Trouble in Paradise js-2 Page 6

She was wearing a very simple black dress with thin straps, which seemed to whisper engagingly over her body when she moved. Jesse could tell she worked out.

  "People from Stiles don't usually come to these things," Jesse said.

  "I told them that, but they said they'd like to get a sense of the whole town."

  "This may blow the sale," Jesse said.

  "Well, they're circulating," the woman said.

  "We'll just play it as it lays."

  She put out her hand.

  "Marcy Campbell."

  Jesse took her hand and shook it.

  "Jesse Stone," he said.

  She leaned her elbow next to him on the bar and looked at the dance floor. She was only a couple of inches shorter than he was.

  Her hair smelled the way he was sure violets would have smelled if he had ever actually smelled a violet, which he hadn't.

  "You know what violets smell like?" he said.

  "No. But I'd recognize champagne in a heartbeat," she said.

  Jesse smiled.

  "I like your priorities," he said.

  "Despite life's busy pace," she said, "it's always nice to stop and smell the booze."

  Jesse smiled again and they were quiet watching the dancers moving about the floor. The band was playing "Tie a Yellow Ribbon "Round the Old Oak Tree." Most of the men wore white dinner jackets. Most of the women were in floor-length gowns, some of which were in small floral patterns. Many with puffy shoulders and bows in unexpected places. It looked like an over aged frat party.

  "My God, look at those dresses," Marcy said.

  "Colorful."

  "Look at this with the bow on her ass," Marcy said.

  "If you had an ass like that, would you call attention to it by putting a bow on it?"

  "I'd rather not think about her ass," Jesse said.

  Marcy laughed and took one of the olives from her martini and popped it in her mouth. Jesse took another controlled sip of his scotch.

  "Wouldn't you think," Marcy said, "with all that money and all that time on their hands, nobody works, that these women could manage to look better than they do?"

  "Well it's not like they all married Tom Selleck," Jesse said.

  "I suppose," Marcy said.

  "But you know I sometimes seriously think about it. I mean really look at these people. Dancing to dreadful music, wearing dreadful clothes, saying dreadful boring things.

  Can they possibly be having any fun?"

  "Maybe they think it's fun," Jesse said.

  "But..." Marcy shook her head.

  "Just imagine the impoverishment of their daily lives," she said.

  "If this is their recreation."

  "Better than no recreation," Jesse said.

  "But that's the sad part. They do this and think it's fun, and so they never have any actual fun. Can you imagine these people in bed?"

  "Another thing I'd prefer not to think about," Jesse said.

  "Most men, and women, lead lives of quiet desperation," Marcy said.

  "That's a quote from someplace," Jesse said.

  Marcy laughed.

  "Henry David Thoreau," she said.

  "I modified it a little."

  "How about yourself ?"

  "Me? My desperations are never quiet," Marcy said.

  "What do you do for fun?"

  "Eat," she said, "drink, work out, shop, travel, read, talk to interesting people, have sex."

  "Bingo," Jesse said.

  "We've found a common interest?" Marcy said.

  "Anyone special?" Jesse said.

  "That I have sex with?"

  "Yes."

  Marcy laughed. The laugh was genuine and quite big. He had already noticed that her face flushed slightly when she laughed.

  "They're all special," she said.

  "No husband?" Jesse said.

  "Not anymore."

  "Boyfriend?"

  "Not currently. How about you?"

  "I'm divorced," Jesse said.

  "I knew that. Girlfriends?"

  "Nope."

  "Do you think we've stayed here long enough?" Marcy said.

  "Yes."

  "Then let's go somewhere and get a real drink."

  "What about the clients?"

  "They have their own car. I'll just say good-bye."

  Jesse watched the way her hips moved under the smooth tight dress as she walked away from him across the dance floor and carrying her martini. She spoke to a good-looking couple near the buffet table. They looked more Palm Beach than Stiles Island, Jesse thought. But maybe they were just summer people. The man kissed Marcy on the cheek, and she turned and came back across the dance floor. In a while, Jesse was pretty sure, he'd see that body without the intervening dress. The pressure of possibility, which had begun almost as soon as she had spoken to him, was now very strong. He didn't mind. He enjoyed the pressure. No hurry. He enjoyed looking forward to it. Marcy put her empty glass down on the bar.

