Death in Paradise

Chapter Twenty-six

Development Associates of Boston was in the South End, not far from the Cyclorama, one flight down, with a plate-glass window looking out onto the cement stairway. The room had been recycled from whatever it used to be. The walls were old brick and the beams had been exposed and sandblasted. The young man at the reception desk had curly black hair and big blue eyes. He was very good-looking.

"Hi," Jesse said, "the boss in?"

"Do you have an appointment?" the young man said.

Jesse showed him his badge. The young man looked at it closely.

"What police department is that?" he said.

" Paradise," Jesse said. " North Shore."

"And what was it about?"

"I'll talk to the boss."

"Mr. Fish never sees anyone without an appointment," the young man said.

"And your name is?" Jesse said.

"Alan Garner." The young man widened his eyes and smiled again. "Is your interest personal or professional?"

Jesse put his badge away.

"Alan," Jesse said, "we can do this easy, or we can do it hard. Easy is I go in and sit with your boss and discuss my case. Hard is I go get a Boston cop and we bring your boss in for questioning."

The young man smiled at Jesse again. No hard feelings.

"I'll talk to Mr. Fish," he said, and went through a curtained archway.

Jesse looked around. There were framed prints of sailboats, and a hanging lamp with a dark green shade. The furniture was the kind of bleached oak that was bought secondhand in Europe and refinished and sold at a large profit in the USA. Mr. Fish. The name was familiar. It had come up in a case Jesse had when he first came to Paradise. Not a common name.

The good-looking young man came back into the room and smiled again at Jesse.

"Surprise, surprise," he said.

"Mr. Fish will see me," Jesse said.

"You bet," the young man said, and gestured Jesse in.

A tall, lean man with a shaved head and long, graceful fingers sat behind a big oak table in a room that was just like the anteroom but bigger.

"I'm Gino Fish," he said.

It had to be him, Jesse thought, how many Gino Fishes are there?

"Jesse Stone."

Against the wall to Gino's left and Jesse's right sat a compact man with an expressionless face. Jesse could almost feel the force of his meaningless stare.

"And you are?" Jesse said.

"My associate," Fish said, "Vi

"I'm looking for a girl," Jesse said, "named Billie Bishop."

"And why are you looking here?" Fish said.

"She told someone she could be reached at this phone number."

Fish stared at Jesse for a long moment before he spoke.

"Vi

Vi

"I guess we don't," Fish said.

"You have any explanation for the phone number?"

"None."

"What does Development Associates do?" Jesse asked.

"Development and marketing," Gino said.

"Development and marketing of what?" Jesse said.

"Our best interests," Gino said.

"Do you remember developing and marketing a little something with a guy named JoJo Genest?"

"No."

"Hasty Hathaway?"

"No."

"Gino," Jesse said. "I'm not sure you're leveling with me."

"Why wouldn't I level with you, Jesse?" Gino said. "We've been close personal friends for what, five or six minutes?"

"Of course," Jesse said.

He put a business card on Gino's desk.

"You think of anything, give me a ringy dingy," Jesse said.

"You bet," Gino said. "Nice of you to stop by."

Vi

Jesse turned and shot Vi

Chapter Twenty-seven

Jesse sat in a cubicle in the Organized Crime Unit in the new Boston Police headquarters and talked with a detective sergeant named Brian Kelly.

"Bobby Doyle over in District Thirteen told me you were the man to talk to," Jesse said.

"He still in youth service?" Kelly said.

"Yes."

"I used to work over there in Area C," Kelly said. "Whaddya need?"

He was about Jesse's size with thick black hair cut short. He looked in shape.

"Gino Fish," Jesse said.

Kelly rocked back in his swivel chair and paused for a moment.

"Ahh," Kelly said. "Gino."

Jesse nodded.

"OCU spends a lot of time thinking about Gino Fish," Kelly said.

"What can you tell me?" Jesse said.

"How long you been chief out there?" Kelly said.

"Four years."

"Work your way up?"

Jesse smiled.

"Down, I think," Jesse said. "I was in L.A. working homicide. I got fired for drinking on the job, which sobered me up some, and I sort of resurfaced in Paradise."

"What's the deal with Gino?" Kelly said.

Jesse knew he had passed.

"There was a floater in the lake," Jesse said. "Shot once behind the right ear and weighted. Body pulled loose from the weight and surfaced."

"Execution?"

"I would guess," Jesse said. "She was a kid named Billie Bishop. Runaway, and the last place she ran away from, she gave Gino's phone number as a forwarding address."

"She was with Sister Mary John," Kelly said.

"Yes."

"Which is how you ran into Bobby Doyle."

"Yes."

"I didn't know Bobby knew about Gino," Kelly said.

"He didn't. I did. His name came up a few years ago in a case I was on."

"In Paradise?"

"Yep."

"Mean streets," Kelly said.

Jesse smiled.

"So," he said, "you know any reason a fifteen-year-old girl would be giving people Gino's number?"

"Gino's into a lot of things," Kelly said. "None of them pleasant." He gri

"I picked that up," Jesse said.

"So she wouldn't be for his own use," Kelly said. "There'd have to be a profit motive. Kid come from money?"

"Not that kind," Jesse said.

"So…"

"So sex."

"Gino hasn't got much background in prostitution," Kelly said.

"Because he wouldn't?"

"There's nothing Gino wouldn't," Kelly said. "He just hasn't."

"How about Vi

Kelly shook his head. "He wouldn't."

"He a shooter?" Jesse said.

"They say he shoots clays with a handgun."

"Nobody can do that," Jesse said.

Kelly shrugged.

"He's a shooter," Kelly said. "Clay pigeons, people, don't make any difference to Vi

"But?"

"But," Kelly shook his head. "You know how some of these guys are. There's stuff he won't do."

"Like prostitution?"

"Like that. Like dope."

"So what's he do for Gino?"

"Bodyguard, enforcement. Gino needs to threaten somebody, Vi

"How far from the street is Gino?" Jesse asked.

" Far. City used to be run by a guy named Joe Broz, but he got old, and his kid wasn't up to it. So things got divided up. The Feds put the Italians out of business. Tony Marcus runs Roxbury and part of Dorchester. The Burkes have the Irish neighborhoods like Southie. Fast Eddie Lee has Chinatown. Gino's pretty much got what's left: South End, Back Bay."

"So if Gino's an executive, how does he come in contact with a street kid like Billie Bishop?"

"Maybe you start at the other end," Kelly said. "Who likes fifteen-year-old girls?"

"That knows Gino Fish," Jesse said.

"And maybe has a co

"That Gino likes?" Jesse said.

"That Gino can use."