Robert B. Parker’s Fallout

Fifty-One

Nellie said she was fine going home if somebody would drive her. Molly said there was no chance of that happening, none; Nellie was spending the night at her house if that was all right with everybody else. They all knew that “everybody else” meant Jesse, who said that he was all for Nellie having police protection tonight, and going forward, and that she could come back for her car in the morning.

“Thank you again,” Nellie said to Crow before she left.

She leaned up and kissed him on the cheek.

“Trust me on something,” Molly said. “He was a lot more interesting when he was the badass.”

“Not was,” Crow said. “Is. I just try to throw you off, time to time, depending on the situation on the ground.”

When they were gone, it was just Jesse and Crow.

“I know I’m coming in late to the movie,” Crow said to him. “But it doesn’t seem to me as if your action with Roarke should have provoked this much of a reaction.”

“Doesn’t seem that way to me, either,” Jesse said. “And yet here we are.”

Crow grinned. There wasn’t much of a change to his face when he smiled. You had to be paying attention or you missed the slight shift in attitude. Jesse mostly saw the amusement in the darkest eyes he’d ever seen.

“Kemo sabe speakem the truth,” Crow said.

Maybe more of a grin now. Almost a smile.

“That make me the Lone Ranger?” Jesse said.

“Fuck, yeah,” Crow said.

Crow reached into the back pocket of his jeans and came out with a silver flask that looked only slightly thicker than a money clip.

He drank.

“I would have offered to share with the ladies,” he said. “But I knew you probably wouldn’t have anything, and I’d taken a few sips on the drive up.”

“In a moving vehicle? That’s against the law.”

“Like I always said. Only if you get caught.”

“Where’s your gun?”

“I stuck it back in the glove compartment when I was parking at the hospital. I figured I was safe with you.”

Crow took another sip. He looked the same as he did the first time Jesse had seen him. And the last time Jesse saw him. Maybe more wrinkles in the weathered face. Maybe the hairline had receded a little more. But not looking older. Just like Crow.

As always, he was as comfortable with silence as Jesse was. Maybe more comfortable. Jesse knew that kemo sabe meant “friend,” whether he was using it ironically or not. He wondered if they were really friends. He supposed they were when you added it all up, with all that they’d been through together. Maybe it was more important that he knew he could trust Crow, even knowing that Crow would always have at least one of those boots over on the other side of the line, no matter how much he maintained he was now walking the straight and narrow.

“You told me you were worried that you’d gotten under Roarke’s skin,” Crow said. “What you didn’t explain is about what.”

“Not sure,” Jesse said. “I was just asking him about some mutt used to work for him.”

“You think he’s hiding something?”

“Maybe the mutt.”

Crow said, “You got any connection between him and Paradise other than the missing guy?”

“No,” Jesse said. “Except the missing guy is connected to guy in the wheelchair who got thrown into the ocean. And there’s the crypto thing, though I have no idea where that might fit, if it even does.”

There was another silence, longer than the one before. Jesse asked what Crow was drinking. He said Irish whiskey. Crow sipped more of it, then screwed the cap back on. Maybe he was done, maybe not. The flask sat there on the table next to Crow. Jesse had always been fascinated by people who could stop whenever they wanted to. Never show any signs that they were even drinking. Sunny Randall could make a glass of wine, or her own late-night sipping whiskey, last for an hour. So could Molly.

When Jesse and Nellie would eat out, he had never seen her order a second glass of wine. In his drinking days, Jesse had already been thinking about his second one before he finished the first, he felt the ice on his teeth that quickly.

After that he was off to the races.

“Want some advice?” Crow said.

He stared at the flask as if remembering it was still there. Unscrewed the cap. Drank again. When he was done he put the cap back on, stood up enough to put the flask back in his pocket.

Jesse knew there had to be some whiskey left.

But he was done, at least for now.

Amazing.

Jesse was as impressed as he would have been if Crow had suddenly jumped up and done a handstand.

“Always looking for good advice, especially if it’s about women.”

“Got nothing for you on that particular subject,” Crow said.

He took in some air through his nose, let it out slowly through his mouth.

“It was me,” he said, “I wouldn’t fuck with somebody like Roarke till I had something on him. Or till I absolutely had to.”

“You think he might have done something worse to Nellie than clock her if you hadn’t come along when you did?”

“Depends on what he knows that you don’t know yet,” Crow said. “But whatever intel he did get on you, he must have skipped over the part about how you’re not somebody to fuck with, either.”

“Don’t make me blush.”

“Just remember what I told you about my guy comparing him to Whitey Bulger,” Crow said. “I saw that movie about Whitey. With the guy who played the pirate playing him.”

Jesse felt himself grin.

“Johnny Depp,” he said to Crow.

Crow said, “The point I’m making here is that Whitey killed people to stay in good killing shape. Or sometimes just when he got bored.”

“You think Roarke came at me this hard just because I asked him a few questions?” Jesse asked.

Crow stretched out his legs, put his arms behind his head.

“Or because he didn’t like the way you asked them. Or because he didn’t like you asking them in the first place. Or because just by turning up at that restaurant, you showed him up in front of business associates. Never forget how important face is to guys like him.”

Crow stood now, stretching his back.

“I’m thinking about hanging around for a few days,” he said, “just to make sure you don’t cock this thing up.”

“Up to you.”

Jesse stood, smiling at him fully now. “Admit it, you missed us.”

Crow shrugged.

“You can only fish so much,” he said.