said.
'Better to have him and not need him,' Macklin said, 'than need him and not have him.'
'Maybe,' Fran said.
'How many guys you need all together?'
'One more after you,' Macklin said.
'I'm married now,' Fran said.
'Congratulations.'
'Four kids.'
'How about that,' Macklin said.
'I been legit since I got out. Working for the city, mostly slum clearance.'
'Making the big buck?'
'Not this big,' Fran said.
'How long will it take?'
'You'll probably be gone a week, ten days.'
'Ten days?'
'It's a big job. You'll need some time.'
'Ten days,' Fran said, 'I could blow up Baltimore.'
'You have to look at the site,' Macklin said.
'Decide what you need. Then you have to get it. And install it. It'll take some time.
You can't get away ten days for a million bucks?'
'Old lady'll croak,' Fran said.
'I tell her I'm leaving her alone with four kids for ten days.'
'You'll have to deal with your wife,' Macklin said.
The two of them were silent then, their forearms resting on the railing, the littered sea water washing tamely against the pier. The harbor was busy with small boats and behind them Harbor Place was raucous with teenagers.
'Okay,' Fran said finally.
'I'll deal with her.'
Macklin smiled and put out his hand. Fran shook it slowly.
'I'll be in touch,' Macklin said.
TWENTY.
Surveillance was easy enough. Stay out of sight and watch. He'd done a lot of it in L.A. and the greatest enemy was boredom.
Tonight in the Back Bay, outside Jenn's apartment, there was no boredom. He'd found space to park on a hydrant in view of her front door. And he sat in his car in the dark with a feeling of such complex intensity that he didn't understand it. He knew that he felt anticipation and anger nd excitement, which was at least partly sexual. He also felt calmness and curiosity and hope and guilt and something like strength.
Too hard for me, he said to himself and settled back against the car seat. He didn't let the motor run because that was a dead giveaway to surveillance, a car parked with its motor on. He didn't play the radio. He simply sat and waited. People moved along the sidewalk past his parked car. There was money in the Back Bay and the four-story brick town houses along Beacon Street were full of young, well-dressed, good-looking men and women. It was evening and many of them were coming home from dinner or movies or working late. Dogs were being walked, and elegantly dressed women in high heels were carrying plastic bags to clean up after them.
Dog shit does not respect social status, Jesse thought.
He looked at his watch. Nine-thirty. If she'd left the station by seven and gone to dinner with somebody, she'd be coming home now. Unless she was spending the night somewhere else. He took in some air and let it out slowly with his lips pursed in a kind of silent whistle.
He felt the comfortable weight of his gun near his right hip. If she were with another guy, he could kill him. He could feel the release it would bring him. He could imagine the near ejaculatory surge of relief he would get, and he rolled the thought around in his mind passionately. And then what. Now that I've croaked your boyfriend, honey, let's you and me get together? That wouldn't work.
It would also get him jailed. Even police chiefs weren't permitted to kill people for dating their ex-wives. He could probably do it secretively and get away with it. But how many would he have to kill off? And mightn't Jenn get a bit suspicious when her dates kept getting clipped? And how often could he get away with it? Cops normally looked for the disgruntled lover when some men get killed that are dating the same women. He gave it up slowly, knowing he'd never really thought he could. So why was he here? He shrugged in the darkness. Better to know than not know.
Jenn turned the corner at Dartmouth Street and walked down Beacon Street beside a short man. They were holding hands. Jesse knew Jenn's walk in the dimness before he could recognize any feature. As they got closer, Jesse recognized the evening news anchor, Tony Salt. He was much shorter than he appeared on the tube.
Shorter than Jenn. But he had a large head and a strong chin and deep masculine smile lines around his mouth. His walk seemed stilted, and Jesse realized that Tony Salt was teetering on high heeled cowboy boots. Christ, in his bare feet he can walk under bar stools, Jesse thought.
