available at the bar.
By 9:00, the place was nearly full. Jesse was trying to nurse his scotch.
'Do you have to get up early?' Jenn said.
'I should be at the station by nine,' Jesse said.
'But I always get up early. Seven is sleeping in for me.'
'Why do you get up so early?' Jenn said.
'You didn't used to.'
'Don't sleep well,' Jesse said.
'Well, I think we should go,' Jenn said.
'Okay.'
Jesse paid the bar bill, left twenty percent for Doc, and walked out behind Jenn. Several people recognized her and stared covertly.
In the car, Jenn said, 'It's a long ride back to Boston, Jesse. I think I should stay with you.'
'Okay,' Jesse said.
What did 'with' mean? He stifled the question. Let it play out, he thought.
His condominium was only five minutes from the Gray Gull.
Inside, Jenn went straight to the living room and opened the French doors onto the little deck over the water.
'I love this view,' she said.
Jesse went and stood beside her on the deck. House lights were scattered brightly against the solid blackness of Paradise Neck. The salt sea smell of the harbor was strong.
'Funny how different this ocean seems,' Jenn said.
'Maybe we're different,' Jesse said.
'That would be nice.'
Jesse felt compressed by the tension between them. He wondered if Jenn even felt it. She seemed perfectly in possession of herself. They were quiet. Jesse stood next to her, not touching her.
Except for the sound of the ocean moving below them, the silence was crystalline. Maybe I cant stand this, Jesse thought. Maybe I need a drink. To his left, the head of the harbor was darkened by Stiles Island where barely any lights showed. Everything faces the ocean, Jesse thought. Got their back to the town. He didn't look at Jenn, though he felt her next to him the way he felt the pull of gravity.
'Jesse,' she said.
He turned. She had turned toward him. Her face was raised to him. Subtly, beneath the heavy ocean smell, he could smell her perfume. He opened his arms, and she pressed against him. He kissed her. She opened her mouth and kissed him back. He was conscious of his breath surging in his lungs, of the blood moving through the intricate riparian patterns of his arteries and veins, the electricity tracing his nerves and muscles. They began to fumble at each other's clothes. Jenn broke away long enough to gasp, 'Living room.' She pressed her mouth against his again as they stumbled into the living room. They went to the carpet and made love there.
It was all visceral. Whatever sounds they made were inarticulate. In the darkness, hours after they had begun, they paused long enough to go into Jesse's bedroom.
Jesse woke up in bright sunshine. He was lying on his back.
Jenn was beside him, still asleep, in the crook of his arm, with her head on his chest. He looked at his wrist. His watch wasn't there.
He looked over at the alarm clock on the bureau. It was 10:40. He had not slept much past dawn since he'd come east. Actually, as he thought about it, he had not slept past dawn since Jenn started fucking Elliot whatsisname. Maybe he should have killed Elliott.
He always regretted that he hadn't. He wasn't sure he could have.
He had shot people and maybe he would again. But just walk up and shoot him? Had he done so, he would never be lying here in the mid-morning sunshine, with Jenn naked beside him. He had been right not to... but he knew, and he smiled secretly in the still room at the knowledge, that there would always be, in one small compartment of his soul, the regret that he hadn't. The seagulls were loud. The harbor smell was assertive. The French doors were still open.
Without opening her eyes, Jenn said, 'Don't make too much of this.'
'Okay,' Jesse said.
'It doesn't mean we should move in together or start dating each other exclusively or get married or any of those things.'
'Right,' Jesse said.
'It just means we are fond of each other and maybe love each other and probably want to date each other again, and we're grown-ups.'
'Correct,' Jesse said.
Jenn gave him the look. The same look he knew she'd had when she spoke of the other weather woman being on weekends.
'And,' Jenn said, 'grown-ups fuck.'
'Do they ever,' Jesse said.
They lay together for a while, her head on his chest, his arm around her shoulder, then Jenn swung her feet off the bed and stood up.
