“Can I be on another task force?” he said.
“Nope,” Jesse said. “You’re stuck with her.”
Suit nodded.
“So what’s the plan?” he said.
“You guys are assigned to this full-time. I know you got lives to live as well,” Jesse said,
“especially you, Moll. But I’d like as much surveillance on Seth as you can do. And if he spots you, no harm to it. Just cranks the pressure a little.”
They both nodded.
“And,” Jesse said, “I’ll start asking about him. Interview the wife, their swinger friends, academic colleagues . . . him.”
“That ought to squeeze his ’nads a little,” Suit said.
“Isn’t that sweet,” Molly said. “My task force partner. ‘Squeeze his ’nads a little.’ ”
“Short for gonads,” Suit said.
“I know what it’s short for,” Molly said.
“So?” Suit said. “Your point?”
“Oh, God,” Molly said.
39
“I THINK I have a lead on the home invader,” Jesse said when he sat down in Dix’s office.
“That’s what you’re supposed to do,” Dix said.
“Get a lead on the home invader?”
“Yeah,” Dix said. “You’re a cop. It’s your job.”
“So?”
“So it’s not my job,” Dix said.
“Which means what?”
“Which means for the last several weeks you’ve been busy telling me about the cases you’re working on.”
“You’ve been helpful,” Jesse said.
“And nothing about the case I’m working on,” Dix said.
“Which is me,” Jesse said.
“Yes.”
“Being a skilled investigator,” Jesse said, “I conclude that you want to talk about me.”
“That’s another thing you’ve been doing,” Dix said. “You kid about it.”
“About what?”
“About whatever it is,” Dix said, “that you don’t want to talk to me about.”
“And kidding is a clue to that?”
“It is,” Dix said. “It’s a distancing technique.”
Jesse was quiet. He looked around the office.
“Jenn went to New York,” Jesse said.
Dix sat back in his chair, clasped his hands in front of his mouth and waited, looking directly at Jesse.
“She got a job on a syndicated morning show, and she’s bunking with the producer till she finds her own place,” Jesse said.
“The producer is male?” Dix said.
“Yep,” Jesse said. “I suppose it would be cynical to suggest that she might have been bunking with him before she got the job.”
“Or it may be simply learning from experience,” Dix said.
“It’s her M.O.,” Jesse said.
Dix nodded. Jesse shook his head.
“I don’t know,” Jesse said.
Dix waited.
“I love her,” Jesse said.
Dix nodded.
“And,” Jesse said, “she loves me . . . or at least she hangs on to me.”
Dix nodded again. He had an attitudinal mode sometimes that encouraged you to follow a subject in the direction you had taken. He had another one that let you know he thought you were going the wrong way. This time Jesse knew he should pursue this topic.
“Could she hang on to me for a reason other than love?” Jesse said.
Dix raised his eyebrows slightly.
“Why would she?” Jesse said.
They were both silent. Then Jesse could see Dix decide to prime the pump.
“Think about her life,” Dix said. “She has some talent, but as you said, her M.O. is to sleep with men who can advance her career.”
Jesse nodded.
“So that her life may seem to her to be in the control of others,” Dix said.
Jesse nodded.
“In an out-of-control life,” Dix said, “what stability is there? What can she count on?”
Jesse was silent for a moment.
Then he said, “Me.”
Dix nodded firmly.
“She could have that. Hell, when we were married she did have that,” Jesse said.
Dix nodded.
“Hell, she could have that now if she’d stay with me,” Jesse said.
“But she chooses not to,” Dix said.
“Or can’t choose otherwise,” Jesse said.
Dix nodded.
“I’m not enough,” Jesse said.
“Apparently not,” Dix said.
“So we’re saying that because I love her and she can count on me, she’s free to fuck her way to success,” Jesse said.
Dix smiled faintly and nodded again.
“How’s that working out for both of you?” Dix said.
Jesse leaned back in his chair and stretched his legs out in front of him.
“The Night Hawk,” Jesse said, “writes me these letters, and when you read them they sound like they’re about two people. Him and his obsession. It’s like the obsession needs him to do things to satisfy it, and he does them, and it doesn’t satisfy the obsession . . . and it fucks up his life.”
“Do I hear an analogy being drawn?” Dix said.
“Doing what the obsession wants,” Jesse said, “like, makes it more obsessive.”
“Sometimes,” Dix said.
“So enough is never enough.”
“Never,” Dix said.
“Drinking water makes you thirsty.”
“Yes,” Dix said.
Jesse put his hands behind his head as he leaned back.
“What a great arrangement,” he said.
Dix smiled.
“God is undoubtedly an ironist,” he said.
“Now what the fuck do I do?” Jesse said.
“Be good to catch the Night Hawk,” Dix said.
40
JESSE INTERVIEWED Hannah Wechsler in her office at Taft University. She shared the room with five other teaching assistants, all of whom were scruffy. Hannah was not. She was dressed appropriately enough in an ankle-length dress and sandals, but it had the look of contrivance. Her hair was too well groomed. Her makeup was too good. She was manicured and pedicured, and her teeth were very white.
“Is Seth okay?” she said when Jesse introduced himself.
“He’s fine,” Jesse said. “It’s another case we’re working on, and we hoped maybe you could help us.”
There were three other teaching assistants in the office. They all looked at Jesse with automatic hostility. Philosophically, they were grimly in favor of the working man. In fact, of course, plumbers made them uncomfortable, and they viewed cops with suspicion.
“May I buy you some coffee?” Jesse said.
“Sure,” Hannah said, “the café in the student union.”
It was a short walk to the student union, a short wait for the coffee, and a short search to find a table for two.
“What’s this case you’re working on, Chief Stone,” Hannah said. “Is it the creepy guy that takes pictures?”
“Call me Jesse.”
“And I’m Hannah,” she said. “Is it him?”
“In fact, it is,” Jesse said.
“Have you seen the pictures?” she said.
“I have.”
“And they’re really naked?” Hannah said.
“Yes.”
“Wow,” she said. “I wonder what that’s like.”
“To be forced to pose naked?” Jesse said.
“Yeah,” Hannah said. “That, and knowing that a bunch of cops and people you don’t even know are looking at you naked.”
“Not too many cops,” Jesse said.
“You’re trying to protect them,” Hannah said.
“No need to humiliate them,” Jesse said, “more than is required.”
“You think they’re humiliated?” Hannah said.
“Wouldn’t you be?”
“Be humiliated?” Hannah said. “No, actually, I think I’d find it kind of exciting.”
“Really,” Jesse said.
“I know, I know. I’m not supposed to think things like that,” Hannah said. “But I do, all right?”
“Okay with me,” Jesse said.
“Lot of women like to be looked at,” Hannah said. “If they’d just admit it.”
“You think any of these women might?”
“If they are not ashamed of their bodies,” Hannah said. “Are able to be genuinely in touch with their own sexuality.”
“You bet,” Jesse said.