Robert B. Parker's Debt to Pay (22 page)

T
he invisible man got off the plane at Will Rogers World Airport in Oklahoma City. He might just as well have actually been invisible for how much notice anyone took of him. On his flights from Boston to Baltimore and then on to Oklahoma City, his seatmates paid him no mind. He could hear the passengers around him—in the row behind, to the side, and before him—greeting one another, asking what they did for a living or where they were ultimately headed. Saw people shake hands. No one spoke to him. No one shook his hand. Occasionally a bored businessman or old lady would give him a half-smile or a nod. The longest conversation he'd had on both flights consisted of “Water, please. No peanuts for me.”

It was of little consequence to him. What could anyone in the seats around him possibly say that would interest him? Though he was sure there was plenty he could say that might interest them, at least until they ran screaming. He snickered to himself as he made his way to the rental counter, imagining that scene and conversation at thirty-five thousand feet. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. But he had no need of inane chitchat or brief, meaningless encounters
with people he would never see again. He had plenty to occupy his mind now that he had decided finally on how the payment of his debt to Jesse Stone and Suitcase Simpson would play out.

He checked his watch. With no traffic, he'd be back at the storage unit in Dallas within four hours. Just under three, if he pushed it, but that wasn't his style. Drive ordinary cars. Stay in the speed slot where the cops won't stop you. Walk on the shadowed side of the street in daytime. Keep in people's blind spots until its suits you not to. For now, he was enjoying and would be exploiting the fact that most of the world believed he was probably dead. They might fool themselves that they were being as diligent as they had been before the fortuitous car chase and explosion in Paradise, but it wasn't so. It was only human nature to relax, to let their guard down, if only a little. And he knew human nature in a way that most people never would. He knew humans like a rat-lab scientist knew rodents. He had seen humans under the most intense stresses imaginable. The only human he worried about was Stone.

Stone wasn't the type to relax or assume. He was willing to bet that Stone was even more suspicious now than he was before the explosion and fire. Stone had always been the wild card in all of this. The one he had to plan for and hedge against. The one he had to distract and keep off balance. And that's what this trip back to Dallas was all about, peeking out of the shadows and grabbing Jesse's attention at precisely the right moment.

At the rental counter, he stood waiting for a long time until the woman behind the counter called for the next person on line.

“Oh,” she said, “I'm sorry. I didn't notice you standing there.”

Of course she hadn't.

“That's all right . . . Victoria,” he said in his nasal, high-pitched voice, reading her name tag. “It happens all the time.”

Walking away, he smiled his special smile, repeating the name “Victoria” over and over again. At least she had apologized for her transgression and seemed to mean it. He thought of the rude blonde and wondered if his lessons had stayed with her. He just might have to find out.

W
hen Jesse got back to their room, Diana threw her arms around his neck and kissed him on the mouth. She pushed back and said, “Jesse Stone, I love you something awful. Do you know that?”

“That or you're certifiable.”

“Both. Me, too, apparently. After all, I agreed to marry you.”

But instead of smiling, Jesse's face got serious.

“What's wrong, Jesse?”

“First things first.”

He nodded for her to follow him over to a cowhide sofa next to the window in their room. He sat her down and then sat next to her.

“Listen to me, Di, we both got really caught up in things last night. And I meant everything I said to you last night.”

“But . . .”

“But I screwed up one marriage. I won't—”

“I'd say Jenn played a pretty big role in what happened between the two of you.”

“Yeah, but like I said, we got caught up in things last night. I want to make sure you're sure. We can walk back from this if you're having second thoughts.”

Diana scowled at Jesse. “Sounds to me like you're the one having second thoughts.”

“Nope. No second thoughts. Just concerns about you being happy in Paradise.”

She laughed. “Hard not to be happy in Paradise.”

“Not according to Genesis.”

“Now I've heard it all. Jesse Stone referring to scripture.”

“I guess that is pretty strange, but you know what I mean. Paradise will bore you to tears, and I can't ask you to do that to be with me. I respect you and love you way too much to ask that of you.”

She didn't laugh at him, but smiled her white neon smile at him. She leaned over and kissed him softly on the lips.

“I said I would marry you, Stone. I didn't say how that marriage would work. You're right, if I stayed home and had kids and cooked for you, I'd lose my mind. But we're not having kids, at least not yet, and I'm not staying home and cooking for you. I've got my consulting business and it's doing really well. I already make more money than you do, and I could expand anytime. I've got agents from the Bureau who are about to retire looking to me for jobs. No, Jesse, we'll be good. I won't be home a lot of the time, and when we see each other, it'll be amazing. We'll have the best parts of a long-distance relationship and a close marriage.”

“And you thought of all this between last night and . . . five-thirty-seven p.m. central time today?” he said, looking at the clock radio beside the bed.

“Jackass. Of course not. I think I knew I wanted to be with you forever the morning after we woke up back in New York. I was so comfortable with you even then, when I was pretending to be someone else. If you didn't ask me, I would have asked you.”

“When?”

“Eventually.”

He smiled. “What makes you think I would have said yes?”

