Jesse examined the contents of the doughnut box and selected another cinnamon-sugar.
“Moll?” he said, and offered the box.
“My God,” Molly said. “Keep those away from me, you animal.”
Jesse shrugged and pushed the box toward Suit. Suit took out a honey-dip and bit into it.
“Moll,” Jesse said. “You got the credit-card stuff, the checking accounts, the car registration.”
“Yep,” Molly said. “Let the phone calls begin.”
“Suit, get his license picture and take it around to the local motels,” Jesse said. “Check the parking lots, too, for the car.”
“Molly,” Suit said. “You sure you don’t want another one of these doughnuts? It’s cop food.
You’re a cop. Get a little meat on those hips?”
Molly put her fingers in her ears and squeezed her eyes shut.
“Suit,” Jesse said. “You’re department liaison with the Paradise Free Swingers. They got like a president or anything?”
“Head wife-swapper?” Suit said. “I don’t know. I could ask Debbie.”
“Do that,” Jesse said.
“And if they do?”
“I’d like to gather them together and talk with them,” Jesse said.
“And if they don’t?” Suit said.
Jesse grinned.
“I’d like to gather them together and talk with them,” Jesse said.
“Sort of limits my options,” Suit said.
Jesse nodded.
“You want all of them?” Suit said.
“Just the women,” Jesse said.
Suit smiled.
“Can I be there?” he said.
“Probably be Molly,” Jesse said. “She makes the women less uneasy.”
“Sure, go ahead,” Suit said, “eat my doughnuts, but when I need a favor . . .”
Molly grinned at Suit.
“I’ll tell you what they talked about,” Molly said. “It will be almost the same.”
“The hell it will,” Suit said.
59
JENN’S VOICE on the answering machine said, “Jesse. It’s me. I know you’re probably still working, but I needed to talk.”
Jesse drank some from his first drink of the night.
“The program is struggling. Syndication isn’t going as well as we’d hoped. They’re talking about restructuring, and it could mean that there’d be no job for me.”
Jesse sighed aloud in the empty living room. He took another swallow of whiskey.
“I’m scared, Jesse. I don’t know what to do. I need to talk to you. I . . . I guess I need you. .
. . Call me.”
Jesse stared into his drink. Ice always had a nice, fresh look to it. Clean-looking. He finished the glass and made another. Full glass of ice. Two inches of scotch. Fill with soda. Stir with forefinger.
“Boyfriend must have bailed on her,” Jesse said aloud.
Carrying his drink, he walked into the kitchen and looked into his refrigerator. Not much.
Maybe later he’d fry a couple of eggs, make a sandwich. Maybe some onions. He took his drink back to the living room and sat down.
“And I’m the safety net,” he said.
He laughed without pleasure and drank some whiskey.
“Backup,” he said.
He laughed again and drank again.
“A career backup,” he said.
He looked at his drink.
“It’s going good,” he said. “I’m on the bench. It’s going bad, she calls. I rescue her.”
He drank.
