“Molly told you,” Suit said.
“No,” Jesse said. “She didn’t.”
Suit looked back at the desktop.
“Suit,” Jesse said. “Mostly, I don’t care what you do with your dick when you’re off duty.”
“I know,” Suit said.
“So?”
“So she’s asking me a bunch of questions,” Suit said.
“About?”
“You, the department, the Crown estate deal,” Suit said.
“Like what?”
“Were you a good cop,” Suit said. “Did I think you’d ever take a bribe? Did you have a relationship with Nina Pinero? Was it true you were fired in L.A.? What’s going on with you and Jenn? She wanted to know anything I knew about the murder. Did I think there was any Hispanic involvement?”
“Concerned citizen,” Jesse said.
“I figured you should know.”
Jesse nodded.
“She is very committed to this problem,” he said.
“She is,” Suit said.
“Why?” Jesse said.
“Real-estate values?”
Jesse shrugged.
“Maybe,” he said. “Seems awful important to her.”
“You think there might be something more?”
“Maybe,” Jesse said. “How’s she compare to Mrs. Hathaway?”
Suit reddened again.
“Come on, Jesse.”
“No kiss-and-tell?” Jesse said.
“Or whatever,” Suit said.
“Good boy,” Jesse said.
“Miriam says so, too,” Suit said. “Want me to break it off?”
Jesse shook his head.
“I’d like you to stay with it,” Jesse said.
Suit grinned.
“Undercover, so to speak,” he said.
“So to speak,” Jesse said. “See what else you can learn.”
Suit grinned again.
“Tough dirty work…” Suit said.
Jesse nodded.
“But somebody’s got to do it,” he said.
47.
Romero was driving. Esteban was beside him. Two men from Miami were in the backseat, and Larson was way back in the third seat.
“Cromartie lives someplace called Strawberry Cove,” Romero said.
“In Paradise?” Esteban said.
“Yeah. You know where that is?”
Esteban shook his head. Romero shrugged and reached his hand back over the seat. One of the men from Miami opened a briefcase and took out a sheet of paper. Romero looked at it.
“Off Breaker Avenue,” he said to Esteban. “You know where that is?”
“No,” Esteban said. “How you guys know this?”
“We checked,” Romero said. “You think we just jumped on a plane and come up here to mill around?”
“But how did you check?” Esteban said. “Ain’t it a long way?”
“The town paper prints a summary of the week’s real-estate transactions every Thursday.”
“You can get the Paradise paper over there?” Esteban said.
“We got people to do it for us,” Romero said.
He punched the navigation system that came with the car, and in a moment the directions came up. Esteban stared at it.
“How far you been from Horn Street, kid?” Romero asked.
“I ain’t no kid,” Esteban said. “I’m twenty years old, man.”
“How far you been?”
“Got no reason to go far,” Esteban said. “Got all I need right there. Got my boys. Got pussy, beer, wheeze. Nobody fucks with us. Got no reason to leave.”
“Ever kill anybody, Esteban?” Romero said.
“Hey, man, I just scragged the old lady a little while ago, you know that.”
“Ever kill anybody who could kill you?” Romero said.
“Shit, man, what are you saying? I kill anybody needs to be killed, man. I ain’t scared.”
“You recognize Cromartie if you see him?”
“I’ll recognize the cocksucker.”
“Good,” Romero said. “You see him, you tell me.”
“You gonna kill him?”
“Yes,” Romero said. “We are.”
“You don’t know what he looks like?” Esteban said.
“I do,” Romero said.
“I can show you where little hot pants lives, too,” Esteban said.
“Name’s Amber,” Romero said. “I don’t think Mr. Francisco would like it to have you call her ‘hot pants.’”
“Fuck him,” Esteban said. “I say what I want.”
Romero nodded.
“I don’t much like it, either,” Romero said.
“So fuck you, too,” Esteban said. “You think I’m scared of you?”
From the backseat one of the men from Miami caught Romero’s eye in the rearview mirror and made a shooting gesture with his forefinger and thumb at Esteban. Romero shook his head.
“Well,” Romero said to Esteban, “you probably know what you’re talking about.”
“You got that right, man,” Esteban said. “Hot…Pants! You want to see where she lives?”
“Be easier to take her to Miami,” Romero said, “if we kill Crow first.”
“Sure,” Romero said, and turned left onto Breaker Avenue.
The men in the Escalade had no expectation of being followed, so it was easy enough for Crow to keep them in sight. When they took the turn onto Breaker Avenue, Crow smiled. He knew where they were going. When the Escalade parked in front of his condo, Crow drove on past them and turned left, away from the water, onto a side street a hundred yards up the road, and parked.
It was a condo neighborhood. No kids. Everyone working. The stillness was palpable. Crow got out of the car, walked to the corner of the street, leaned on a tall blue mail-deposit box, and looked back down toward his condo. The five men from the Escalade had gotten out and were standing on the small lawn in front of the four-unit building. Crow’s unit was first floor left. The men spread out as they walked toward the door. Each had a handgun out, holding it inconspicuously down. Pros, Crow thought. Not scared of much. Don’t care if somebody sees them. Nobody home in the neighborhood anyway.
The squat man with the bald head rang Crow’s doorbell. The men waited. The bald man rang again. Then he looked at the tall man with the graying hair. The tall man said something and the bald man stepped back and kicked the door. It gave but not enough. He kicked it again and they were in.
Crow went back to his car, opened the trunk, selected a bolt-action Ruger rifle, and left the trunk ajar. He didn’t check the load. He knew it was loaded. His weapons were always loaded. Crow saw no point to empty guns. Carrying the Ruger, Crow went back to the mailbox and rested the rifle on top of it. There were a couple of late-summer butterflies drifting about. And a dragonfly. Nothing else moved. In perhaps three minutes, the men filed out of Crow’s broken front door. Their handguns were no longer visible. They headed for the Escalade.
Carefully, Crow rested his front elbow on the mailbox and sighted the Ruger in on the bald man. One’s as good as another, Crow thought. Except Romero. Romero was the stud. If he killed Romero the rest of them would go home. He took a breath, let it out, took up the trigger slack, and shot the bald man in the center of his chest. Then he went to his car, put the rifle into the trunk, latched the trunk, got in the front seat, and drove away. Besides, Crow said to himself, he had the ugliest shirt.
In front of the condo the men were crouched behind the Escalade. They had their guns out.
“Anyone see where it came from?” Romero said.
No one had. After a moment, Romero stood and walked to where Larson lay. He squatted and put his hand on Larson’s neck. Then he stood and walked back to the Escalade.
“Let’s go,” he said.
They got in and drove away, leaving Larson quiet on the front lawn.
48.
They were all in the squad room, except Molly, who was with Amber, and Arthur, who was on the desk. There was coffee, and an open box of donuts. Jesse sat at the far end of the conference table.
“We’re all on call now, all the time, until this thing shakes out,” Jesse said. “I’ll try to get you enough sleep. But if I can’t, I can’t.”