  "Shall we?" she said.

  Jesse drained the rest of his drink and put his glass on the bar beside hers.

  "You bet," Jesse said.

  SEVENTEEN.

  "See the guy over there talking to Marcy?"

  Macklin said.

  "Cute," Faye said.

  "What's so cute?" Macklin said.

  "Well he's slim, but he looks strong.

  He's got a nice face. Good hair. Looks sort of, I don't know, graceful. He's cute."

  "Whaddya think he does for a living?"

  Macklin said.

  "He's some kind of professional athlete."

  "He's the chief of police," Macklin said.

  "He's young," she said.

  "How do you know he's the police chief?"

  "I scoped out the police station, so's I can recognize the cops, and I see him come and go. Plain clothes, unmarked car, and he walks like, you know, "This is mine." So I go over the library and get a town report and look up the police department and there he is, Jesse Stone, chief of police."

  "You don't miss much do you, Jimmy?" Faye's voice was admiring.

  "No more than I have to."

  He liked to think that of himself, Faye knew. He liked to think that he was prepared for everything. The truth was Faye knew that he simply enjoyed the foreplay. She had never said, If you're so goddamned good why have you spent half your life in jail? It would break his heart if he knew she thought less of him than he thought of himself. At least he was still alive. At least she still had him.

  "How's he look to you aside from cute?" Macklin said.

  "He looks like he might know what he's doing," Faye said.

  "Why do you say that?"

  "He looks different from all the other men here," Faye said.

  "And they clearly don't have any idea what they're doing."

  Macklin laughed and put his arm around her shoulder. He turned her toward him, and they began to dance to "The Tennessee Waltz."

  "Well, we're just going to fucking find that out, aren't we, my little chickadee?"

  "Don't turn this into a game, Jimmy."

  "A game?"

  "Don't make this you against the cop to see who's better. Just steal the money and we'll go."

  Macklin tightened his arms around her and held her against him. She rubbed her cheek gently against his.

  "Not to worry," Macklin said.

  "We'll do the big knock over and then we'll go someplace warm and sit beside each other and drink daiquiris in the sun."

  "Yes," Faye said softly.

  "You and me, babe," Macklin said.

  "Yes."

  "Always been you and me. Always will be."

  Faye didn't say anything.

  "Long time together, Faye," Macklin said.

  "Just don't turn this into a game of chicken with the cop," Faye said.

  "Don't worry," Macklin said.

  "I got this thing wired. We're going to do this right."

  Faye didn't say anything else, as they moved across the dance fl
oor. She kept her face pressed against his, and she closed her eyes.

  EIGHTEEN.

  They sat on the open deck of Marcy's small weathered shingle cottage on Strawberry Point in the east end of town, past the narrow harbor mouth, just above the buttress of rust-colored rocks against which the open Atlantic moved without respite. Jesse was drinking beer from the bottle. Marcy had a glass of white wine.

  "I thought you drank scotch," Marcy said.

  "I do, but beer's nice," Jesse said.

  "I thought you drank martinis."

  "I do," Marcy said and smiled.

  "But wine is nice."

  There were no lights on the deck, but there was a small moon and some starlight, and, as their eyes adjusted, they could see each other and the white spray of the breaking swells below them.

  "You know why we were drinking differently at the yacht club?"

  Marcy said.

  "Because we knew we couldn't drink many, so we were trying to get the most bang for the buck."

  "I'll be damned," Marcy said.

  "You did know."

  Jesse smiled.

  "I know a lot," he said.

  "And so modest," Marcy said.

  Jesse had his suit jacket off and it hung from the back of the chair to his left. Marcy could see the butt of his gun showing just in front of his right hip.

  "You're carrying a gun," she said.

  "I'm a cop."

  "Do you always carry one?"

  Jesse nodded.

  "I'm always a cop," he said.

  "What are you now?" she said.

  Jesse drank from the bottle.

  "Interested," he said.

  They both laughed.

  "First you," Marcy said.

  "Tell me about yourself."

  "I was a cop in Los Angeles. I'm thirty-five and divorced."

  "I'm older than you," Marcy said.

  "Always a cop?"

  "No, I was a baseball player, before I got hurt."

  "Did you play professionally?"

  "Yes."

  "Were you any good?"

  "I was very good," Jesse said.

  "How'd you get hurt?"

