Maybe he was going to have his war.
30.
They were all there in the garage. Twelve Horn Street Boys, plus Esteban Carty. Amber sat on the floor in the corner with her arms wrapped around her knees. Listening while Esteban spoke.
“Okay,” he said to the Boys, “we got a contract.”
The boys seemed pleased.
“Guy gonna give us ten grand to off a broad in Paradise.”
The boys responded.
“Ten grand?”
“A broad?”
“Muthafuck, man, how easy is that?”
“Easy,” Esteban said.
One of the boys said something in Spanish.
“Knock it off,” Esteban said. “We speak English.”
Amber wondered randomly if that was some sort of self-improvement rule, or was it because Esteban didn’t speak much Spanish. She shrugged mentally. The Horn Street Boys had a lot of rules.
“And here’s a gas,” Esteban said. “Guy paying us is Alice’s father.”
Everyone looked at Amber. She giggled. It was nice that Esteban told them.
“Who’s the broad?” one of the boys said.
“Are you ready for this?” Esteban said.
Amber could see he was excited. She felt excited, too. He pointed at her like a referee calling a foul.
“Alice’s momma,” he said.
Everyone looked at her again. Amber giggled again. One of the boys started clapping, and the others joined in. Amber giggled some more, and hid her face.
“Bye-bye, Momma,” Esteban said.
And the boys took up the chant.
“Bye-bye, Momma! Bye-bye, Momma! Bye-bye, Momma.”
They clapped in rhythm to it and Amber, sitting on the floor, with her face in her hands and her knees up, began to rock back and forth to the chant. After a while she joined in.
“Bye-bye, Momma! Bye-bye, Momma! Bye-bye, Momma!”
31.
“So,” Jesse said. “Where were we?”
“I think you know,” Dix said.
“We were wondering aloud…no, I was wondering aloud…what Jenn’s career meant to her.”
Dix nodded.
“I think my last question was, Do you think her career means redemption to her?”
“That’s how I remember it,” Dix said.
“And you were about to not answer the question,” Jesse said.
Dix smiled.
“I hoped you might have a thought,” he said.
“I have things to redeem,” Jesse said. “But I guess so does she.”
Dix inclined his head.
“She has yet to succeed at a job,” Jesse said.
“Or a relationship,” Dix said.
“Or a relationship,” Jesse said. “We both got an oh-for on relationships.”
“Except with each other,” Dix said.
“This is a good relationship?” Jesse said.
“It’s an enduring one,” Dix said.
Jesse stared at him.
“Well,” Jesse said. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“Why do you think that is?”
Jesse paused.
“Love?” he said.
Dix nodded.
“And why do you think it doesn’t work better?” Dix said.
“Because I’m a mess,” Jesse said.
Dix shook his head almost imperceptibly.
“I’m not a mess?” Jesse said.
“Mess is not a very useful term in my line of work,” Dix said. “But it is not unusual for someone in your circumstances to take on all the blame for those circumstances, not out of guilt but because it gives them the power to change it.”
“So if it’s her fault, there’s nothing I can do about it,” Jesse said. “And if it’s my fault, there is?”
“Again, fault is not a term I like to use,” Dix said. “But just suppose the near-fatal flaw in your relationship resides with her.”
“She’s too career-driven,” Jesse said.
“I would guess,” Dix said, “that her ambition is a symptom, not a condition.”
“A symptom of what?” Jesse said.
“She said to you something to the effect that success might be her way back to you.”
“Yes,” Jesse said.
He felt tense. They were about to see around a corner. He didn’t know what he’d see yet, but he’d worked with Dix long enough to know that Dix, however obliquely, would bring him to it.
“But wasn’t she with you before she began her career?” Dix said.
“Yes.”
“So…”
Dix waited. Jesse sat. After a bit he shook his head.
“Nothing,” Jesse said.
Dix whistled silently to himself, as if he were mulling something.
Then he said, “Jesse, you must know you fill a room.”
Dix rarely used his first name. Jesse was pleased.
“I’m not that big,” he said.
“I’m not talking about physical size,” Dix said. “You are a very powerful person.”
“For a drunk,” Jesse said.
“The alcohol may be a saving grace,” Dix said.
“Because?”
“It dilutes your power a little,” Dix said. “It must be very difficult to be with someone so powerful unless you yourself have power.”
Jesse felt a small click in the center of himself.
“So she has to either increase her own power or decrease mine,” Jesse said.
Dix pointed a forefinger at Jesse and dropped his thumb as if pretending to shoot him.
“Bingo!” Dix said.
32.
It was 3:12 in the morning when Jesse pulled up in front of the Crowne estate on Paradise Neck. There was already a small generator in place and a couple of spotlights hooked to it. Two Paradise cruisers were there, and the Paradise Fire Rescue vehicle. Suit stood with Molly in the driveway. Peter Perkins squatted on his heels, taking pictures of a corpse. Jesse got out of the car.
“Mrs. Franklin,” Molly said, as Jesse walked toward them. “Amber’s mother.”
Jesse nodded. He walked to the body and stood looking down. A lot of blood glistened darkly on the smooth, green lawn beneath her head. Perkins looked up when Jesse arrived and rested his camera on his thigh.
“Shot in the back of the head,” he said from his crouched position. “Can’t tell how many times. Small caliber, I think. No exit wounds.”
“State ME been notified?”
“Yeah. On the way.”
“Any idea how long?” Jesse said.
“That’s the ME’s line of work. Blood’s dry. Body’s kind of stiff.”
Jesse nodded.
“Who found the body?” he said.
“Suit,” Peter Perkins said.
Jesse turned and stared at Simpson, standing with Molly.
“Murder weapon?” Jesse said.
“Haven’t searched yet,” Perkins said. “It’s not under the body.”
Jesse nodded and walked over to Suit and Molly.
“How’d you find the body,” Jesse said.
“I was just cruising by and I saw this form. So I stopped, investigated, and there she was.”
“Cruising by at, what, two-thirty or so in the morning?” Jesse said. “You weren’t on patrol tonight.”
“Not tonight, no,” Suit said. “I do that sometimes, though, just get up in the night and ride around, you know, see what I can see.”
“Just sort of poking into things,” Molly said.
Suit blushed a little. Jesse glanced at Molly. She seemed serene.
“Ever vigilant,” Jesse said.
Neither Suit nor Molly said anything.
“Who was supposed to be sitting on Mrs. Franklin, Moll?” Jesse said.
“Buddy.”
“He arrive yet?”
Molly pointed at the roadway behind Jesse’s car.
“Right now,” she said.
“Okay, whyn’t you see if you can find a clue or something.”