“To what?” Jesse said.
“To you, for crissake, don’t you see that? To you.”
24.
The woman was on the couch with a half-drunk can of beer on the coffee table in front of her. Her head was tilted back against the top of the couch. Her mouth had fallen open. She was snoring gently. Crow sat across the room. If someone opened the door, Crow would be out of sight behind it. At 11:07 the daughter arrived.
“Ma,” she said, and saw her mother slumped on the couch. “Oh, swell,” she said. “Have another beer, Ma.”
She closed the door and saw Crow.
“Shit!” she said.
Crow smiled at her.
“Should I come back later?” the daughter said. “Or did you fuck her already.”
“No need to come back later,” Crow said.
The woman on the couch came awake with a startle.
“Alice?”
“I think Daddy’s found us,” Alice said. “Esteban told me a guy…”
She stopped and looked at Crow.
“You’re the guy.”
“That visited Esteban?”
“Yes.”
“I am,” Crow said.
“You shot Puerco,” Alice said.
“Only once,” Crow said.
“Shot?” the mother said.
“Shut up, Ma,” Alice said. “He works for Daddy.”
Mrs. Franklin frowned, trying to focus.
“He said he wasn’t gonna hurt us,” she said.
“Whaddya gonna do?” Alice said.
“Your old man asked me to kill your mother and bring you back to him.”
“Kill her,” Alice said.
“Yeah.”
“And bring me back?” Alice said.
“Yeah.”
“You gonna do either one?”
Crow shook his head.
“So whaddya gonna do?”
“I don’t know,” Crow said. “You got any suggestions?”
“Whyn’t you go kill Daddy,” she said.
Crow nodded.
“And what would you do then?” he said.
“What I’m gonna do anyway. Move in with Esteban.”
“Not on your life,” her mother said. “I didn’t raise you to slut for no spick gangbanger.”
“You didn’t raise me at all, you fucking drunk,” Alice said. “I go where I want. I want to slut it up with Esteban, you got no say.”
“Don’t you talk to me that way,” her mother said, and struggled to get off the couch.
“You calling me a slut,” Alice said. “There’s a laugh.”
“I rescued you from your father, and you talk to me like this?”
“At least I’m not a fat slut,” Alice said. “I’m outta here.”
She turned and found Crow standing in front of the door.
“Get the fuck out of my way,” she said.
Crow slapped her hard across the face and sent her halfway across the room. She fell back onto the couch beside her mother and began to cry with her face buried in her hands.
“Esteban is going to kill you,” she said. “He’s going to kill you for Puerco, and now, when I tell him, he’ll kill you for me, too.”
Crow took his cell phone out and punched in a number.
After a moment he said, “Chief Stone? Wilson Cromartie. We got a situation down here on Sewall Street.”
25.
Jesse brought Molly with him. They were all together in the living room. Jesse standing by the door. Molly in the opposite corner so Crow wouldn’t be able to shoot them both together. Crow sat on a reversed straight chair, his arms folded across the back. Alice’s face was red from Crow’s slap, and her heavy black eye makeup had run when she cried.
“Can we talk off the record?” Crow said.
“I don’t see why we should,” Jesse said.
“Guy named Louis Francisco,” Crow said. “Lives in Palm Beach. Does business all over South Florida. He’s very, very important in South Florida. Miami, all over. He’s married to this woman, calls herself Frances Franklin, but her real name’s Fiona. Fiona Francisco. Kid here, looks kind of like Alice Cooper, is his daughter. She goes by Alice Franklin around here. But her real name’s Amber Francisco.”
Jesse didn’t comment. He waited, leaning on the wall, his arms folded across his chest. In the opposite corner, Molly was watching both women as Crow talked.
“One day, about three years ago, in the middle of the afternoon, Mrs. Francisco”—Crow nodded toward her—“and the kid disappear. Francisco’s upset. He don’t care too much about Fiona. But he wants the kid.”
Crow paused for a moment, thinking about what he’d say next. No one else said anything.
“So,” Crow said, “think about it. You’re Louis Francisco. You don’t know where your daughter is. And you don’t know who’s got her, or so you say. But you not only want her back but you probably want to get her away from her mother, whom you consider a bad influence.”
“He should talk,” Fiona Francisco said.
No one paid her any attention.
“What do you do?” Crow said. “You probably hire somebody to find her. Now suppose he did, hypothetically, hire somebody. And suppose the guy found them. And he calls Louis and tells him and Louis says kill the mother, bring the girl to me.”
“He would say that,” Fiona said. “The prick.”
“I’m not going back,” Amber Francisco said.
“And here’s the kicker,” Crow said. “This hypothetical guy doesn’t want to do it. He doesn’t want to kill the mother and he doesn’t want to drag the daughter down to Florida.”
“Why?” Jesse said.
“Guy’s got his reasons,” Crow said. “But hypothetically, he’s already annoyed the hell out of the members of a Latino gang in Marshport. And Louis won’t be too thrilled with this hypothetical guy, who took a lot of dough up front from Louis and is now not doing what he was signed up for.”
“So why doesn’t our hypothetical friend tuck his hypothetical ass under him and scoot?” Jesse said.
“Probably wouldn’t be his style,” Crow said.
“And he doesn’t quite want to bail on these women,” Jesse said.
“Something like that,” Crow said. “If he was an actual guy.”
Jesse was nodding his head slowly. Crow waited.
“Okay,” Jesse said. “I can’t stand this hypothetical crap anymore. We’re off the record.”
“Which means?” Crow said.
“Which means I won’t use anything you say against you,” Jesse said.
Crow looked at him for a time.
“Good,” Crow said.
“So you got Louis Francisco on your ass,” Jesse said, “and I assume he has a lot of resources for getting on your ass.”
“He does,” Crow said. “On the other hand, I got kind of a hard ass.”
From across the room, Molly said, “Uh-huh!”
Crow looked at her and grinned.
“And,” Jesse said, “you got a Latino gang on your ass for a reason not yet specified.”
“Correct.”
“And you want me to keep track of these women while you deal with your other problems.”
“Correct.”
Jesse was quiet for a moment.
Then he said, “What’s in this for me?”
“Do the right thing?” Crow said.
Jesse stared at him.
“Crow,” Jesse said, “how many people you killed in your life?”
“It’s bush to count,” Crow said.
“And you think I’ll do it because it’s the right thing to do?”
“Yeah.”
“What makes you so sure.”
“It’s the way you are,” Crow said.
“How the hell do you know the way I am?” Jesse said.
“I know,” Crow said.
Again, a pause.
Then Jesse said, “Yeah, you probably do.”
26.
“I can’t hold them for long,” Jesse said.
He and Crow were in his office. The Francisco women, mother and daughter, were in the squad room with Molly and Suitcase Simpson.
“Part of a criminal conspiracy?” Crow said.
“I don’t think that statute covers the intended victims,” Jesse said.