maroon Chevrolet van was registe to Wilson Cromartie of Tucson. Suitcase Simpson came in with the information and sat down across from Jesse. He was bulky enough so that the chair was a tight fit, and he had to adjust his gun forward a little to get comfortable.
'Guy lives off Swan Road,' Jesse & 'That mean something?'
'Good neighborhood,' Jesse said 'You know Tucson?' ?
'Grew up there. My old man was with the Sheriff's Department.'
'Cochise County?' Suitcase said.
'Everybody knows Cochise County,' Jesse said.
'Least I know one,' Suitcase said.
'Cochise is down around Tombstone,' Jesse said.
'My old man was Pima County.'
'You know anybody there still?' Suitcase said.
'Uh-huh.'
'Maybe you should call him up and see what he knows about Wilson Cromartie.'
'You think?' Jesse said.
'Sure, I mean if something's going on and we don't... ah shit, you're kidding me again aren't you?'
'Only a little,' Jesse said. He leaned forward and shouted for Molly to come in from the front desk.
'I want to talk to a Pima County, Arizona, sheriff's deputy named Travis Randall,' Jesse said.
'He knew my father. He'll remember me.'
'I'm on it,' Molly said.
When she left, Suitcase looked after her.
'I believe you were eying Molly's ass,' Jesse said.
Suitcase reddened.
'So?'
'She's married and has two kids, Suit.'
'Doesn't make her ass ugly,' Suitcase said.
'Good point.'
In ten minutes, Molly stuck her head into Jesse's office.
'Lieutenant Travis Randall on line one, Jesse.'
Jesse picked up.
'Travis?' he said.
'Jesse, how ya doing?'
'You got promoted.'
'Had to happen sooner or later,' Randall said.
'Hell you got to be chief.'
'Says so right on my desk plate,' Jesse said.
'Your old man still around?'
'No.'
'Sorry to hear that.'
'Thanks, he's been gone a while. I'm looking for anything you might be able to tell me about a guy named Wilson Cromartie.
Lives in Tucson.'
Jesse gave him the street address.
'Familiar name,' Randall said.
'Lemme punch him up here.'
'You're working a computer, Travis?'
'Goes to show you,' Randall said.
'You can teach an old dog new tricks.'
'Guess so. I'm going to put you on speaker phone.'
'Sure.'
Jesse punched the speaker phone button and hung up the receiver. Suitcase sat across the desk from him, listening to the airy silence of the speaker phone. Being a policeman excited him.
Working on even the small-town cases he got to work on was thrilling to him, and he watched Jesse who had been a big city cop in Los Angeles as if he were magical. Randall's voice came back.
'Yep that's him. Crow.'
'Short for Cromartie?'
'I suppose,' Randall said.
'But he spells it C-R-O-W. Claims he's an Apache Indian.'
'Is he?'
'Could be. You can see Indian in him.'
'Tell me about him,' Jesse said.
'He's a bad man,' Randall said.
'Contract killer.'
'Connected with anybody?'
'Freelance. He's good. Gets plenty of work.'
'Warrants?'
'Nothing outstanding,' Randall said.
'Hard to get anyone to say anything about Crow.'
'You got a description?'
'Black hair, brown eyes. Six feet, hundred and ninety pounds.
Muscular. Indian features. Very neat. You seen him or just the car?'
'I saw him,' Jesse said.
'Be very fucking careful of him, Jesse.'
'Sure.'
'Whether he's got a gun or not,' Randall said.
'Okay. You got any idea what he might be doing here?'
'
'Here' is around Boston?'
'Yeah.'
'Not that I know about. Lemme look some more.'
Again Jesse and Suitcase listened to the sound of silence running along the wires from Arizona.
'Here's something,' Randall said.
'He was convicted of armed robbery along with a guy named James Macklin. Knocked over a liquor store in Flagstaff. Macklin is listed as being from Dorchester, Mass.'
'Part of Boston,' Jesse said.
'They do time?'
'Three years in Yuma.'
'Both get out?'
'Far as I know.'
