Jesse took Peter Perkins and Anthony DeAngelo with him to arrest Jo Jo. Both men carried shotguns. He didn’t know if he could trust them either, but it was time to find out. He didn’t want to have to kill Jo Jo; a show of force usually made an arrest go smoother. They waited in the parking lot in the back of the gym where Jo Jo trained and took him, shotguns leveled, without incident when he came out to his car. They brought him handcuffed to the station. Molly at the front desk watched in silence as they led him past her and locked him up in one of the holding cells in the back. DeAngelo and Perkins left. Jesse went back out front.
“I’ll cover the desk,” Jesse said to Molly. “You can go home.”
“You sure you don’t mind being alone with him?” Molly said.
“Be fine,” Jesse said and smiled at Molly. “Give us a chance to really get to know each other.”
“Won’t that be swell,” Molly said and got her things and left. Jesse watched her go down the front steps of the station, then he went to his office, got a tape recorder, walked slowly back to the cell area. He pulled up a chair, plugged in the tape recorder, and talked with Jo Jo through the bars.
“That thing on?” Jo Jo said.
“Not yet,” Jesse said.
He held the recorder so that Jo Jo could see that it wasn’t.
“Get used to the cell, Jo Jo,” Jesse said. “You’re going to be in one the rest of your life.”
“You can’t prove shit,” Jo Jo said.
“Jo Jo, you know you did her, and I know it, and we got a witness who’ll swear you bragged about it. We’re going over you and everything you own — your car, your house. We’re going to find forensic evidence, Jo Jo.”
“You been out to get me since you come to town,” Jo Jo said.
“When’s the last time you had sex with a woman?” Jesse said.
Jo Jo stared at him. “Why you want to know?”
“Because it’s the last time,” Jesse said.
Jo Jo continued to stare at him.
“Give you a chance to find out how tough you really are, though. Cons always like to test the bodybuilders, you know? See if they can back it up. Some guys at Cedar Junction be real proud to have Mr. Universe punking for them.”
Jo Jo had been sitting on his cot. He stood now and walked to the bars.
“What do you want, Stone?”
“I want to help you, Jo Jo. I want to find some sort of deal for you.”
“Like what?”
“Like maybe you shouldn’t have to go down alone for this. Maybe if we talked about what kind of business you are doing with Hasty Hathaway. Maybe you might be able to tell me something about Tom Carson’s death, or Lou Burke’s.”
“I don’t know nothing about that.”
“Too bad,” Jesse said.
Jo Jo walked to the back wall of the cell and turned and walked to the barred door again.
“What kind of deal?”
“Depends what I hear, and how good it is.”
Jo Jo walked to the back wall and turned and leaned on it, looking at Jesse.
“So I spill my guts to you and you don’t promise me nothing.”
Jesse smiled.
“Works for me,” he said.
“No deal,” Jo Jo said.
Jesse waited.
“You can’t even get me for Tammy, no way you can prove it.”
Jesse waited.
“If I did know something, I’m not going to fink out without something better than you’re offering.”
“You need a little time,” Jesse said, “run this thing over in your mind, think about how your life is going to go from now on. I’ll come back in a while and see you.”
“I got to know what the deal is,” Jo Jo said.
Jesse turned and left him there standing alone in the dim light at the back of his tiny cell, the tape recorder silently waiting on the floor by the folding chair outside the bars.