Robert B. Parker’s the Hangman’s Sonnet

15

Exhausted and still hungover, Jesse fell back on his black leather couch. He stared across the room at the bar, at the neat chessmenlike assembly of glasses: the cut-crystal rocks glasses that broke up the light like static kaleidoscopes, the frosted highball glasses that Suit had given him for his birthday five years ago, the hand-blown wineglasses that rang long and loud if you tapped them just right, the squat shot glasses with the single air bubbles in their thick bases, and the sleek champagne flutes that mostly collected dust. Functional alcoholics like Jesse found romance in all the aspects and rituals of drinking. To think otherwise was like believing that sexual pleasure was strictly about the act itself.

No, the clinking of the ice in the glass, the pour of the rich amber fluid, the peaty aroma, the hiss when he twisted the bottle cap, the glug of the soda pour, the swirling of the glass were as much foreplay as anything else. It was also, as Dix had pointed out, as Jesse knew deep in his soul, a distraction. It was a way for him to fool himself that since Diana’s murder, he really didn’t want to just grab the bottle and pour the Black Label down his throat until the relentless guilt and hurt and emptiness dulled a little.

It was worse than in L.A., worse than when Jenn had cheated on him. He loved Jenn, but it was almost like he had been in love with the idea of Jenn rather than who Jenn actually was. From the outside, Jenn was everything Jesse had ever wanted: beautiful, blue-eyed, and blond; an actress; more social than he was ever comfortable being. But inside she was never who he imagined her to be, and that wasn’t really her fault. The sex between them was good, never great. And only after years of separation, divorce, and therapy did he come to realize what had actually drawn them together was a kind of unhealthy yin/yang. Jenn could be terribly needy and Jesse was born to be needed by a beautiful woman. He was born to fix things. His career was about that, about righting wrongs, doing justice. In the end it turned out their pas de deux bound them together more powerfully than love ever did, and it took a very long time to undo the knots.

It was worse now because Diana, an ex — FBI agent, had been the real deal, inside and out. And if Jesse ever had a soulmate, she was it. He was thinking about that now as he stared at the bar, about how Diana really was a match for him in every way in spite of the fact that their relationship had started as a lie. Hers, not his. In some sense, that was one of the ways he knew she was it for him, that their love outlived the lie. It was as if their love had a kind of life of its own and wouldn’t be denied. It was worse than with Jenn, because there would be no reconciliation. Death doesn’t compromise, didn’t make accommodations for love, and the ties that bound them together were now his and his alone.

He couldn’t take it anymore and leapt off the couch, grabbing the new bottle of Black Label he had purchased on his way home.

“You’re getting to be my best customer, Jesse,” said Karl Benton, who ran the wine-and-spirits store in town. “Would you rather have me just have a case delivered to your house? I’ll give you a good price.”

Jesse thought about it. After hesitating for a few seconds, he told the shopkeeper that he would do his scotch buying the old-fashioned way for the time being, though he was tempted to take Karl up on the offer. Purchasing bottles one at a time was a way of limiting his consumption.

Jesse grabbed the bottle off the bar and held it up to the light. He laughed because he even liked the way the bottle felt in his hand and how the scotch looked in the light. He’d moved his right hand to twist off the cap when his front bell rang. He thought about having a short one straight from the bottle before answering the door. It would relieve the headache and make it easier to deal with whoever had come calling. He put the bottle down when the bell rang again.

Tamara Elkin was standing on Jesse’s welcome mat. She looked tired but otherwise much better than Jesse — though, minus the political bullshit, her day had been as long and as hard as his was. She was wearing what she always wore when she came over — beat-up cowboy boots, tight jeans, and a low-cut lightweight sweater. Her hair was still damp, so that her curls were loosened. Jesse was always amazed at just how long her hair was when it was wet. And he could smell that grassy and crushed-herb perfume she wore when she was off the job. In spite of that, it was what Tamara was carrying that got most of his attention. There was a beige folder cupped in the long, slender fingers of her right hand.

“Preliminary autopsy results?” he said.

“Yes, sir.”

“Then you’d better come in.”