Stone cold

“I’m up early fighting crime,”

Jesse said. “Got time for

breakfast?”

“It’s seven-thirty in the

morning,” Marcy said. “What if I’d

been asleep?”

“You’d be dreaming of me. When’s

your first

appointment.”

“I’m showing a house on Paradise Neck at eleven,” Marcy

said.

“I’ll come by for you.”

“I’m just out of the shower,”

Marcy said. “I’m not even

dressed.”

“Good,” Jesse said.

“I’ll hurry.”

Sitting across from Jesse in the Indigo Apple Cafe at 8:15, Marcy was completely put together. Her platinum hair was perfectly in place. Her makeup was flawless.

“You got ready pretty fast,” Jesse said.

“Crime busters float my boat,” Marcy said.

“What are you doing

so early.”

“Found a body on the beach,” Jesse said.

“Town beach?”

“Yes. He’d been shot twice.”

“My God,” Marcy said. “Who was

it.”

“Don’t know yet,” Jesse said.

“ME is looking at him

now.”

“Do you get help on major crimes like that?”

“If we need it,” Jesse said.

“Oh dear,” Marcy said.

“I’ve stepped on a

prickle.”

“We’re a pretty good little operation here,” Jesse said.

“Admittedly we don’t have all the resources of a big department.

State cops help us out on that.”

“And you don’t like it when that

happens.”

“I like to run my own show,” Jesse said.

“When I

can.”

The Indigo Apple had a lot of etched glass and blue curtains.

For breakfast it specialized in omelets with regional names.

Italian omelets with tomato sauce, Mexican omelets with cheese and peppers, Swedish omelets with sour cream and mushrooms. Jesse chose a Mexican omelet. Marcy ordered wheat toast.

“Speaking of which, how is the drinking?”

“Good,” Jesse said.

He didn’t like to talk about his drinking, even to Marcy.

“And the love life?” Marcy said.

“Besides you?”

“Besides me.”

“Various,” Jesse said.

“Well, doesn’t that make me feel

special,” Marcy

said.

“Oh God, don’t you get the vapors on me,” Jesse

said.

“No.” Marcy smiled. “I

won’t. We’re not lovers. We’re pals who fuck.”

“What are pals for,” Jesse said.

“It’s why we get along.”

“Because we don’t love each

other?”

“It helps,” Marcy said.

“How’s the ex-wife?”

“Je

“Je

Jesse leaned back a little and looked past Marcy through the etched glass front window of the cafe at people going by on the street, starting the day.

“Je

… she doesn’t seem to be in

love with that anchorman anymore.”

“Was she ever?”

“Probably not.”

Marcy ate some toast and drank some coffee.

“She’s going out with some guy from

Harvard,” Jesse

said.

“A professor?”

The waitress stopped by the table and refilled their coffee cups.

“No, some sort of dean, I think.”

“Climbing the intellectual ladder,” Marcy said.

Jesse shrugged.

“You’ve been divorced like five

years,” Marcy

said.

“Four years and eleven days.”

Marcy stirred her coffee. “I’m older than you are,” Marcy

said.

“Which gives you the right to offer me advice,” Jesse

said.

“Yes. It’s a rule.”

“And you advise me,” Jesse said,

“to forget about

Je

“I do,” Marcy said.

Jesse cut off a corner of his omelet and ate it and drank some coffee and patted his lips with his napkin.

“Is there anyone advising you otherwise?”

Marcy

said.

“No.”

“If you resolved this thing with Je

Marcy said, “maybe you

could put the drinking issue away too, and just be a really good police chief.”

“I’ve never been drunk on the

job,” Jesse said.

“You’ve never been drunk on the job

here,” Marcy

said.

“Good point,” Jesse said softly.

“It got you fired in LA,” Marcy said.

“After you broke up with

Je

Jesse nodded.

Marcy said, “So?”

“So?”

“So Je

Marcy said. “Maybe there’s a co

Jesse ate some more of his omelet.

“You think anyone in Mexico ever ate an omelet like this?” he

said.

“Are you suggesting I shut up?”

Jesse smiled at her and drank some coffee from the big white porcelain mug like the ones they had used in diners when he was a kid, in Tucson.

Jesse shook his head.

“No,” he said. “Your advice is

good. It’s just not good for

me.”

“Because?”

“I will not give up on Je

said.

“Isn’t that giving her a license to do whatever she wants to and

hang on to you?”

“Yes,” Jesse said. “It

is.”

Marcy stared at him.

“How does it make you feel that she’s sleeping with other men?”

Marcy said.

“We’re divorced,” Jesse said.

“She’s got every

right.”

“Un-huh,” Marcy said. “But how

does it make you

feel?”

“It makes me want to puke,” Jesse said.

“It makes me want to

kill any man she’s with.”

“But you don’t.”

“Nope.”

“Because it’s against the law?”

“Because it won’t take me where I want to go,” Jesse

said.

“I don’t mean this in any negative

way,” Marcy said. “You are

maybe the simplest person I ever met.”

“I know what I want,” Jesse said.

“And you keep your eye on the prize,”

Marcy said.

“I do,” Jesse said.

4

BobValenti came into Jesse’s office and sat down. He was

overweight with a thick black beard, wearing a blue windbreaker across the back of which was written Paradise Animal Control.

“How you doing, Skipper?” he said.

Valenti was a part-time dog officer and he thought he was a cop.

Jesse found him a

South Central, Jesse had never heard a commander called Skipper.

“We’re pretty informal here,

Bob,” Jesse said. “You can call me

Jesse.”

“Sure, Jess, just being respectful.”

“And I appreciate it, Bob,” Jesse said.

“What’s

up?”

“Picked up a dog this morning,” Valenti said, “a vizsla -

medium-sized Hungarian pointer, reddish gold in color

…”

“I know what a vizsla is,” Jesse said.

“Anyway, neighbors said he’s been hanging around outside a house

in the neighborhood for a couple days.”

Jesse nodded. Jesse noticed that the sun coming in through the window behind him glinted on some gray hairs in Valenti’s beard.

“Not like it used to be,” Valenti said.

“Dogs ru

could be lost for days before anybody notices. Now, with the leash laws, people notice any dog that’s loose.”

Jesse said, “Um-hmm.”

“So I go down,” Valenti said,

“and he’s there, hanging around

this house on Pleasant Street that’s been condo-ed. And he’s got

that wild look they get. Restless, big eyes, you can tell they’re

lost.”

Jesse nodded.

“So I approach him, easy like, but he’s skittish as a bastard,”

Valenti said. “I had a hell of a time corralling him.”

“But you did it,” Jesse said, his face blank.

“Oh sure,” Valenti said. “I been

doing this job a long

time.”

“Dog got any tags?”

“Yeah. That’s the fu

“Where?”

“The house he was hanging around. Belongs to somebody named