“It’s not about sex,” Jesse said.
“Sure it is,” Dix said. “It’s always about sex.”
“It’s about other things, too,” Jesse said.
He felt as if he were retreating slowly, giving up one position after another, modifying as he went.
“It is always about other things, too,” Dix said.
“So why do I want to know?” Jesse said.
Dix smiled and didn’t say anything.
“For crissake,” Jesse said. “Is this a fucking game where you know and I try to guess?”
“Knowledge is power,” Dix said.
“Power to do what?” Jesse said.
“Participate,” Dix said.
Jesse thought about the surge of fear and anger and desire that filled him almost to overflowing when he thought of her with another man. He knew that the passion, the nearly voyeuristic need to know, had nothing to do with curiosity, and, he realized, nothing to do with disapproval. Dix was right. The penetrating need to be privy was a kind of participation. Not just in the act, but in her life. Not knowing was exclusion. The idea startled him.
“So it’s not just him and her,” Jesse said. “It’s him, her and me.”
“Better than nothing,” Dix said.
“I hate thinking about her with another man.”
Dix nodded.
“And I hate to be excluded,” Jesse said.
Dix nodded again. The two of them sat there in silence.
“A rock and a hard place,” Jesse said.
Dix smiled.
“Enough to drive a man to drink,” he said.
Chapter Forty-four
“Kelly ever get that guy Bobby Doyle to help us out on surveillance?” Simpson asked.
Jesse shook his head.
“Doyle’s got a wife and five kids, Kelly told me. Says he wastes his free time with them.”
Simpson shook his head.
“I hate when that happens,” he said.
Jesse smiled. Across the street and down from where they were parked, Gino’s black Lexus pulled in at the curb. Gino Fish and Vinnie Morris came up the stairs from the office and got in. The car pulled away down Tremont.
Simpson looked at Jesse.
“Aren’t we going after them?”
“No.”
“We’re not?” Simpson said. “What the hell are we sitting here in the heat for?”
“Alan Garner hasn’t come out.”
“So?”
“It’s why we need more people,” Jesse said. “We can either follow Gino or stay with Alan.”
“We haven’t had a lot of luck following Gino,” Simpson said.
Jesse nodded.
“Pretty Boy comes out and walks, I’ll take him on foot,” Jesse said. “You trail in the car, but not close. You lose us, come back here.”
They exchanged places so that Simpson was at the wheel. Suit was wearing a bright, flowered, short-sleeved shirt, the tails of which hung outside his jeans and covered the service pistol on his belt. Jesse wore a white tee shirt. He had a short gun in an ankle holster. Traffic went by with windows up and air-conditioning on high. Ahead of them, three guys in tank tops and yellow helmets, protected by a folding yellow barrier, were in and out of a manhole.
“I wonder if it’s cooler underground,” Simpson said.
“Cellars are usually cooler,” Jesse said.
Alan Garner came up the steps from the Development Associates office and began to walk toward them on the other side of the street.
“Here we go,” Jesse said.
