“Like the song,” she’d said. “You know, ‘Two tickets to Paradise...’”
But he didn’t know. Maybe he did, once.
She said you can’t get there from here. He wondered what that meant. It kept going around and around in his head until he wanted to tear the words out of his brain. That’s when he ran outside, out of the bus terminal and into the New York City night.
It was good that he ran. All the headlights, neon lights, traffic lights, all the blaring horns, all the people pushing, the aroma of chestnuts burning on hot charcoals, all of it took the words out of his head and the panic out of him. It was like that. One minute his head was full to exploding and the next it was empty. One minute he was back in country. The next he wasn’t. He even managed a smile at a little brown girl who stared at him with happy eyes. The smile didn’t last. Nothing lasted. He caught a whiff of something heartbreaking and familiar, the scent of grilling lamb. It sent him running again, this time far away as fast as his wrecked legs would move him.
To calm himself as he ran, he tried to count how many buses he’d taken, how many rides he’d hitched just to get this far. A guy at the motel had let him catch a ride from Diablito to Tucson. From Tucson, he’d taken a bus to El Paso. He’d hitched a few rides from El Paso to San Antonio. Then there was that blackout period where he couldn’t remember anything, but somehow he’d woken up on a sewer grate in a little town in the Missouri Ozarks. He’d hitched from there to Saint Louis. In Saint Louis, he spent a day begging for money on the street and bought a bus ticket for New York City. He couldn’t recall why he hadn’t just bought a through ticket to Boston. But all that was in a jumble of yesterdays. By the time his legs hurt so much they wouldn’t move anymore, he found himself at a river. He sat down on a bench, gazing out at the lights across the way and letting their broken reflections on the black water hypnotize him. He felt his eyes close.
He was so very cold and felt something hard against his face. Then he felt something else: a hand on him, more than one hand. Hands were pulling at him. One reached into his back pocket and pulled at the bus ticket to Boston. The last thing he remembered was reaching his own hand back and grabbing hold of the wrist of the hand in his pocket. When he came back into his body he was on his back on the concrete. He had a man’s forearm clamped between his. His legs were draped across the man’s chest and the man was screaming in pain, writhing in pain. An arm bar. He released the man’s forearm, but the damage had been done. When he let go he could feel the broken bones. He jumped to his feet, alive with adrenaline, and assumed fighting position. There was no need. The fight was over. Three men, including the man with the broken arm, were on the ground near the bench. One was unconscious. The other one’s face was a mess of blood. He was holding his hand on his broken nose and choking for air.
Then he noticed the flashing lights. Heard the low, electronic whoop whoop of the siren, the screech of tires and brakes. More important, he heard the slide of a nine-millimeter as someone at his back racked a bullet into the chamber.
“On your knees, motherfucker. Hands above your head. On your knees now!”
He did as he was told. At least, he thought, I won’t be cold anymore tonight.
58
Dix stared at Jesse not unlike the way Tamara Elkin had stared at him the night before.
“Jenn called last night.”
Dix asked, “Before or after you called to make this appointment?”
“After.”
“Then she’s not why you’re here.”
“What does that matter? She called.”
“And?”
“And it was the same old thing. She called pretending she was concerned about me, with what’s going on in Paradise with the murders.”
“Don’t you believe her?”
“Do I think she’s concerned? Maybe. Sure. But is that why she called? No, probably not.”
“Then why did she call?”
“I don’t know. Her job isn’t working out or her most recent boyfriend is about to dump her or she saw a line on her face that wasn’t there the day before. Take your pick,” Jesse said.
“Not my job. But you apparently understand Jenn very well.”
“We worked it out in here. You know how she is. She needs me when things are broken. Then when things get fixed, she doesn’t.”
“Were you tempted to fix whatever was broken this time?” Dix asked.
“Not really, but I did stay on the phone with her for twenty minutes without getting anywhere.”
“You sound angry about that.”
“There was another woman with me when Jenn called.”
Dix nodded.
“I hate when you do that,” Jesse said.
Dix kept nodding. “What happened?”
“First she retreated, then she basically left without saying a word.”
“Who’s responsible for that?”
“Me.”
“Is the damage irreparable, do you think?”
“Probably not.”
“Then why are we talking about this?” Dix said.
“Weren’t you listening?”
“Look, Jesse, your ex called. It took a lot of hard work on your part to figure out the patterns that kept you and Jenn locked together in a very unhealthy emotional pas de deux. You parted ways, but none of that means either of you stopped caring or that parts of you still don’t hunger for the old comfort you found with each other. It seems to me you get it. You see Jenn for who she is and for what she wants. You say the damage between you and this other woman is fixable. So let me ask you again, why are we talking about this?”
“Because I don’t want to talk about Suit.”
“The cop who got shot last spring.”
Jesse nodded. Then sat silently, staring at anything but at Dix. After a few minutes of that, he said, “It’s almost time for him to get back on the street.”
“And?”
“And I’m scared for him.”
“Why?”
“Because the last time he was on the street he was two inches away from being killed. And I’m not joking about the two inches. An inch this way or that and he’d be dead.”
“I point this out only as a matter of discussion, Jesse, but you’ve had other cops die under your command previous to this and I don’t recall you reacting this way. What do you think that means?”
“Those other cops weren’t Suit.”
Dix nodded. “What’s special about Suit?”
“I don’t know.”
“Of course you do. You’ve spoken about him in here many times.”
“I have? I guess I must have mentioned him.”
Dix smiled. “I can tell you a lot about Luther ‘Suitcase’ Simpson, Jesse, but it will do you no good for me to tell you. What’s special about Suit?”
“He wants to be a good cop so bad.”
“Is he bad at his job?”
“He’s fine for where he is.”
“For Paradise, you mean?”
“He’s good with people and he can handle himself in a fight.”
“But...”
“He couldn’t make it on a big-city force. He’d get eaten alive. You know what it’s like. What you have to deal with.”
“I do. Not everybody can handle it. But it’s more than that.”
“I’ve tried to coach him up. I’ve encouraged him. Tried to get him to take the initiative.”
Dix said, “And has he taken the initiative?”
“It’s what nearly got him killed.”
“Do you blame yourself?”
Silence, a long silence. Then, “He was trying to impress me.”
“Why would he want to impress you?”