“No, but hell, e’s no blac in
town, e?”
“G.int,” Jes sd.
“obably why a lot of ple move hem, get away from what’s going on in Boston.”
“at’s going on in
Boston?”
“Aw, come on, Jes. You work in L.A. You ow you get a bunch of blac you get crime d gs d guns d e neigh gs .to st.
It’s not pmjudic to say at. It’s just
mity.”
“o finces e Home,n?”
“at’s to tin,ce? e guys buy e own
ufos, supply e own weans d o. We have a couple parties a year. I think Hasty pays for them.”
Jesse nodded slowly. He tapped the fingers of his left hand softly on the desktop, and pursed his lips in a facial gesture that Burke had seen before. It meant Jesse was thinking. Burke felt a bit uncomfortable.
“You got a problem with any of this,
Jesse?”
Jesse continued to purse his lips and drum gently on the desk. Then he stopped, and grinned at Burke.
“No. Hell no, Lou. I got no problem with any of it.”
Burke did not feel entirely reassured. $onova bitch doesn’t miss much, Burke thought.
set2 jesse r’t me. small Sounds of a
funcuoning building only underscored the silence. Jesse walked to the sliders that opened onto the little deck, and looked out at the harbor.
There was still enough light to see all the way across to the Neck. A single lobster boat came in toward the town dock, otherwise the boats that bobbed on the calm ufface of the harbor were moored and empty.
Jesse liked the silence. It was comforting.
He stood for a while looking at the quiescent harbor and let the silence sink in. Then he went to the kitchen and got the bottle of Black Label from the cabinet and poured some over ice. He let it sit for a moment while he hung his coat on the back of a chair. Then he picked up the glass and walked into the living room and looked out the window and took his first drink. First one at the end of a day was always a home run. He sat down on one of the armchairs that had come with the apartment, and put his feet up on the coffee table, He sipped again. The silence made him feel strong. And the whiskey made him feel strong. He tried to simply feel the strength and let his mind go, let it be part of the silence and the whiskey and not think about Jenn.
He felt strong about Jenn. Right here at least. Right now.
The prospect of life without her seemed for the moment filled with possibility. He drank again and got up and added some ice and poured some more scotch. He took the drink back to the window and looked out again. He could think about who killed Captain Cat, but he tried not to. He pushed the thoughts over to the periphery of his mind, let them drift there with thoughts about Freedom’s Horsemen. They would work on their own if he didn’t force them into the center of his consciousness and hold them too tightly. He swallowed some whiskey. The evening had come down upon the harbor. The Neck was no longer visible. Only the lights from some of the houses shone across the dark water.
The lobster boat was docked now, nearly motionless against the dock in the bright mercury lamps of the town landing.
Abby made things easier. He drank more whiskey. He liked her. But he knew better than to go from one monogamy to another.
Abby would be the first of many. He liked the idea. He drank to it. His glass was empty. He got up and got more ice, holding the glass under the ice dispenser in the refrigerator door. He poured scotch over the ice. He looked at the bottle. There was an encouraging amount still left in the bottle. Happiness is a jug that’s still three-quarters full. It was exciting to go out with a woman and be talking pleasantly and maybe having lunch and knowing that in a few hours, or maybe next week, after another date, that you’d see her with her clothes off. It was nice. He remembered the frantic scuffle of his adolescent dates. As an adult there was a calmness and friendliness to it all.
Adults made love. How soon depended on circumstance.
But all concerned knew it would happen and it took all the desperation out of the procedure. Jesse hated desperation.
Life, if he could make all the rules, would proceed in a stately manner. Dating as an adult was sort of stately.
Stately. He liked the sound of it.
“Stately,” he said.
His voice seemed loud and not his in the thick silence of the almost empty apartment. He took his drink to the kitchen and made himself a ham-and-cheese sandwich and ate standing at the counter, sipping his whiskey between bites. When he was done he made a fresh drink and walked back to the living room and sat back down. He tried to count how many he’d had.
“More than two,” he said.
Again his voice was loud and alien. Stillness was the norm here. He tipped his head back against the chair, Stately, he thought. I like things to be stately.
