“First,” Jesse said, “let’s see if it works.”
“You’re gonna have to explain this to a lot of people whether it works or not,” Peter Perkins said. “We’re all just obeying orders. But you’re in charge.”
“Glad you noticed,” Jesse said.
“Healy ain’t gonna like it,” Perkins said.
“Maybe I’ll get lucky,” Jesse said. “Maybe somebody will shoot me.”
70.
It was 6:15 in the morning, still raining as it had yesterday. Not a downpour but steady. Drinking coffee, Crow was putting on a Kevlar vest in a van at the construction site at the start of the causeway. Peter Perkins had slipped the radio into his hip pocket and was running the microphone and earpiece wires. When that was done, Crow strapped on two .40-caliber semiautomatic handguns below the vest, and slipped into a hooded sweatshirt. The microphone was clipped inside the neck, and the hood concealed the earphone.
Paul Murphy came into the van wearing work clothes. He poured some coffee for himself.
“There’s a crack in the seawall,” he said, “on the ocean side. I put a tenpenny nail in there and hung the dummy on it, just below the top of the wall.”
Crow nodded, and drank some coffee.
“The timing is everything here,” Jesse said. “You can’t have Amber up there with you too soon, or Esteban may not shoot. On the other hand, she’s got to be up there in time for the old man to see her getting shot at.”
Crow nodded. He was impassive as he always seemed, but Jesse thought there was a ripple of electricity beneath the surface.
“Esteban’s got to pass this site to get out on the Neck. When he does we’ll know it.”
“State cops?” Crow said.
“Sitting tight in the parking lot of the post office,” Jesse said. “’Bout four blocks that way.”
“People at the other end?”
“Yep.”
Crow nodded, flexing his hands a little.
“You nervous?” Jesse said.
Crow shook his head.
“I like to go over it,” Crow said. “Like foreplay, you know?”
“I’ve always thought about foreplay differently,” Jesse said.
Crow shrugged.
“Romero will be with Francisco,” Crow said. “He’s the stud. If somebody needs to get shot down, shoot him first.”
“You know him?”
Crow shrugged.
“We move in the same circles,” he said. “Rest of them will just be routine gunnies.”
The back door of the van was open. Crow looked out at the rain.
“Guess it doesn’t make so much difference where the sun’s coming from,” he said.
“Rain’ll take care of that,” Jesse said.
Crow nodded. He took a deep breath of the wet, salt-tinged air.
“Rain’s good,” he said. “Rain, early morning, hot coffee, and a firefight coming.”
He grinned and nodded his head.
“Only thing missing is sex,” he said.
“We pull this off,” Jesse said, “you get to keep the dummy.”
71.
At seven minutes past ten a new Nissan Quest picked its way through the narrowed construction lane.
In the van, Crow said, “That’s Esteban driving.”
“Let the van through,” Jesse said on the radio. And Buddy Hall waved it on. It drove on across the causeway and disappeared around the bend.
“Peter,” Jesse said into the radio, “a maroon Nissan Quest.”
“Got it,” Peter Perkins said. “It just U-turned and parked near the causeway.”
Into the radio Jesse said, “Corporal Jenks? You standing by?”
“We’re here,” Jenks said.
At 10:23 Steve Friedman said on the radio, “Two Lincoln Town Cars coming down Beach Street. Right plate numbers.”
“Okay,” Jesse said. “Buddy, you hold them at the barrier. First in line.”
“Roger,” Buddy said.
“Murph,” Jesse said. “Pull the backhoe in front of the van.”
“Okay,” Paul Murphy’s voice came over the radio.
The backhoe edged in front of the van. Jesse looked at Crow. Crow looked back. Jesse nodded once. Crow nodded back. Then, shielded from the street by the backhoe, Crow stepped out of the van and started out along the causeway with his hood up against the rain. It was 10:26. The first of the two Lincolns pulled to a stop at the barrier just out of sight of the causeway. The passenger-side window went down.
“What’s the holdup, Officer?” Francisco said.
“Just a minute, sir,” Buddy said. “Gotta clear the other end. You’ll be on your way in a jiffy.”
At 10:28 Crow was leaning on the seawall at the spot where the Amber dummy had been concealed on the other side. The rain made everything slightly murky.
“Jesse,” a voice said on the radio, “Peter Perkins on the Neck. A guy got out of the Quest and walked down to the bend where he could see the causeway. He’s coming back now, walking fast…. He’s getting in the van. They’ve left the slider open on the driver’s-side backseat.”
“You hear this, Crow?” Jesse said.
Crow’s voice was muffled a little because the mike was inside the sweatshirt.
“Got it,” he said.
“Van’s under way,” Perkins said.
Jesse looked at his watch.
“Get ready, Buddy,” he said into the mike. “Seven seconds, six, five, four, three, two, one, send the Lincoln.”
Buddy Hall stepped aside and waved the two Lincolns onto the causeway. Jesse jumped from the van and sprinted to his car parked in the beach parking lot right at the causeway. He could make Crow out through the rain, leaning against the seawall. The Quest was almost there. Suddenly Crow rolled up and over the seawall and Jesse heard the boom of a shotgun. Boom, boom, boom, in rapid sequence. Christ, he thought, a street sweeper. Boom, boom, boom. No sign of Crow. Then there was a flash of color at the seawall, and what seemed to be the body of a young woman appeared above the seawall and fell forward onto the causeway. Jesse put the car in gear and headed toward the scene. In front of him the two Lincolns spun sideways in the road and men with guns were out of both cars, shooting. Jesse turned on his lights and siren. Steve and Bobby behind him did the same, and from the Neck end of the causeway came Eddie Cox and John Maguire and Peter Perkins with the lights flashing and the sirens wailing.
In Jesse’s earphone Corporal Jenks said, “Jesse, you need us?”
“Block the causeway by the beach,” Jesse said. “And hold there. Nobody on or off.”
“Roger.”
Jesse got to the shoot-out first. The patrol cars from both ends of the causeway arrived right after he did at the shooting scene and swerved sideways to block the causeway. Jesse got out of his car, shielded by the open door. He had a shotgun. Most of the shooting stopped when the police arrived. Except the man with the street sweeper. From the van, the street sweeper kept firing toward the seawall. A tall, straight-backed man with salt-and-pepper hair walked from behind the lead Lincoln to the Quest, as if he was taking a walk in the rain. He fired through the open side door of the Quest with a handgun. After a moment a shotgun with a big round drum came rattling out onto the street. Behind it came the shooter, who fell beside the gun onto the street and didn’t move. The Paradise police ranged on both sides of the shoot-out, standing with shotguns, behind the cars. At the mainland end of the causeway, State Police cars blocked the road.
“Police,” Jesse said. “Everybody freeze.”
The tall, straight man looked at the scene, and without expression dropped his handgun. The other men followed his lead. Jesse walked to the tall man.
“You Romero?” Jesse said.
“Yeah.”
“I’m Jesse Stone.”
“I know who you are,” Romero said.
“You know him?” Jesse said, looking down at the dead man in the street.
“Esteban Carty,” Romero said to Jesse.
“No loss,” Jesse said. “You are all under arrest. Please place your hands on top of the car nearest you and back away with your legs spread.” Jesse smiled slightly. “I bet most of you know how it’s done.”