“You want the deai not?”
“Give him the money, Jo Jo.”
Jo Jo shrugged. The sight of Vinnie Morris had taker lot of the ferocity out of him. He took the bag off his sho der and handed it to the smailish man. The smallish in handed him a set of two keys on a small orange plastic k tag.
“It’s a Penske rental
truck,” the smailish man sa
“Mass plates 354-6AV. It’s parked
outside the entran next to Charlie’s Saioon.”
Then the smallish man turned and waiked away do‘ the mall. Jo Jo and Hasty looked after him for a time then looked back at Vinnie Morris, but Morris wasn’t in where in sight. They. turned then and headed back do the mail toward the parking lot outside of Charlie’s. Ha could feel the excitement in his stomach. Things had g badly for a while. This was a good thing. They’d be am properly. They could hold off anyone. State police, A
FBI, Marshals, anybody. At 2:35 in the afternoon, the pa ing lot was full. By 2:45 they hadn’t found the truck.
three o’clock they realized.they weren’t going to.
There was no truck.
over e ling down at e where ey had found Lou Bue.
“ght heT‘ Abby said.
“Yes.”
“How could he do itT‘ Abby sd.
”I me, may I could put a bullet rough my brn, or e’t my sleeping pills, or whaver if I were ally depressed.
But to climb over is fence d jump off e cliff…“
She shudder.
“May he dn’t,” Jesse
sd.
“Didn’t jump?”
“May.”
Abby stepd back from him and st wi her hds push into e he of her long blue coat.
“Jesse,” she sd d stopd.
He wind.
“Jesse, a lot of ple ink you’ve
gone off e dp end here. You’s conspiracy evewm. Yet you don’t talk to anyone aboutit. 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
