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Champi tries to keep his face blank as he stares back at me. Is it guilt I see in his eyes now? Or something else? Maybe it’s just the kind of indifference you see from a snake.
His answer is to just grin, and shrug.
At least one of them knows enough to keep his mouth shut.
“Do the two of you plan to kill me now?”
Jacobson pokes at his temple with an index finger.
“I’ve thought about it, Jane Smith. Not gonna lie aboutthat.Ihavethought about it.” He shrugs now. “But no,” Jacobson says, “I’m not going to kill you. Despite what you might think about me, even now, and even though you might not believe it, I’m not a killer.”
I look for a reaction from Champi but don’t get one.
Then Jacobson is talking again. “But Ihavebeen thinking a lot since the trial ended about what to do about the way you fucked with me every chance you got.” Winks at me one more time. “And you know what I came up with, what would be like a life sentence for you? Making you believe you freed a guilty man.”
“Did I? Free a guilty man, I mean. You keep swearing up and down that you didn’t do it.”
He acts as if he hasn’t even heard me, walks to the end of the room, toward the open terrace doors through which his date must just have run. The moon seems even brighter than ever, as if it’s gotten closer. When he turns it’s almost as if there’s a spotlight on him.
“The whole trial,” he says, “you kept bringing up O.J. I always got a kick out of that.” He drinks some scotch, loudly smacks his lips. “You remember that book he wrote after he beat the rap? On the murders, not the shit later on in Vegas.If I Did It—that was the title. Maybe I should write a book of my own like that. Get back into publishing with a nice double-dip. Write itandsell it.”
He drinks again.
“IfIdid it.”
I look over at Champi. His eyes are still very much locked on me. The gun rests on his knee. I idly wonder how many people have died because of that gun.
Or are about to die.
“You always thought you were in charge, Jane Smith. But now I’m the one calling the shots. So to speak.”
As always, when he’s doing most of the talking, he’s enjoying himself mightily.
But I turn to Champi now. “I’m curious about something,” I say to him. “I’m curious about a lot of things, actually. But let’s start with this: Why didn’t you take out Jimmy that day at McCall’s, when you had the chance? Why’d you wait until you ambushed him in that chickenshit way? It was you at McCall’s, wasn’t it?”
I see Jacobson look at Champi and slowly shake his head.
“He’s not your witness, Jane Smith,” Jacobson says. “I am. You don’t talk to him. You talk to me. Got it?”
“Okay, I’ll play along.Ifyou killed the Gateses,whydid you?”
“Well,” he says, “maybe getting a thrill out of getting a daughter into the sack all this time after I did the same with the mother finally caught up with me. And they were going to tell, even though we had a deal.”
He turns back to Champi.
“Now I’m the one talking too much, right?” Jacobson says.
“Your whole life,” Champi says. “Even though she’s not even asking the right questions. Again.”
I turn back to him. “What questions should I be asking?”
“You ever wonder what happened to the Morelli kid?”
“I just assumed you threw him into the ocean.”
“One more thing you got wrong,” Champi says. He shakes his head. “List keeps getting longer. All the way back to high school.”
“What does that mean?”
