“Our best interests,” Gino said.
“Do you remember developing and marketing a little something with a guy named JoJo Genest?”
“No.”
“Hasty Hathaway?”
“No.”
“Gino,” Jesse said. “I’m not sure you’re leveling with me.”
“Why wouldn’t I level with you, Jesse?” Gino said. “We’ve been close personal friends for what, five or six minutes?”
“Of course,” Jesse said.
He put a business card on Gino’s desk.
“You think of anything, give me a ringy dingy,” Jesse said.
“You bet,” Gino said. “Nice of you to stop by.”
Vinnie had been looking at Jesse with nothing in his eyes since Jesse had entered.
Jesse turned and shot Vinnie with his forefinger. Vinnie had no reaction as Jesse walked back out through the draped arch.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Jesse sat in a cubicle in the Organized Crime Unit in the new Boston Police headquarters and talked with a detective sergeant named Brian Kelly.
“Bobby Doyle over in District Thirteen told me you were the man to talk to,” Jesse said.
“He still in youth service?” Kelly said.
“Yes.”
“I used to work over there in Area C,” Kelly said. “Whaddya need?”
He was about Jesse’s size with thick black hair cut short. He looked in shape.
“Gino Fish,” Jesse said.
Kelly rocked back in his swivel chair and paused for a moment.
“Ahh,” Kelly said. “Gino.”
Jesse nodded.
“OCU spends a lot of time thinking about Gino Fish,” Kelly said.
“What can you tell me?” Jesse said.
“How long you been chief out there?” Kelly said.
“Four years.”
“Work your way up?”
Jesse smiled.
“Down, I think,” Jesse said. “I was in L.A. working homicide. I got fired for drinking on the job, which sobered me up some, and I sort of resurfaced in Paradise.”
“What’s the deal with Gino?” Kelly said.
Jesse knew he had passed.
“There was a floater in the lake,” Jesse said. “Shot once behind the right ear and weighted. Body pulled loose from the weight and surfaced.”
“Execution?”
“I would guess,” Jesse said. “She was a kid named Billie Bishop. Runaway, and the last place she ran away from, she gave Gino’s phone number as a forwarding address.”
“She was with Sister Mary John,” Kelly said.
“Yes.”
“Which is how you ran into Bobby Doyle.”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t know Bobby knew about Gino,” Kelly said.
“He didn’t. I did. His name came up a few years ago in a case I was on.”
“In Paradise?”
“Yep.”
“Mean streets,” Kelly said.