She punched him in the arm again and said, “And don't ask me if I'm sure ever again. Come on, let's go shower. We've both got big nights ahead of us.”

But when they came out of the shower, Diana spotted something she didn't like in Jesse's expression as he shaved.

“What's wrong?” she asked. “It's not about us, is it?”

He shook his head, stopped shaving, and turned to face her. “When I saw Jenn at the bar before, she asked me what was going on.”

“Shit!”

“She's many things. Stupid isn't one of them. She's noticed all the extra security and that I changed my mind about coming to the wedding. She believed the part about me coming to show you off to her and that I needed some peace of mind that her marriage to me was truly all in the past. She didn't buy anything else I told her, until . . .”

“Until what?”

“Until I told her that a disgruntled ex-employee of Hale's had made vague threats against him and his properties.”

“Talk about opening a can of worms, Stone.”

“It was either that or a can of spiders. I chose worms.”

A
ri picked Diana and Jesse up at eight. It was a casual-dress night, so that allowed Diana to carry her piece under a loose-fitting blue blazer. She got dropped off at the Hunsicker place. Ari took Jesse over to Javier's Gourmet Mexicano Restaurant. Jesse didn't know about that gourmet thing, but he was pretty anxious to have some authentic Mexican food again. You can get great ethnic food in the Northeast, even in the towns close to Paradise. Of course, there was always Boston. But Mexican food up north was always a disappointment to Jesse. Having grown up in Tucson, playing ball in Albuquerque, and living in Los Angeles for more than a decade, he was a tough audience.

Ari half turned to Jesse and said, “The boss is pissed off. I thought I should warn you.”

“Kahan?”

“Mr. Hunsicker. I don't know at who for certain, but my nose says it's you.”

“Such a handsome nose.”

Ari smiled a big white smile. “And a very accurate one,” he said, his Israeli accent showing through. “Just be ready. Do you know why the boss would be so mad?”

Jesse laughed. “I've got a pretty good clue.”

“We're here, Chief. The food is quite good.”

“Thanks, Ari. And thanks for the heads-up.”

“Yasher koach.”

“What's it mean?”

“In Hebrew it means
Order the guacamole
.”

They both laughed at that and were still laughing when Ari came around to open the door for Jesse.

“It really means
May you have strength
.”

—

Hale Hunsicker wasn't laughing and he wasn't smiling. He was fuming like a cartoon character. All that was missing was the smoke coming out of his ears and flames out of his nostrils.

“What the fuck are you laughing at,” Hale yelled at Ari, who immediately stopped and couldn't get back behind the wheel of the Escalade fast enough.

The valet's eyes got wide with fear and he stood clear of Hale Hunsicker. Hunsicker was a big, imposing man, and to the valet he probably looked like a man ready to throw down. Jesse was more concerned about someone overhearing, but luckily, no one except the valet was within earshot. Jesse didn't want the whole town knowing about Peepers. For added insurance he gave the valet a twenty and asked for a few minutes of privacy. The kid nodded, smiled, and walked around the other side of the building. Jesse braced himself for the onslaught. He knew that preemption wasn't an option with a man like Hunsicker.

“Two things, Stone.” Hunsicker was in full voice and in Jesse's face. “What are you doing meeting with Jenn at a bar with no one around? And—”

“The bartender was there,” Jesse said, to take some of the steam out of Hunsicker's rant.

“What?”

“We weren't alone. The bartender was there.”

“That's not the point,” Hunsicker said, his voice already calmer. “She was unprotected.”

“She was with me and I was carrying this.” Jesse pulled back his sport jacket to expose the nine-millimeter on his hip.

“But what about her getting there and getting home?”

“Look, Hale, she asked to meet me. I figured she'd have one of your guys drive her there and back. Ari came and got me. And like I said, Peepers, if he's still alive, won't do anything yet,” Jesse said with a lot more confidence than he actually had. “I thought she wanted to talk about us, about our marriage and divorce, or about old times. But what she wanted to talk about was—”

“Yeah, I know. She's noticed . . . things.”

“So what did you want me to tell her, Hale? That she was crazy? That all the muscle and guys with earpieces were figments of her imagination? I had to tell her something she would believe.”

“I guess.”

“And I made it sound as if there's no specific or imminent threat to you personally and that all the extra security is just you erring on the side of caution.”

“I just wish you'd given me a friendly warning, so I could have prepared.”

Jesse shook his head. “No, your reaction had to be authentic or else she would still be suspicious.”

“I still don't like it.”

“I don't like any of it, either.”

“Come on in, then,” he said, throwing his arm over Jesse's shoulders. “Meet the boys.”

None of “the boys” had been at the party the night before. There were black and brown faces among them and not in the security detail. They were all about Hunsicker's age, some as big or bigger. Some were dressed in that millionaire casual look: the thousand-dollar tan suede blazer, the faded jeans, the hand-tooled and silver-buckled belt, and customized cowboy boots of some exotic creature or other. One or two wore Stetsons. But others wore Costco casual: Kirkland jeans, Carhartt shirts, Dickies belts, and Payless shoes. Still, it felt very familiar to Jesse. These were Hunsicker's old teammates. Being around guys like this always left Jesse with mixed feelings. There was nothing quite like the shared experience of a team. At the same time, there was a kind of sadness to it that your best was behind you. And for these guys, that meant their best was already behind them at twenty-one.

