“No, we share,” Jenn said.
“Helps with the rent,” Jesse said.
He took another drink, carefully.
“Yes,” Jenn said.
Jesse didn’t say anything.
“Well, actually,” Jenn said, “I guess he pays the rent.”
Jesse finished his drink.
“Helps quite a bit with the rent,” Jesse said.
Jesse considered whether he could make another drink without Jenn’s knowing.
“I’m trying to be honest with you, Jesse,” she said. “Please don’t make it harder for me.”
“Sure,” Jesse said.
“We’ve always been honest with each other,” Jenn said.
“Actually,” Jesse said, “we haven’t.”
“Well, it’s not too late to start,” Jenn said.
“Nope,” Jesse said.
He stood and walked to the bar, took a handful of ice from the bucket, and put it in his glass.
“Are you drinking?” Jenn said.
“You bet,” Jesse said.
He broke the phone connection and shut off the answering machine. Then he put more ice in the glass, added some scotch to his usual level, and filled the glass with soda. The phone didn’t ring again. He took a long pull on the drink and sat on a bar stool and looked at Ozzie’s picture. He nodded to himself. He could never have been Ozzie, but he could have made the show. Whenever he looked at Ozzie’s picture he remembered. Playing at Pueblo. The three-hopper to the right side. The runner coming down from first. The second baseman’s feed, a little high, as Jesse covered second. The takeout slide was a clean one, but it caught him as he was reaching for the throw and trying to stay with the bag. He flipped. He landed on his right shoulder. He hung on to the ball, but they missed the double play, and his shoulder was broken. It was his last professional game. He stood and walked to his French doors and stared out at the harbor. He had no claim on Jenn. They were divorced. He slept with other women. She slept with other men. She started it. They were still married when she started it.
Jesse took in more scotch. That was then. This is now. It all seemed a downward spiral. He was going to be a big-league shortstop, and then he wasn’t. He was a detective in Robbery Homicide in Los Angeles. Then he wasn’t. He was married to Jenn. Then he wasn’t. He finished his drink and went back to the bar and made another one. He gestured with the full glass at the picture.
“You and me, Wizard,” he said.
Now he was a small-town cop in the far corner of the country, drinking alone at night and talking to a fucking baseball poster. He took his glass to his chair and sat and looked at the phone. No need to turn the answering machine off, she wasn’t calling back anyway. He reached over and turned it on. He looked around the empty room and took a drink.
“After this, what?” he said aloud in the empty room.
He sat and thought about what he’d said, and nodded his head slowly, and smiled faintly to himself.
“Nothing,” he said. “Nothing at all.”
27
MOLLY HAD patched the desk phone into the conference room, and everyone but Arthur Angstrom and Buddy Hall was in there.
“We’ve had two more home invasions,” Jesse said. “Three so far. Pretty much the same M.O. Women home alone in the daytime. Man comes in with a mask and a gun, forces them to disrobe, takes their picture, makes them lie facedown and count to a hundred, and disappears.”
“He dress the same?” Suit said.
“Black pants, black windbreaker,” Jesse said. “Ski mask. Baseball hat, probably Yankees.
The women aren’t sure.”
“Nobody in the neighborhood noticed anything?” Maguire said.
“Nope,” Jesse said. “Not that many people around. Most people’s husbands and wives both work. Kids are in school.”
“Do we know if he was in a car or on foot?” Suit said.
“Nope.”
“He dresses like our peeper,” Molly said. “Think it might be him.”
“They don’t usually escalate like that,” Suit said.
Jesse looked at him.
“I been reading up,” Suit said.
He had a yellow legal pad on the table in front of him, and a ballpoint pen. Jesse nodded and went to the big pot on the file cabinet and got some coffee. There was a box of doughnuts on the table. He took one.
“Any thoughts?” he said.
He took a bite of the doughnut, leaning forward so he wouldn’t get cinnamon sugar on his shirt front.