'Anything else on Macklin?'
'Nope.'
'Description?'
'Nope.'
'Okay, Travis, thank you.'
'No problem,' Randall said.
'I'll keep sniffing around out here.
I come across anything else, I'll call you.'
'Do that,' Jesse said.
'And Jesse, don't you or anyone try to take Crow alone. He don't care if you're a cop or not.'
'Would you try to take him alone, Travis?'
'Absolutely not.'
'We'll be cool,' Jesse said.
'And don't be a stranger, boy. Your father and I was pretty tight.
Betty and me be happy to have you visit.'
'Thanks, Travis. I'll keep it in mind.'
Jesse leaned over and switched off the speaker.
'Suit,' Jesse said.
'See what you can come up with on James Macklin of Dorchester.'
'Whaddya think is going down, Jesse?'
'Maybe they're just having a reunion, Yuma, class of eighty eight Jesse said.
'Maybe it's got nothing to do with us.'
'I'll bet it's the Paradise Bank, Jesse. I'll bet they're going to knock over the bank.'
'We're not supposed to bet, Suit. We're supposed to find out.
So go find out about James Macklin of Dorchester, Mass.'
Suitcase stood up.
'Yes sir, chief,' he said.
'And you heard what Randall said about Crow. If Randall wouldn't go him alone...'
'Randall a tough guy?' Suitcase said.
'You have no idea,' Jesse said.
Suitcase nodded and headed to the door, then stopped as if he'd forgotten something.
'Oh, chief?'
'Yeah?'
'You taking your vitamins?'
'And eating a lot of oysters,' Jesse said.
Red-faced with delight at his own joke, Suitcase went out the door.
FORTY-TWO.
It was 9:00 A.M. when Freddie Costa pulled the big power boat away from the town landing in Paradise Harbor and began to move slowly among the moored sailboats toward the buoys that marked the channel. He had a full tank of gas, and the engine was tuned. A Winchester rifle lay in its rack above the door. There was no need to hide it. A lot of people on the ocean carried a rifle with them. He sipped coffee from a big plastic mug. The sun was bright, coming in from his right, over the rooftops of Paradise Neck, as he headed north toward the harbor mouth. The wind was off the water, blowing straight toward him, and it raised a short chop that made the bow pound as he drove slowly through it. He didn't mind the chop. He'd been on the ocean most of his life, since his father used to take him out on the scallop draggers from New Bedford. He liked the ocean. He liked it best when he was alone on it, and the sun was out, like today, and fragments of it were ricocheting off the water. Some gulls trailed the boat hopefully for a while, but when there was no food forthcoming, they peeled off and went back to foraging around the restaurant on the wharf.
It would take awhile, with the headwind, to beat out of the harbor and around to the other side of Stiles Island. That was okay. He didn't have to get there soon. It might not be until tomorrow that he would take them out. He'd idle off-shore, maybe drop anchor for a while, and then when the flare went up, he'd pull in and they'd wade out to him. Then he would take them up around Cape Ann and put them ashore north of Port City, where Faye would be waiting with the van. He'd keep going north, maybe to Portsmouth, and lay up for a while until everything calmed down. Then he'd head I back south to Mattapoisett with his money and maybe do some sport fishing.
As he stood at the wheel, he could feel the faint comforting vibration of the big engine. The boat was neat. The ropes coiled.
Everything polished. To his right, the big homes on the neck had lawns that sloped to the water. In most cases, they were sustained by massive sea walls Often there were stairs cut into the sea walls and small boats bobbing below them at wooden floats. To his left the town rose idiosyncratic ally A jumble of church spires and eighteenth-century buildings ascending Indian Hill. The big square steeple of the town hall, with the big clock face on all four sides, rose above most of the buildings halfway up the hill. On top of the hill, Costa could see the green mass of the park.
The boat pushed on out of the harbor mouth past Stiles Island, barely tethered to Paradise Neck by the small bridge. Nice- looking bridge, Costa thought. Costa liked constructs: engines, bridges, buildings, ships. Too bad about the bridge,
