Robert B. Parker’s Fallout

Sixteen

Suit should be sitting where I’m sitting,” Jesse said to Dix.

They were in Dix’s office, in the late afternoon. Jesse had decided that he needed a visit to his therapist more than he needed an AA meeting today. Dix, who’d been a cop. Who was a recovering alcoholic himself. Dix referred to himself and Jesse as a two-man club. The Dead Drunk Society.

“Are we here to talk about Suit or talk about you?” Dix said.

Dix had bought a new house, on the west side of Paradise, an area in the process of being gentrified, maybe so it would be allowed to even remain in Paradise. It was supposed to have been a bigger development before the real estate guy who’d bought up the land — Harry Townes was his name — had run out of money, and had to flip most of the land at a loss during COVID. Before he had, Dix had bought his small house at a very good price, knowing that nothing could be built behind him because of the small land trust back there. No ocean view over on this side of town, but some spectacular sunsets, one in its early stages right now.

Dix wore his usual white shirt. Both his bald head and his nails were gleaming. Everything about him was as neat as an operating room, which, in so many ways, this really was.

He had just finished telling Dix about what Ainsley Walsh had told Molly and Suit.

“Suit wanted to drive straight over to the Ford kid’s house and haul him in,” Jesse said. “Fortunately I intervened.”

“And I take it both of you, uh, demurred,” Dix said.

Jesse grinned.

“Fuckin’ ay,” he said.

Dix might have grinned in return. Or perhaps it was just his lips twitching involuntarily.

“Suit made a good point the other day,” Jesse said.

“He does that from time to time,” Dix said.

“More often than you think,” Jesse said. “He reminded me that I had done a lot of hotheaded shit on the job, especially when I was still drinking. Usually when I was hungover.”

“Hangovers,” Dix said, and not for the first time, “are like having a second job.”

They sat in silence. Dix was better at it than anybody Jesse had ever known. Jesse sometimes thought that if you counted only the time when they were actually talking to each other, in this office or the old one, he probably would be paying half of what he actually was.

“Are you here because Charlie’s death gave you the urge to drink?” Dix said.

“See,” Jesse said, “this is like a meeting for me. Just with less chatter.”

“Look who’s talking,” Dix said.

“Or not,” Jesse said.

There were two overhead lights built into the ceiling, reflecting off the top of Dix’s head.

“I should be feeling worse, or angrier, or something, about the boy,” Jesse said. “It’s Suit’s family.”

“But with you it’s more about Charlie.”

“Lot of people have died on my watch,” Jesse said. “There was a lawyer I was in love with once.”

“Abby.”

Jesse nodded.

“But even her I didn’t love the way I loved Charlie Farrell,” he said.

Now Dix did smile, fully.

“That old man was supposed to die of natural causes,” Dix said, “after having outlived us all.”

Jesse said, “I frankly always thought natural causes was an oxymoron.”

“Now he’s gone and you felt the urge to drink.”

“Occasionally northern exposure gives me the urge to drink.”

“You know what I’m going to tell you now, right?” Dix said.

“That the only way to work through this is to work, period,” Jesse said.

“There you go.”

“Sometimes I wonder why I’m even paying you.”

“Don’t look at me,” Dix said. “It’s a rule they passed.”

By now they were getting to the end of the session.

“It’s not just wanting a drink,” Jesse said. “It’s wanting to find who did it to Charlie and putting a bullet behind his ear once I do.”

“Understandable sentiment,” Dix said. “But hardly productive.”

“Who said anything about productive?” Jesse said.

Then he said to Dix, “You know I’m only kidding, right?”

But Jesse wasn’t kidding.

Not even a little bit.

And was on his way back to the office when Molly Crane called to tell him that somebody had beaten up Scott Ford badly enough to put him in the hospital.

“Ford’s the first baseman, right?” Molly said.

“What does that have to do with anything, Mols?” Jesse said.

“Because the one who did it to him is the catcher,” she said.