Her hair was messy, and her makeup was smeared. Naked, she walked from the bedroom, following the trail of discarded clothing to the deck.
'Gee,' she said.
'What possibly could have gone on here?'
'Nothing bad,' Jesse said.
'No,' Jenn said, 'nothing bad.'
THIRTY-ONE.
'Harry Smith,' Macklin said when he| came into Jesse's office.
'Thanks for taking the time.'
'Happy to,' Jesse said.
He stood while they shook hands.) Macklin's grip was stronger than Jesse had expected from a guy who looked like ant amateur golfer. Macklin took a chair!
across the desk from him.
'Here's the deal, chief. I'm thinking about buying property on Stiles Island. I don't need to tell you that I'm looking at a good-sized investment if I do.'
'Good-sized,' Jesse said.
'So I'm trying to size up the whole town, not just the island.'
'Uh-huh.'
'You don't mind, do you, me talking to you?'
'I don't mind,' Jesse said.
'How's the crime situation?'
'Good,' Jesse said.
'You mean, there isn't much ' Macklin said.
'A lot of the time, there isn't any.'
Macklin smiled.
'So what do you guys do?'
'Write traffic tickets. Keep the kids from loitering. Had a case of arson a while ago.'
'Really?' Macklin said.
'Jewish lightning?'
'No, teenage kids with a grudge.'
'You catch them?'
'Yeah.'
'Cops one, teenagers nothing,' Macklin said.
'Heard you had some trouble year or so ago.'
'Yeah, couple of murders.'
'Crimes of passion?'
'You could say that.'
'You catch the guy?'
'Yeah.'
Macklin smiled again.
'Cops two,' he said.
Jesse was quiet.
'You got a big force?' Macklin said.
'No. Twelve officers and me.'
'Four per shift,' Macklin said.
'That's how the math works.'
'You been chief long?'
'Long enough,' Jesse said.
'Work your way up from the ranks?'
'No.'
'Came from another department.'
'Yes.'
'Where?'
'Elsewhere.'
Macklin leaned back a little and studied Jesse.
'You're a pretty quiet guy,' Macklin said.
'True.'
'Probably the right way to be,' Macklin said.
'Me, I'm a talker.
My wife's always telling me to quiet down.'
Jesse didn't say anything. He seemed attentive. Macklin sensed no hostility in him. He was just quiet. There was no way to know what went on behind his eyes.
'How's the security on Stiles?' Macklin said.
'Secure,' Jesse said.
'They got their own security force, I see.'
'Um- hmm.'
'They tied in with you guys?'
'You need to talk to them.'
Macklin nodded slowly, as if confirming a long-held assumption. He stood with a wide smile and put out his hand. Jesse shook it.
'I'm encouraged, chief' Macklin said.
'You can usually count on a man who doesn't say more than he has to.'
Jesse smiled. Macklin smiled back and left.
In the car with Faye, Macklin was silent.
'How'd it go?' Faye said as she drove up Summer Street.
'You find out what you wanted to know?'
'I got a read on the chief,' Macklin said.
'Which is what I wanted, I guess.'
Faye slowed the car as they passed a couple of kids on bicycles.
'But?'
'But he's not what I wanted him to be,' Macklin said.
Faye braked at the stop sign on Beach Street, looked carefully both ways, and drove on.
'So what is he?'
'I don't know,' Macklin said.
'But he's not a shit-kicker.'
'Well,' Faye said, 'neither are you.'
Macklin patted Faye's thigh for a moment and smiled.
'No,' he said.
'I'm not.'
THIRTY-TWO.
Tony Marcus was a black man with a big moustache and a small Afro. He had on good clothes, Crow noticed. A dark pinstriped suit, a bright white shirt with a wide spread collar. His pink silk tie was tied in a big Windsor knot.
'Who sold you this crap?' Tony Marcus said.
Crow smiled and shook his head. They were in the back room of a restaurant called Buddy's Fox. Marcus was sitting at his desk.
