44.
Four men wearing flowered shirts flew up from Miami on Delta. They picked up a Cadillac Escalade from a rental agency, drove to a motel on Marshport Road, and registered, two in a room. A half-hour after they arrived, an Asian man came to the door of one of the rooms with a big shopping bag that said Cathay Gardens on it.
One of the men from Miami opened the door. He was tall and straight and had salt-and-pepper hair.
“Mr. Romero?” said the man with the Cathay Gardens bag.
“Yes.”
The delivery man held out the bag. Romero took it, gave him a hundred-dollar bill, and closed the door. Romero’s roommate was a squat bald man named Larson.
“What did we get?” Larson said.
Romero took the bag to the bed and opened it. He took out some cartons of Chinese food, four semiautomatic pistols, and four boxes of ammunition. Romero checked. All the guns were loaded. Larson opened one of the cartons.
“May as well eat the food,” he said.
At 4:40 in the afternoon, the four men from Miami parked the Escalade at the head of Horn Street and got out. Parked a half-block away, on the corner of Nelson Boulevard, Crow watched them go down the alley. He smiled.
Didn’t take long, he thought.
At 12A Horn Street, Romero knocked on the door. Esteban answered.
“You Carty?” Romero said.
“Yes.”
“So where’s the girl?” Romero said.
“You from Mr. Francisco?” Esteban said.
Romero nodded.
“He wants to know about the girl,” Romero said.
Esteban jerked his head and stepped aside and the four men went in. There were half a dozen Horn Street Boys inside. The four men from Miami ignored them.
“I was just about to bring her over there,” Esteban said.
“Over where?”
“To Florida,” Esteban said. “And she run off.”
“Where’d she go?”
“I don’t know. Paradise, maybe,” Esteban said. “That’s where she lived with her old lady.”
“Next town,” Romero said.
“Yeah,” Esteban said. “I didn’t think she’d run off.”
“But she did,” Romero said.
“I did a good job on the old lady, didn’t I?” Esteban said.
“And you got paid,” Romero said. “Now we want the girl.”
“I can take you over there,” Esteban said. “Show you where she lived with her old lady.”
Romero nodded.
“How about a guy named Cromartie, calls himself Crow?” Romero said.
“That sonovabitch,” Esteban said.
“He in Paradise, too, you think?”
“Yeah, man,” Esteban said. “He’s there. Maybe got the girl, too. Okay with me you take the girl. But not Crow. I want him for myself.”
Romero smiled.
“You think you can handle him?” Romero said.
“He killed one of us,” Esteban said. “You kill a Horn Street Boy, you got to kill them all.”
Romero shrugged.
“I don’t care who kills him as long as somebody does. Mr. Francisco wants him dead.”
“He pay somebody to do it?” Esteban said.
“You think we’re up here for the hell of it?” Romero said.
“Maybe I get there first, I get the ten thousand.”
“Ten thousand,” Romero said.
“That’s what I got for the old lady,” Esteban said.
Romero nodded.
“That’s what I was going to get for the girl,” Esteban said. “Maybe still will, I get there first.”
“Twenty grand,” Romero said. “Set for life.”
“You gotta problem with that?” Esteban said.
“I got a problem,” Romero said, “you’ll be the first to know.”
“I got a right to that money,” Esteban said.
Romero looked at him for a moment, then he shook his head and turned and went out. The other three men from Miami followed him.
45.
Jesse sat in his living room with Amber and Jenn. Jesse had scotch. Jenn had a glass of wine. Amber was drinking coffee. She was wearing the same clothes she’d come to the jail in, and the same tear-streaked eye makeup.
“I can drink booze,” Amber said.
“Not with me,” Jesse said.
Amber was looking around the condo.
“How long I gotta stay here?” she said.
“You don’t have to stay here at all,” Jesse said. “You can leave right now…but where you gonna go?”
“I could find someone to stay with,” Amber said.
“You have someone to stay with,” Jesse said.
“You?”
“Me.”
“Why’s she here,” Amber said.
“Jenn and I used to be married,” Jesse said. “She’s come to help me with you.”
“Why do you need help with me?” Amber said.
“Because you’re a fourteen-year-old girl and there needs to be a woman here, too,” Jesse said.
“Oh, man, are you drab.”
“Drab,” Jesse said.
“Who cares about who stays with who. Man, try being free, you know? Jesus.”
“Jenn is a television reporter,” Jesse said. “She’s doing this in hopes of a story.”
“Story about what,” Amber said.
“About you,” Jenn said. “And your parents. And the Horn Street Boys. And maybe the Crown estates project…like that.”
“What the hell kind of story is that?” Amber said.
“We’ll see,” Jenn said. “I had some vacation time coming and the station gave me a couple weeks to see if there was a story.”
“So am I gonna be on TV?” Amber said.
“We’ll see,” Jenn said.
“I don’t want to go to my father,” Amber said.
“Okay,” Jesse said.
“And I don’t want to go back to Esteban, the lying fuck.”
“Okay there, too,” Jesse said. “I’ve been talking to a friend who’s a lawyer, and she’s going to put me in touch with specialists in child custody and placement.”
“Child custody? I’m not in fucking child custody,” Amber said.
“Officer Molly Crane will be with you and Jenn much of the day,” Jesse said to Amber. “I will be with you most of the rest of the time. Occasionally, one of the other cops may fill in. There will always be a police officer with you.”
“So my old man won’t get me,” she said. “Or Esteban.”
“Or anyone else,” Jesse said.
“What about Crow?” Amber said.
“What about him?”
“Is he gonna be around?”
“Crow pretty much does what he wants to,” Jesse said. “If I see him, I’ll ask him.”
“So what am I supposed to do all day while you’re all watching me?”
“What would you like to do?” Jesse said.
“I don’t know.”
“There’s a start,” Jesse said. “How about taking a shower?”
“Here?”
“Yes.”
“I got no clean clothes,” Amber said.
“Tomorrow you and Jenn and Molly can go buy some. Meanwhile, you can wear one of my shirts for a nightie.”
“What should I do with my other clothes?”
“We could burn them in the fireplace,” Jesse said.
“Throw them out of the bathroom,” Jenn said. “I’ll put them through the washer.”
“Another thing we have to consider,” Jesse said. “Jenn will be in my bedroom. Amber will be in the guest room. I will be on the couch. There is one bathroom.”
“So?” Amber said.
“So keep it in mind,” Jesse said.
“How come you and her don’t sleep together?” Amber said.
“Too drab,” Jesse said.
46.
Suitcase Simpson came into Jesse’s office and closed the door and sat down in a chair facing Jesse. His face was red, and he seemed to be looking steadily at the top of Jesse’s desk.
Jesse waited.
Suit didn’t say anything.
Jesse waited.
“I’m having sex with an older woman,” Suit said.
“Miriam Fiedler,” Jesse said.
Suit raised his eyes.
“How’d you know that?” he said.
Jesse shrugged.
“I’m the chief of police,” Jesse said.