Jesse smiled.
“So,” he said, “you know any reason a fifteen-year-old girl would be giving people Gino’s number?”
“Gino’s into a lot of things,” Kelly said. “None of them pleasant.” He grinned. “But girls are not usually one of them.”
“I picked that up,” Jesse said.
“So she wouldn’t be for his own use,” Kelly said. “There’d have to be a profit motive. Kid come from money?”
“Not that kind,” Jesse said.
“So…”
“So sex.”
“Gino hasn’t got much background in prostitution,” Kelly said.
“Because he wouldn’t?”
“There’s nothing Gino wouldn’t,” Kelly said. “He just hasn’t.”
“How about Vinnie Morris?”
Kelly shook his head. “He wouldn’t.”
“He a shooter?” Jesse said.
“They say he shoots clays with a handgun.”
“Nobody can do that,” Jesse said.
Kelly shrugged.
“He’s a shooter,” Kelly said. “Clay pigeons, people, don’t make any difference to Vinnie.”
“But?”
“But,” Kelly shook his head. “You know how some of these guys are. There’s stuff he won’t do.”
“Like prostitution?”
“Like that. Like dope.”
“So what’s he do for Gino?”
“Bodyguard, enforcement. Gino needs to threaten somebody, Vinnie’s the threat. People threaten Gino, Vinnie’s the response.”
“How far from the street is Gino?” Jesse asked.
“Far. City used to be run by a guy named Joe Broz, but he got old, and his kid wasn’t up to it. So things got divided up. The Feds put the Italians out of business. Tony Marcus runs Roxbury and part of Dorchester. The Burkes have the Irish neighborhoods like Southie. Fast Eddie Lee has Chinatown. Gino’s pretty much got what’s left: South End, Back Bay.”
“So if Gino’s an executive, how does he come in contact with a street kid like Billie Bishop?”
“Maybe you start at the other end,” Kelly said. “Who likes fifteen-year-old girls?”
“That knows Gino Fish,” Jesse said.
“And maybe has a connection to Paradise,” Kelly said.
“That Gino likes?” Jesse said.
“That Gino can use.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
The room was empty of ornament. Just a gray metal desk, an extra chair, and a swivel chair with a man sitting in it behind the desk. The man was white, entirely bald, clean-shaven. He wore a white shirt buttoned to the neck and a pair of pale blue jeans. The shirt and jeans were starched and pressed. His face was healthy-looking. His teeth were very white. His fingernails gleamed. The man’s name was Dix.
Jesse sat in the extra chair.
“My name is Jesse Stone,” he said. “My ex-wife says she’s talked to you.”
“She did,” Dix said.
“You used to be a cop.”
“Until I gave it up to be a drunk.”
“What pushed your button?” Jesse said.
“My boozer button?”
“You know,” Jesse said, “the precipitating event.”
Dix laughed. Jesse noticed that Dix’s hands lay perfectly still, one on top of the other on the desk in front of him.
“Booze,” Dix said.
