“Nope. We’re all computerized.”
Jo Jo made & disgusted sound.
“Freakin‘ Hasty is so stupid, you know. He thinks he’s Napoleon or something with his freakin’
Horsemen.”
“So how come you sent the picture of Cissy to her minister?‘’
Jesse said.
Jo Jo smiled broadly. “Sent it to a lot of people,” he said. “Sent one to Hasty too.”
“I’ll bet he was pleased,” Jesse
said. “You take it?”
“Yeah. Her idea. She liked being tied up. Spanked.
Weird broad—big time. Had a lot of poon tang with that broad, and you know how most broads are—all the time moaning about loveshe wasn’t like that, she liked the sex, but she was always like mad while we was doing it.
She liked to pretend I was forcing her, you know?
Grim.“
Jesse nodded.
“She was banging one of your cops too, you know.”
“Probably pretended he was rescuing her,”
Jesse said.
“How come you decided to go public.”
“With the pictures? I was, ah, brokering an arms deal for Hasty. Gino was supposed to get him some heavy weapons—you know Gino?”
Jesse shook his head.
“Major dude in Boston,” Jo Jo said.
“Queer as a square donut, but really wired.”
“And you know him through the money
laundering.”
Jesse said. He was stroking Jo Jo’s ego.
“Yeah, I know Gino. Hasty’s a big deal in town here maybe, but on the street, he’s nowhere. He had problems, he always had to come to me.”
“So he asked you to get him heavy
weapons?”
“Yeah. Machine guns, mortars, some kind of antiaircraft missiles. I’m telling you, he thinks he’s going to take over the town and, you know, defy the freaking gov-ernmeut.‘
‘
Jo Jo laughed. Jesse laughed along with him. Couple of good old boys, Jesse thought, chewing the fat in the back room.
“So I set him up with Gino and Hasty gets high and mighty with him when they have a meeting and when the time comes for the guns, they take his money and stiff him.‘ ’
“No guns,” Jesse said.
“None, and he blames me. Freaking twerp. Says it’s my fault. Says I better get the money back or else.
He’s actually threatening me. Well, first I thought maybe I’d just break his scrawny neck for him, wring it like he was a chicken, you know? But then I think no, be smart, Jo Jo.
Don’t get mad. Get even. So I got some of the pictures of his old uake e. lady and I sent them out. I sent one to his minister and one to him and one to the president of the Paradise Garden Club that Cissy belonged to. Ought to freak them out. I was going to send a few out every day. Drive Hasty crazy.”
$o Jo laughed again. Jesse felt like he’d bathed in dirty water. He shut off the tape recorder.
“Think about something, Jo Jo,” Jesse
said. “When I suspended Lou Burke Hasty was so worried about what Burke might say that he had you kill him.”
“I’ve actually arrested you, and you know more than Burke.”
“You think he’ll try for me?”
“He’ll have to,” Jesse said.
“Or he’s a goner.”
“How’s he gonna get me in here?”
Jo Jo said.
“My guess is he’ll try to get you out of here, one way or another.‘ ’
