Chapter Forty-one

Suitcase Simpson came into Jesse's office trying not to look self-important.

"Got the info from the phone company," he said to Jesse. "That phone number used to belong to a guy named Alan Garner. No longer in service."

"Got an address?"

"Yeah. In Brighton, but he moved last year."

"I know where he is," Jesse said.

Simpson stared at him.

"How you know that?" he said.

"I'm chief of police," Jesse said.

"Oh," Simpson said. "Yeah. I forgot. You going to talk with this guy?"

Jesse shook his head.

"We'll watch him," Jesse said.

"We?"

"You ever do any surveillance?"

"Jesse. I'm a cop in Paradise, Mass.," Simpson said. "What the hell am I going to surveil?"

"Go put on some civvies," Jesse said. "Time you learned."

Driving into Boston from the north, there was a choice between the tunnel under the harbor and the bridge over the Mystic River. The tunnel was a little shorter, from Paradise, but on the Boston end you came up out of the tunnel into the boiling confusion of the largest urban renewal project in the country. Jesse took the bridge.

As they arched down toward the Charlestown end they could look down at the merge of the river and the gray sprawl of the harbor to their left. Below them was the old Charlestown Navy Yard, now mostly condominiums. Straight ahead the individuated buildings coalesced into skyline.

Tremont Street was so hot that the asphalt was soft. They parked on a hydrant and Simpson got out and bought a cup of coffee and a large Coke at a convenience store while Jesse stayed in the car looking at Development Associates of Boston. When he got in the car, he handed Jesse the Coke.

"My mother always used to tell me to drink hot stuff in hot weather," Simpson said. "Because being hot inside would make you feel cooler outside."

Jesse was silent.

"You think that makes any sense?" Simpson said.

"Sure."

"You think it's true?"

"No."

Simpson nodded and settled back with his coffee. Jesse knew he still half believed it. He was only about ten years older than Suitcase, but he felt like his father.

"Who we looking at here?" Simpson said.

"Alan Garner works for Gino Fish. Gino Fish is the guy whose phone number Billie Bishop left when she departed the shelter."

Simpson was sweating. His face was red. Jesse could see him thinking.

"And two other girls left his phone number at the same shelter," he said.

Jesse nodded. Suit wasn't stupid, but his mind had to move slowly over the surface of information before he possessed it. Jesse gave him time.

After a time Simpson said, "Well, that would be a really big coincidence."

"Really big," Jesse said.

"So why not go in and confront him with it?"

"And he says, I don't know anything about it, and what do we say?"

Suitcase drank some more coffee.

"I think it works," he said.

"Drinking hot stuff?"

"Yeah."

"Your mother tell you to run cold water over the inside of your wrist to cool your blood?"

Simpson was surprised.

"Yeah."

Jesse smiled.

"We could try to find those other girls," Simpson said. "See what they could tell us."

"One's named Mary," Jesse said. "The other one is Jane. Or so they told Sister."

"No last names?"

"Nope."

"You know where they came from, we could check Missing Persons…"

"I don't know where they came from. I doubt that the names are real."

"But they left a real phone number."

"Kids need to hang on to something," Jesse said.

"I don't know what you mean."

"However fucked up," Jesse said, "kids don't want to just disappear."

"They need to feel connected?"

"To something," Jesse said.

Simpson took another sip of coffee. The sweat ran down his face in front of each ear.

"Careful," Jesse said. "You don't want to get a chill."

"I don't know what we're looking for here," Simpson said.

"Me, either," Jesse said.

"So how we going to know when we see it?"

Jesse smiled.

"It's a chief of police thing," Jesse said.

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