J
esse had the
pollo
mole
poblano
. It was, as was all the food, authentic and delicious. It turned out that although Jesse might not have recognized the faces of any of the men with him that night, he had seen a few of them play ball. Four had gone on to have long NFL careers and one, Da'Reese Murray, was a new Hall of Famer. All of the guys referred to him as Canton, after Canton, Ohio, the location of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. As dinner went on and the drinks flowed, everyone relaxed, some a little too much. Many a tale was told out of school. Many that, if the wrong sets of ears had overheard, would have resulted in expensive divorces.

Even though none of the experiences or stories were his, it was oddly comfortable for Jesse, having long ago been a part of many teams. The LAPD was the closest he'd come to that feeling since he'd had his shoulder ruined in Pueblo, but he'd screwed up his detective career so badly that just thinking of his time in L.A. knotted his belly. How strange that it had come full circle and that the end points of the circle should meet in Dallas at Jenn's wedding. It was Jenn's cheating on him that had started his slide so deep into the
bottle that he'd lost his way and his shield. In Paradise, Jesse was more like the coach than he was like one of the players. He guessed he would always miss the camaraderie of a team.

The number of guys had whittled down. Many of the less-well-to-do men, the Costco casual crowd, had work in the morning or had long drives. The rest of them moved from the restaurant into the cigar-bar area of Javier's. The atmosphere in the cigar bar was completely different. Back here, the smells of warm tortilla chips and fried onions were overwhelmed by the aromas of burning tobacco and money.

Jesse, who'd had a few beers with dinner, was working slowly on a second Johnnie Walker Blue Label and ignoring the Cuaba Tradicionales in the ashtray on the table in front of him. Hale, with a skinful of Pappy Van Winkle's Family Reserve and feeling generous, prodded Jesse into both the scotch—he would have been happier with Black Label—and the cigar—he would have been happier without one. But it was Hale's celebration and Jesse didn't want to create any more tension between them than already existed.

“You know that's a hand-rolled Cuban cigar from my own personal stash you're letting go to waste there.”

Jesse ignored that, raised his glass, and tapped Hale's glass. “Thanks for inviting me along. I know my being here under these circumstances isn't what you would have wanted.”

“It's what Jenn wanted and that's what matters to me.”

“You love her that much?”

“More than you know. She saved me from myself. From making the biggest mistake of my life. Even if things didn't lead to us getting hitched, I would have been grateful to her till the day they threw dirt on my sorry ole ass.”

“How's that?”

“I expect you'll see a little later this evenin',” Hale said and thumped Jesse on the shoulder.

“Where's Kahan, Hale?”

“On assignment. If things work out, we should be seeing him tomorrow or the day after. Now, don't you go worryin' 'bout him.” The bourbon was starting to get to Hunsicker, who was slurring his words and dropping letters.

Then Jesse noticed something in Hale's eyes. He wasn't sure what it was, but whatever it was wasn't good. Jesse followed Hale's eyes as they moved away from his face and stared over his shoulder. As Jesse turned around to look, a booming voice rang out, cutting through the smoke and the background chatter.

“Well, how do, Hale Sapsucker? Mixed company prevents me from calling you what I should.”

The man behind Jesse was a baby-faced toad and built in inverse proportion to his voice. He was round and squat and had probably dreamed of being five-eight for forty-plus years. From his oversized Stetson cowboy hat to the embroidered lapels of his garish red sport jacket to his silver-toed boots, he was dressed like a Texan out of a fifties Hollywood movie.

“Jesse,” Hale said, “meet Elroy Cates. Elroy, meet—”

“I know who he is, Hale. Nothing goes on in this town I don't know about. Pleasure to meet you, Chief Jesse Stone.” He extended his little hand to Jesse and Jesse shook it. Cates's grip was more like his voice than his stature. His handshake was steel. “Question is, does Jesse know who you are, Hale?”

Jesse didn't know what was going on, but it was pretty clear there was blood between Hunsicker and Cates and it was all bad. He could also see Hale struggling with himself not to take the bait, and
maybe, if there hadn't been quite as much bourbon in him, Hunsicker could have restrained himself.

“What's that supposed to mean, you little—”

Cates cut him off. “Means that your host here has a taste for things that don't belong to him. At least he had the good sense to—”

Things went quickly south. Before Cates could finish his sentence, Hunsicker threw a haymaker that would have felled a tree, but trees stand still. Cates did not. He leaned back, and the only casualty was Cates's cigar. Instead of throwing a punch of his own, Cates goaded him.

“Hey, Hale boy, maybe time's come to stop picking fruit from other people's trees.”

That did it. Hale jumped at Cates, but before he could get at him, Jesse and Da'Reese Murray grabbed his arms and held him back. Cates just laughed, collected his still-lit cigar off the floor, and walked away. Hunsicker shrugged out of Jesse's and Murray's grasp.

“C'mon,” Hale said, “let's go. Something stinks in here and it ain't the cigars.”