“Even though I’m a sexual
athlete?”
“It sounds like Rita wants, excuse the phrase, a relationship” Marcy said.
“And she’s thinks I’m not a good
candidate?”
“You’re not,” Marcy said.
“I know.”
“And she knows.”
Jesse nodded.
“She wants a husband,” Jesse said.
“Or the equivalent,” Marcy said.
“I think she’s had several of those
already.”
“Give her credit,” Marcy said,
“for fierce
optimism.”
“There are women who need a mate, I guess.”
“People,” Marcy said.
“People?”
“Men and women,”
Marcy said, “who feel incomplete
unless they are mated.”
“You’re not one of them,” Jesse
said.
“No. I like sex and I like companionship, but not at the expense
of my freedom or my self.”
Jesse broke off a small piece of orange cranberry muffin and ate
it. When he had swallowed, he said, “Maybe I’m one of
them.”
“Well,” Marcy said.
“You’re an odd case. You’re like me, except
for Jenn. You like sex and companionship, too. But you won’t commit
to a new relationship just to have it. It’s why we get along so
well, neither of us requires commitment from the other.”
Jesse laughed. “Which produces,” he said,
“a kind of commitment
to each other.”
“I suppose so,” Marcy said. “But
not for the same reasons. I am
true to myself. You are true to Jenn.”
“Which may be a way of being true to myself.”
Marcy nodded.
“Or maybe obsessive.”
“There’s that,” Jesse said.
Marcy sipped her coffee, holding the mug in both hands.
“But goddamnit,” she said,
“I’ll give you credit, you are true
to it, whatever the hell it is.”
“Well, the thing is,” Jesse said.
“I love her.”
“That simple,” Marcy said.
Jesse nodded.
“Is there anything Jenn could do that would make you give her
up?” Marcy said.
“She could tell me that she had no further interest in me,”
Jesse said. “If she told me that I’d move on.”
“Which gives her control,” Marcy said.
“I suppose.”
“That doesn’t bother you?”
“I don’t care about stuff like
that,” Jesse said. “I love her.
We’re still connected. I’ll play it out.”
Marcy drank some coffee, and looked at Jesse for a while, and shook her head slowly. Jesse watched her.
“You have given over the crucial decision of your life to
someone else,” Marcy said. “And what’s so odd is that it seems to
be evidence of your autonomy.”
“Autonomy,” Jesse said.
“Don’t be cute. You know what it
means.”
“Sort of.”
“You feel strongly. You trust what you feel. And you proceed
with it.”
“True,” Jesse said.
“It’s the same in your work. You know what you know, and you do
what you do and you plow along doing it.”
“Like a mule,” Jesse said.
“Or a jackass.”
Jesse smiled.
“Same thing,” he said. “More or
less.”
“If you ever work it out with Jenn, will we still be pals?”
“Sure,” Jesse said.
“And fuck buddies?”
Jesse breathed slowly in and slowly out. He looked at Marcy for
a moment. Then he smiled slightly and shook his head.
“Probably not,” he said.
69
Suit and Molly sat at the long table in the conference room.
They were drinking coffee from paper cups. A third cup, with the plastic lid still on it, sat at the head of the table. A box of Dunkin‘ Donuts was open on the table. Suit had his notebook open in
front of him. Molly had a computer printout. Jesse came in, examined the box of donuts for a moment, took one, and sat at the head of the table and took the lid off the coffee. He took a bite of the donut.
“Cinnamon,” he said.
“I know you like them,” Molly said.
“What’re the ones with no hole and
chocolate
frosting?”
“Boston cream,” Molly said.
“Good God,” Jesse said. “What
have you got,
Suit?”
“Okay,” Suit said. He looked at his open notebook.
“First thing. Nobody took a cab to the mall on the day of the
shooting. The two cab rides to the mall were two days earlier and are regulars. Two sisters who live together and go shopping every week.”
“Okay,” Jesse said. “Anyone
picked up at the Lincolns’ condo on
the day of the shooting?”
“No. But the cab company has a log, you know for taxes and shit.
There was a fare went from Paradise to Wonderland on the day of the shooting. I know the cabdriver. Mackie Ward, we played football in high school. Mackie says he picked up a couple who fit our description, down in front of the Chinese restaurant on Atlantic Ave., in the morning on the day of the shooting, and took them to Wonderland.”
“They hail him?”
“No. They called for a cab and asked to be picked up there.”
“Probably a cell phone,” Jesse said.
“Okay. So they take the cab
to Wonderland. They take the train to Logan. Take the bus to one of the terminals. Catch the rental car bus in front of the terminal and go and pick up the rental car.”
“Pretty elaborate,” Molly said.
“They knew if they killed a cop
we’d look for them hard.”
“Too elaborate. It’s what amateurs do.
They would have been much
better off to drive the Saab to the airport, park it at the airport parking garage, pick up the rental car, and drive to the mall. You got anything else?”
“There were two other cab fares to the airport the day of the
shooting,” Suit said. “Both guys, alone.”
“We’ll check everything,” Jesse
said. “But it’ll turn out to be
Wonderland. How’d you make out, Moll?”
Molly finished chewing some donut, and sipped a little coffee.
“Piece of cake,” she said.
“There are thirteen hundred and
twenty-three listings for ocular scanning devices on the Patent Office website.”
“Names?” Jesse said.
“Yes, and cities.”
“Where they live or where they did the invention?”
“Don’t know.”
“Anybody named Lincoln?”
“No.”
“Anybody from Cleveland.”
“Didn’t check by city, yet.”
“Okay.”
Jesse looked at the donuts.
“Boston cream?” he said to Molly.
“You know, like Boston cream pie, except it’s a
donut.”
“And Boston cream pie is a cake, isn’t it?”
“Technically.”
Jesse took a Boston cream donut from the box and put it on a napkin in front of him and looked at it.
“I bet it would be easy to get this all over you,” he
said.
“Easier than you can imagine,” Molly said.
“It may be that only
women can eat them.”
“The neater species,” Jesse said.
“Exactly.”
They were quiet while Jesse took a careful bite of the donut.
He
chewed and swallowed and nodded slowly.
“Good body,” Jesse said, “with a
hint of
insouciance.”
“Insouciance?” Suit said.
“I don’t know what it means
either,” Jesse said. “Suit, you get
hold of Healy. Tell him we need the names of everybody who rented a car the day of the shooting. He’ll have a list.
They’ve already
told me there’s no one named Lincoln.”
“And I’ll see how many ocular scanners are listed from
Cleveland,” Molly said. “It might narrow the cross-referencing.”
“Don’t bother,” Jesse said.