They were walking close together and their shoulders brushed often. Jenn was talking in that brilliant, animated way she had when she seemed to put her whole self into whatever she was saying. Tony Salt was listening and nodding and laughing often. They walked past Jesse sitting in the darkness and turned into Jenn's doorway. Jesse's concentration was so intense that he didn't realize he had drawn his gun until he clanked it gently against his steering wheel, as he turned in the seat. He rested the gun on the back of the seat, and, knowing he wouldn't shoot, he aimed it carefully at Tony Salt's back and sighted carefully at the spot between Tony Salt's shoulder blades that sat invitingly, and looked a yard wide, on top of the front sight. He held the aim as Jenn fumbled for her keys at the door. Jenn could never find her keys quickly, and when she did find them she never recognized one key from another, so more time ensued while she tried several in the lock before she got the right one. Jesse had always found it endearing that she couldn't find her keys and, indeed, often lost them. Goddesses had no time for keys. Tony Salt stood close to her while she worked on the keys.
Jesse knew he was so close that their bodies would be touching every time either of them moved. Jesse could feel how shallow his breathing was. Given the intensity of his feeling, it was surprising that the gun hand was perfectly steady. He squinted a little. He knew it was too far and too dark, but it was as if he could see the weave in the back of Tony Salt's thousand-dollar jacket. Jenn found the right key, and the door opened. She turned and gave Tony Salt a light kiss and stepped through the door. He followed her. With the door still open, they stopped in the lighted hallway and turned the easy kiss into a long embrace, Jenn slouching a little so that she wouldn't have to actually bend down to kiss Tony Salt. Jesse could see Tony Salt's hand move down to Jenn's butt. He had on a big ring that caught the hall light and flashed like Elliott Krueger's ring.
Then they broke the clinch.
The door shut.
'Bang,' Jesse said.
TWENTY-ONE.
'You're the last piece,' Macklin said to Freddie Costa.
They were sitting in Macklin's Mercedes in the parking lot near the wharf office on the town pier in Mattapoisett, about ninety minutes south of Boston.
'You need a Northshore guy,' Costa said.
'Knows the waters. I never even been up there.'
'I don't have a Northshore guy,' Macklin said.
'You didn't know the waters in the Mekong, did you? Besides you're the best sailor I know who's dishonest.'
'Thanks,' Costa said.
'Then if I'm gonna do it, I gotta have time to go up there, cruise around, look at charts. Not only around Paradise but all over that part of the coast.'
'Sure,' Macklin said.
'That's why I'm talking to you early, give you time to plan.'
'It'll cost money,' Costa said.
'You got to spend money to make money,' Macklin said.
'I gotta buy fuel. I got boat payments. I gotta leave my ex with some.'
'Haven't you got anything ahead?'
Costa laughed.
'You talking to me about ahead?'
Macklin shrugged.
'Okay,' he said.
'I haven't got too much ahead myself.'
'Can't help you without something up-front,' Costa said.
Macklin was silent. The harbor around the pier was mostly small sailboats. Some were at their moorings. Their masts bare, the boats tugging gently at the tether. Some were under sail, the mooring marked by the small boat they had rowed out to it. Two kids were fishing off the end of one of the two stone piers. A big old Chris-Craft with gleaming mahogany trim was refueling in the slip between the piers.
'Whatta they catching?' Macklin said.
'The kids? Scup if they're lucky. Blowfish, mostly.'
'They good to eat?'
'Scup is, but not the blowfish. Kids like to haul them in, get them to inflate, and skip them on the water.'
'There's a good time,' Macklin said.
'You know what kids are like.'
'No,' Macklin said.
'I don't.'
They were quiet. A rowboat pulled in to the pebbled beach to their right, and two men got out in knee-deep water and dragged the boat up onto the landing area above high tide. The men left the rowboat there and took the oars. The Chris-Craft finished refueling and began to inch out of the slip.
'Okay,' Macklin said finally.
'I got five grand I can spot you.'
'Cash,' Costa said.
'Whaddya think? I'm going to write you a check?'
'I don't like to leave nothing to chance,' Costa said.
'I could enter the notation: advance on robbery loot,' Macklin said.
'You got it on you?'
'No.'
'When do I get it?'
'You drive the boat up...' Macklin said. Costa began shaking his head before Macklin finished his sentence.
'And I'll pay you when you get there.'
'Me
