High Profile

23

“How is it?” Jesse said to Sunny on the phone.

He sat with a drink at the bar in his living room, in front of his picture of Ozzie Smith.

“Better than I feared,” Sunny said. “I was prepared to be sympathetic. We’re both women and she was raped.”

“The sisterhood is strong,” Jesse said.

“You’ll never understand,” Sunny said.

“No,” Jesse said.

He held the glass away from him and looked at the smooth whiskey and the clean ice. He drank some.

“But,” Sunny said, “what I wasn’t prepared for is... I like her.”

“She’s pretty likable,” Jesse said.

“She is,” Sunny said. “She’s interested. She’s smart. She listens. She gets it. She’s funny. She’s been around.”

“I’ll say.”

“All of us have been around,” Sunny said.

“I know.”

“But for all of that, there’s some quality in her,” Sunny said, “that makes you want to protect her. Some sort of little-girl thing, like she really shouldn’t be facing life alone.”

“I know that, too,” Jesse said.

He admired his whiskey.

“Yes. I can see why she’s hard to let go of,” Sunny said.

Jesse took another drink.

“Can I trust her?” Sunny said.

Jesse set the glass down on the counter.

“No,” he said.

“Nobody’s perfect,” Sunny said.

“Some are less perfect than others,” Jesse said. “Who’s with her at night?’

“Nobody. She lives in a secure building. Twenty-four-hour concierge. I take her home when she’s through for the night. And pick her up when she starts the morning.”

“Doesn’t leave a lot of time to find the rapist,” Jesse said.

“If he’s stalking her,” Sunny said, “I’m hoping that maybe he’ll find us.”

“Is there a Plan B?”

“Of course there’s a Plan B,” Sunny said. “You remember my friend Spike.”

“Yes.”

“I’m going to introduce them,” Sunny said, “and see if she’ll let Spike babysit her sometimes, while I try to find the rapist.”

“Spike would be effective,” Jesse said. “She won’t like it so much that he’s gay.”

“Because she can’t vamp him?”

“Something like that,” Jesse said.

“You know her,” Sunny said.

“I know her better than anyone,” Jesse said. He put some more ice into his glass as he talked, and added whiskey. “But I have no judgment about her. I know the facts of her, but I can’t seem to make anything coherent out of what I know.”

“Yes,” Sunny said.

Jesse started on his second drink.

“How is Walton Weeks going?” Sunny said.

“Gathering information,” Jesse said.

“Anything promising?”

“Too early.”

“And the public attention doesn’t help,” Sunny said. “You’re sitting there looking at this pile of unassociated data, and everyone is clamoring for an arrest.”

“Clamoring,” Jesse said. “He was a friend of the governor’s.”

“Oh God!” Sunny said.

“Uh-huh.”

“We both know the first person to look at in a murder case,” Sunny said.

“Cherchez la significant other?”

“Oui.”

“There’s three ex-wives,” Jesse said. “The current significant other got killed with him.”

“Did she have a significant other,” Sunny said, “besides Walton?”

“Good thought,” Jesse said. “We don’t know yet.”

“You know what connection he had to Paradise?”

“Nope.”

“You know his connection to the governor?” Sunny said.

“Nope.”

“How about the bodyguard?” Sunny said.

“You’ve been following the case,” Jesse said.

“I read the papers with interest,” Sunny said. “I am tight with one of the cops involved.”

“I suspected as much,” Jesse said. “Bodyguard was a cop in Baltimore.”

“You check that out?”

“Not yet,” Jesse said. “If he were lying, why would he lie about something so easy to check?”

“Gun?”

“Carries a nine-millimeter Glock,” Jesse said. “We test-fired it. It isn’t the murder weapon.”

“You’ll find him,” Sunny said. “Or her. Or them.”

“Sometimes you don’t,” Jesse said.

“I know.”

They were silent. Jesse thought he heard Sunny swallow.

“You having a drink?” he said.

“White wine,” Sunny said. “Are you having scotch?”

“I am,” Jesse said.

“Having a virtual drink together,” Sunny said.

“Better than no drink at all,” Jesse said.

They were quiet again. It was an easy quiet. There was no strain to it. There was never any strain between them, Jesse thought.

“Ever see Richie?” Jesse said.

“I saw him today,” Sunny said. “He came to pick up Rosie for the weekend.”

“She like that?”

“Yes. She’s always happy to go with him.”

“He still married?” Jesse said.

“Yes.”

“Wife like Rosie?”

“Richie says so, and Rosie likes her.”

“How’s that feel?”

“Awful.”

“You comfortable,” Jesse said, “letting her go?”

“Yes. I miss her, but Richie would never let her be mistreated. He loves her as much as I do.”

“How is it between you and Richie.”

“When he’s here?” Sunny thought about it. He heard her swallow. He took a drink. Companionable. “It’s very difficult. For both of us. We are still so... so stuck together... it’s hard to move naturally.”

“He like that, too?” Jesse said.

Sunny thought about that.

“Richie is so interior, it is hard to tell,” Sunny said. “But I think so. I don’t think I’m projecting it onto him.”

“Well,” Jesse said. “Aren’t we in a fucking mess.”

Sunny took another sip of wine. She swallowed slowly, and Jesse could hear her pour more wine, the bottle clinking against the rim of her glass.

“I guess,” Sunny said finally, “if I had to be in a fucking mess, there’s no one I’d rather be in a fucking mess with.”

“Me too,” Jesse said.