Robert B. Parker’s Fallout

Sixty

Dix cocked his head to the side, as if to appear curious. Jesse knew that was bullshit. He wasn’t curious. He already knew where they were going. It was Jesse’s job to catch up with him. Or keep up. Either way.

Sometimes when he walked out of Dix’s office he was as tired as if he’d been to the gym.

“So you’d rather talk about your case than about taking that bottle out of the drawer the other day?” Dix said.

“Cases. Plural.” Jesse managed a grin. “Try to keep up.”

“Got it,” Dix said. “Cases. Plural. That changes everything.”

He looked as he always did. Jesse wondered, not for the first time, if he had to shave his head every day. How many white shirts exactly like the one he was wearing were in his closet. Why his nails always seemed to shine like the top of his head. Trying to imagine, also not for the first time, how he ever could have been a sloppy-drunk cop who’d even considered eating his gun more than once.

“Sarcasm is unbecoming to a shrink,” Jesse said.

“Wow. I never thought of that one.”

“There, you just did it again.”

“I’d rather start by talking about the bottle,” Dix said. “You think you would have uncapped it if Miss Emma hadn’t called when she did?”

Jesse lifted his shoulders and let them fall. “Sounds like another mystery I might not be able to solve. Why not? One more can’t hurt.”

Jesse looked at the desk, nothing on it, no pen or notebook, and pictured Dix getting them out when Jesse was gone, as if taking note were some sign of weakness.

The shit you thought about.

“But you didn’t drink.”

“No.”

“The bottle stayed in the drawer when you came home?”

“Yes,” Jesse said. “The urge had, ah, dissipated.”

Dix put his hands on the desk and patted it a few times. The quiet in the room seemed to last even longer than usual. It got like this, as if one of them was waiting for the other to make the first move.

“Out of everything,” Dix said, “what’s bothering you the most right now? The dead kid? Charlie? Or is it Roarke who’s got you off your game?”

“Who said anything about being off my game?”

“Your old friend Johnnie Walker?” Dix asked.

“I am trying to protect people I care about,” Jesse said. “Like always. Even the ones who are fucking gone.”

“You’re pissed because you couldn’t protect Nellie.”

“Or Charlie. Or the shortstop.”

“You are aware that there was no way for you to know that Charlie needed protecting, right?”

“Maybe I should have.”

“And maybe beating yourself up over shit you can’t control gets you opening a drawer that should permanently remain closed. Or empty.”

Dix leaned forward, just slightly. “You mind if we jump around a little?”

“Like you’ve ever needed my permission to do that.”

“You know that boy likely killed himself.”

“Even if he did, I want to know why.”

“But if you never do, you need to be willing to accept.”

“The things I cannot change.”

“There you go!”

Then he told Dix about the scam call to Miss Emma’s phone bill and where it had come from.

“Miss Emma was sure about the date. She’s got a better memory than me,” Jesse said.

“So maybe you finally got a break.”

“Wonders never cease.”

“No chance that it was some kind of technical mistake?”

“It’s a mistake,” Jesse said. “But not by the phone company.”

“You’re convinced a scammer might have killed Charlie Farrell?”

“More than ever.”

Dix smiled. Jesse got one an hour usually. Occasionally two.

“Mind if I think like a cop?” Dix asked.

“You always think like a cop.”

“What about the dead guy in the wheelchair and the missing roommate?”

“Just because I don’t mention them doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten them.”

“You think it might have been them running a scam operation.”

“The thought has occurred,” Jesse said. “But then who killed Waterfield?”

“Hey, you’re the chief.”

“Nice that you still notice.”

“A regular crime wave you’ve got going.”

“Wow,” Jesse said. “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

Dix shook his head. “Sarcasm.”

“It’s like Harry Bosch says in those books,” Jesse said.

“One of the great cop characters ever devised by mortal mind,” Dix said.

“Everybody matters or nobody matters.”

“Ought to be on the wall of every police station in the country,” Dix said.

Now Jesse was the one leaning forward, feeling his fists clenched, the back-and-forth ending, just like that.

“Charlie matters the most.”

“So find out who killed him.”

“What if I don’t?”

The second smile.

“You’ll probably drive yourself to drink,” Dix said.