino was very helpful."

"How nice," Jesse said.

Without leaving the couch, Joni Shaw leaned forward and poured him some more coffee. Very flexible.

"Oh," Joni said, "I don't doubt that Gino has done some terrible things. But he's a very interesting person."

Jesse nodded.

"I try to make my own judgments of people," Joni said, "and so does Norman. Gino has been very nice to us, and good fun at a party."

"So he's become a friend?"

"I guess you could say that," Joni Shaw said. "Not perhaps the first circle of intimacy, but certainly more than just an acquaintance."

She made "first circle of intimacy" sound seductive.

"Do you know anyone named Bishop?" Jesse said.

"I don't think so. Is he involved in your case?"

"When's the last time you saw Gino?" Jesse said.

"Oh… two, no, three, weeks ago. In fact he was at the party where you were going to arrest us."

"Anyone with him?"

Joni smiled.

"A very good-looking young man," she said.

"And, I wasn't going to arrest you," Jesse said.

Joni Shaw drank a small sip of her coffee, holding the cup in both hands, like in a television commercial, and looking at Jesse.

"Oh, well," she said. "Can't blame a girl for hoping."

Jesse sat beside Brian Kelly with the windows open in an unmarked gray Ford that belonged to the Boston Police Department. They were a half block up Tremont Street from Development Associates of Boston. It was a hot, clear, day.

"OCU got no surveillance on Gino Fish?" Jesse said.

"Nope. He's down the list," Kelly said.

"How come?" Jesse said.

"Everything in his part of the city is quiet," Kelly said. "Commissioner likes it."

"How come it's so quiet?"

"Gino's a good administrator," Kelly said. "There's not much street crime on Gino's turf. Commissioner hates street crime."

Jesse looked at the brick-and-brownstone rehab that was spread over the South End like brocade.

"Doesn't look like a street-crime neighborhood."

"It isn't anymore."

"And Gino cleaned it up?"

"Not really. Economics did that. But Gino keeps it that way," Kelly said. "Him and Vinnie."

"So I guess you people aren't going to be a big help."

"Can't give you manpower. Happy to offer advice."

"Why should you be different," Jesse said.

"You spare anybody?"

"I got twelve people," Jesse said.

"How are they at covert surveillance?"

"Not much call for that in Paradise," Jesse said.

A black Lexus sedan with tinted windows pulled up in front of Development Associates and sat at the curb, its motor idling.

"This is exciting," Kelly said.

The car sat for five minutes and then Vinnie Morris came out of the office and up the steps and stood outside the car. In a moment Gino Fish came out with the good-looking young man. The young man locked the office door, and they came up the steps together and got into the backseat of the Lexus. The door closed. The Lexus pulled away from the curb.

"You want to follow them?" Kelly said.

"Alone?"

"We got nobody else," Kelly said.

"I don't want to let him know," Jesse said. "We can't tail him in one car."

The Lexus turned up Dartmouth Street and disappeared. On the sidewalk in front of the office, Vinnie Morris fiddled with a Walkman on his belt for a moment, then put on the earphones and turned and walked up Tremont Street with his hands in his pockets.

"You want to commit an illegal burglary?" Kelly said.

"Not yet," Jesse said. "Place is probably alarmed."

"Probably," Kelly said. "You got a plan?"

"I don't want to tip him," Jesse said. "I want him conducting business as usual."