“Why?” Garner said.
“Why what?” Jesse said.
“Why are you asking about Gino?”
Jesse took a small notebook from his pocket and thumbed through the pages for a moment.
“You used to live in Brighton?” Jesse said.
“Yes.”
“Market Street?”
“Yes. But I moved last year.”
“In with Gino,” Jesse said.
“Yes. There something wrong with that?”
“You remember your phone number in Brighton?”
“Five six… something.”
Jesse read it to him.
“Could be it,” Garner said. “You know how many numbers you have these days.”
Jesse read another number. “How about that one?” he said.
“You must have checked that. It’s my number at work.”
“In Gino’s office,” Jesse said.
“Yes.”
Again they were silent. The diet Sprite bottle was empty. Garner looked at the door.
The poor bastard, Jesse thought. He came in here, feeling good, going to have a nice piece of pizza, and now he’s fucked and he knows it.
The silence got longer.
Finally Garner said, “What do you want?”
“We want to know what happened to Billie Bishop,” Jesse said.
“I don’t know anything about that.”
Jesse looked at Kelly. Kelly sighed.
“Here’s what we got,” Kelly said. “We got you for procuring. We got you for living off the earnings of a prostitute. We got you for contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Probably several minors.”
Garner shook his head slowly as Kelly spoke.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.
“We got a statement from Dawn Davis. We got a statement from T. P. Pollinger. We have your ass,” Kelly said.
“I want a lawyer,” Garner said.
“Sure,” Kelly said. “As soon as we arrest you.”
“Maybe we can work something out,” Jesse said.
“Work out my ass,” Kelly said.
“Maybe he can help us,” Jesse said.
“Fuck him,” Kelly said.
“I want to know who killed Billie Bishop,” Jesse said.
“I don’t know,” Garner said. “I honest to God don’t know.”
“Maybe you killed her,” Kelly said.
“No.”
“Maybe we could hang it on you anyway,” Kelly said.
“No.”
“Maybe,” Jesse said, “what we need to do is to discuss this with Gino.”
“Gino?” Garner said.
“Sure. Since you were using his phone number, I figure you were doing it for him.”
“Gino’s got nothing to do with this.”
“Really? You mean he doesn’t know you’re running an escort service for pedophiles out of his office?” Jesse said.
“Gino has nothing to do with this,” Garner said.