  "On a double play at second, runner took me out, and I came down on my shoulder."

  "What about the divorce?"

  "I was married to a starlet," Jesse said.

  "She wanted to be a star, so she slept with producers."

  "That start you drinking?"

  "I used to tell myself it did," Jesse said.

  "But it didn't. I always liked to drink."

  "But you have it under control now."

  "Most of the time," Jesse said.

  "You over the first wife?"

  "No."

  "You still love her?"

  "Maybe."

  "That must make it hard to commit to other women."

  Jesse smiled.

  "Not for the short term."

  Marcy smiled with him in the pale darkness.

  "I've never met a man who couldn't commit for the short term," she said.

  She sipped her wine. He drank some beer. Below them the ceaseless ocean moved hypnotically against the begrudging rocks.

  "And I've met a lot," she said.

  Jesse waited. It was her turn.

  "You're honest," Marcy said.

  "Most men wouldn't have told me about the ex-wife and would have sworn they'd love me forever."

  "So they could get you into bed," Jesse said.

  "Yep."

  "Doesn't mean I don't want that," Jesse said.

  "No, I'm sure it doesn't," Marcy said.

  "But if I were husband hunting, and using my bed as bait, you'd have just blown the lay."

  "Instead of vice versa," Jesse said.

  Marcy laughed. And Jesse liked the way she laughed and joined in, and they both laughed as much for the pleasure of laughing together as for the bite of Jesse's wit.

  "We'll see about vice versa," Marcy said.

  "You looking for a husband?" Jesse said.

  "No. I was married," she said.

  "At eighteen. I got two kids in college. Girl at Colby. Boy at Wesleyan."

  "Lot of money," Jesse said.

  "Their father can afford it."

  "He supports them?"

  "As always. I raised them. He paid for it. He's always been good that way."

  "What way wasn't he good?"

  "He was, is, a doctor. Very successful. A neurosurgeon. And he fucked every nurse that would hold still for twenty seconds."

  "Like all the jokes," Jesse said.

  "Like all the jokes," Marcy said.

  "He's not a bad man. He's generous, and he's a good father in his way. But where his penis leads, he follows."

  "When'd you get divorced?" "

  "Ten years ago."

  "You over it?"

  "Yes."

  "Want to get married again?"

  "No" *" Jesse finished the last of his beer and set it on the table beside him.

  "Well," he said.

  "Hello."

  "Hi."

  They both laughed again. Marcy drank some wine.

  "Here's the deal," she said.

  "I like men. I like wine. I like sex.

  Right now I'm having a nice time and I hope to have an even nicer one. I am not going to fall in love with you, and I don't think you'll fall in love with me. And, assuming you're interested, we can have some nice uncomplicated sex with nothing at stake. And we can be each other's friend."

  Jesse leaned back in his chair and looked at her and said, "Works for me."

  He kept looking at her in the semi-lucent darkness. She was quiet for a while as he did so, and then she said, "Assessing the goods?"

  "No, well maybe. I was just thinking how clear you are."

  "I had a good shrink," Marcy said.

  "The shrink had a good patient," Jesse said.

  "Also true," Marcy said.

  She stood and walked to the railing of her deck and placed her hips against it and sipped her drink.

  "The trouble with being clear is that it makes the transitions a little awkward," she said.

  "I'm going to take a shower. Would you care to join me?"

  "Sure," Jesse said.

  NINETEEN.

  "I need a boom guy," Macklin said.

  He was leaning on a railing on the Baltimore waterfront looking across at the aquarium, talking to a tall, bony redhaired man named Fran.

  "Uh-huh?" Fran said.

  Fran wore small, round, gold-rimmed glasses. His wiry red hair was long and pulled back in a ponytail. He had on a short-sleeved green shirt and khaki pants and Hush Puppies. His bare arms were heavily freckled. He had a gold earring.

  "You are the best around."

  "True," Fran said.

  "What'd you have in mind?"

  "I need a bridge blown."

  "Legally?"

  "

  "Course not."

  "What else?"

  "Other things. I'll tell you when you need to know."

  "Maybe I need to know to decide if I want the job."

  "Job's worth more than a million."

  "Total?"

  "Each."

  A water taxi pulled up to the dock below them and some tourists got out and headed up the stairs toward Harbor Place.