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“The guard, Tommy Murray, drinks at my bar. As soon as he drops off Mr. Wonderful, he’s going to take a walk.” Jimmy grins. “Give us our privacy.”
It had been Jimmy’s idea to wait to talk to Jacobson at the jail, saying that jumpsuits and cuffs always take the swag right out of prisoners, no matter how hot shit they think they are.
Rob Jacobson still tries his best to act like he’s in charge of the room when he sits down, not even noticing that Tommy, the guard, has quietly disappeared.
“I’ll talk to you,” Jacobson says to me, “but not this asshole.”
He nods at Jimmy.
“Mr. Cunniff and I said everything we needed to say to each other at the hospital,” he says. “So he goes, or I head off to my fashionably late dinner reservation in the mess hall.”
I watch as Jimmy casually reaches across the table and grabs the front of Jacobson’s jumpsuit and jerks him forward before Jacobson even knows it’s happening.
“Hey,”Rob Jacobson yells.“Hey!”He manages to turn his head and yell,“Guard!”
Only now does he become aware that the guard is gone.
“I felt we could speak more openly this way,” Jimmy says. “Get in touch with our feelings.”
“Let go of me,” Jacobson says.
Jimmy jerks him a bit closer, their faces very close now. “Only if you promise to be nice.”
“When you let go of me.”
Jimmy shoves him back.
“Does this guy work for you, or is it the other way around?” Jacobson asks me.
“Boy,” I say, “how many times have I asked myselfthatquestion?”
Jacobson manages to smooth out the front of his jumpsuit with his cuffed hands. “Does this have something to do with what my wife did today?” he says to us.
Jimmy doesn’t answer him, just takes the photograph out of the inside pocket of his blazer and places it on the table in front of Jacobson. “Explain,” Jimmy says.
“My Speedo?” Jacobson says. “It was the style back then.”
I look at him, fascinated. Even here, even now with Jimmy Cunniff up in his face this way, Jacobson can’t help himself frombeinghimself.
Jimmy pokes Lily Carson’s face with an index finger.
“You know Jane and me are looking into Lily Carson’s death,” Jimmy asks. “How is it that you never mentioned you knew Lily Carson when you were both kids?”
“Because the fact that I took a picture with her twenty-five years ago, or whatever, does absolutely nothing for me now—that’s why.”
“You didn’t just take a picture with her at the beach one time,” Jimmy says. “You took her to the prom.”
Jacobson smiles. Still trying to be the cocky bastard he’s always been.
“Cunniff, do you have any idea how many girls I had when I was in high school? Including more than one the night of that prom to which you’re referring?”
Jimmy gets up and walks around the table, and now he sits next to Jacobson.
“Rob,” he says, still in the soft voice, “my old partner has just been shot to death, point-blank range, in the Bronx. It is my strongly held belief that Joe Champi, an old acquaintance of yours, is the one who did the shooting. Nod if you’re following.”
Jacobson does. They are very close to each other.
“And when I went to my old partner’s apartment this morning,” Jimmy continues, “I discovered he had hidden this picture of you and Lily Carson and two other girls. So now I am here asking you why in the world my ex-partner thought a picture of this was worth hiding, most likely from your old friend Joe Champi.”
