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a cocktail?”
“I could,” Jesse said.
Je
“Serious,” Jesse said.
“Dress for success,” Je
Jesse made them martinis. Je
chutney on a glass plate. They took the drinks and the hors d’oeuvres to the living room and sat on Jesse’s sofa and looked out
the slider over Jesse’s balcony to the harbor beyond.
“It’s pretty here, Jesse.”
“Yes.”
“But it’s so … stark.”
“Stark?”
“You know, the walls are white. The tabletops are bare. There’s
no pictures.”
“There’s Ozzie,” Jesse said.
Je
“You’ve had that since I’ve
known you.”
“Best shortstop I ever saw,” Jesse said.
“You might have been that good, if you hadn’t gotten
hurt.”
Jesse smiled and shook his head.
“I might have made the show,” Jesse said.
“But I wouldn’t have
been Ozzie.”
“Anyway,” Je
picture of a baseball player is not
interior decor.”
“Picture of you in my bedroom,” Jesse said. “On the
table.”
“What do you do with it if you have a sleepover?”
“It stays,” Jesse said.
“Sleepovers have to know about
you.”
“Is that in your best interest?” Je
discourage sleeping over.”
“Maybe,” Jesse said.
“But not entirely,” Je
“No,” Jesse said. “Not
entirely.”
They were silent, thinking about it. Jesse got up and made another shaker of martinis.
“What is it they have to know about me?”
Je
brought the shaker back.
“That I love you, and, probably, am not going to love
them.”
“Good,” Je
“Good for who?” Jesse said.
“For me at least,” Je
want you in my
life.”
“Are you sure divorcing me is the best way to show that?”
“I can’t imagine a life without you in it.”
“Old habits die hard,” Jesse said.
“It’s more than a habit, Jesse.
There’s some sort of co
between us that won’t break.”
“Maybe its because I don’t let it
break,” Jesse
said.
“You don’t,” Je
“But then here I am.”
“Here you are.”
“I could have been a weather girl in Los Angeles, or Pittsburgh
or San Antonio.”
“But here you are,” Jesse said.
“You’re not the only one hanging
on,” Je
“What the hell is wrong with us?” Jesse said.
Je
“Probably a lot more than we know,” Je
do know: we take it seriously.”
“What?”
“Love, marriage, relationship, each other.”
“Which is why we got divorced and started fucking other people,”
Jesse said. “Or vice versa.”
“I deserve the vice versa,” Je
“But I don’t keep
deserving it every time we talk.”
“I know,” Jesse said.
“I’m sorry. But if we take it so
seriously, why the hell are we in this mess.”
“Because we wouldn’t let it
slide,” Je
wouldn’t accept adultery. Because I wouldn’t accept suffocation.”
“I loved you very intensely,” Jesse said.
There was half a drink left in the shaker. Jesse added it to his
glass.
“You loved your fantasy of me very
intensely,” Je
kept trying to squeeze the real me into that fantasy.”
Jesse stared at the crystalline liquid in his glass. Je
town pier and began to weave through the stand of masts going somewhere, and knowing where.
“That you talking or the shrink?” Jesse said.
“It’s a conclusion we reached
together,” Je
said.
Jesse hated all the circumlocutions of therapy. He sipped the lucid martini.
“Why do you think I’m so
wonderful?” Je
“Because I love you.”
Je
“What the fuck is wrong with that?” he said.
“Think about it,” Je
“Think about shit,” Jesse said.
“Just because you’re getting
shrunk doesn’t mean you have to shrink me.”
“You think I’m wonderful because you love me?”
“Yes.”
They were both quiet. Jesse stared at her defiantly. Je
After a time, Je
Jesse nodded slowly as if to himself, then got up and mixed a new martini.
9
Jesse’s hangover was relentless on Monday morning.
He sat behind
his desk sipping bottled water and trying to concentrate on Peter Perkins.
“We spent two days going over that guy’s apartment,” Perkins
said. “We didn’t even find anything
embarrassing.”
“And him a stockbroker,” Jesse said.
“So what do you
know?”
Perkins looked down at his notebook.
“Ke
for Hollingsworth and Whitney in Boston. Parents live in Amherst.
They’ve been notified.”
“You do that?”
“Molly,” Peter Perkins said.
“God bless her,” Jesse said.
“Coroner’s through with him,”
Perkins said. “Parents are coming
tomorrow to claim the body. You want to talk to them?”
“You do it,” Jesse said.
“You pulling rank on me?” Perkins said.
“You bet,” Jesse said. “How
about the ex-wife?”
“She lives in Paradise,” Perkins said.
“On Plum Tree Road.
Probably kept the house when they split.”
“Seen her yet?”
“No. Hasn’t returned our calls.”
“I’ll go over,” Jesse said.
“Swell,” Perkins said. “I get to
question the grieving parents,
you talk to the ex-wife, who is probably delighted.”
“Not if she was getting alimony,” Jesse said.
“That’s cynical,” Peter Perkins
said.
“It is,” Jesse said.
“What’s the ME say?”
“Nothing special. Shot twice in the chest at close range. Two
different guns.”
“Two guns?”
“Yep. Both twenty-twos.”
“Which one killed him?”
“Both.”
“Equally?”
“Either shot would have done it. They both got him in the heart.
You want all the details about what got penetrated and stuff?”
“I’ll read the report. We figure two shooters?”
“Can’t see why one guy would shoot someone with two guns,”
Perkins said.
“Any way to tell which one shot first?”
“Not really. Far as the ME could tell they entered the victim
more or less the same time.”
“Both at close range,” Jesse said.
“Both at close range.”
“Both in the heart,” Jesse said.
Perkins nodded. “Gotta be two people,” he said.
“Or one person who wants us to think he’s two people,” Jesse
said.
Perkins shrugged.
“Pretty elaborate,” Perkins said.
“And it gives us twice as many
murder weapons.”
Jesse drank more spring water. He didn’t say anything.
“We got his phone records,” Perkins said.
“Anthony and Suit are
chasing that down.”
“Debt?” Jesse said.
“Not so far. Got ten grand in his checking account.
Got a mutual
fund worth couple hundred thousand. I’m telling you, we’ve got
nada.”
“Somebody killed him and they had a
reason,” Jesse said. “Talk
to people where he worked?”
“No. I was going to ask you. Should I call, or go in to