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“To tell you the truth, Claire. I think the bitch here is him.”
I think it might not be a bad exit line if I wasn’t afraid to leave the two of them alone in here. So I wait for Rob Jacobson to lead us out, in a suit I haven’t seen him wear before. I am about to follow him when I feel Claire’s hand on my shoulder.
She whispers something in my ear then, and smiles at me, rather smugly I think, as if she is the one with the high ground here.
Then in the hallway she takes a right instead of a left and heads for the doors leading to the street.
Before she leaves the building, she turns, as if certain I’m still watching her.
“You only think you know everything, Jane.”
Forty-Two
Jimmy
JIMMY CUNNIFF SITS INhis car, which he’s parked down the street from Jane’s house.
Three in the morning. He’s pulled the late shift tonight. Sometimes he and Kenny Stanton, his best bartender and an ex-cop himself, alternate.
He’s not worried about missing sleep tonight. Or any night. Long story short? Jimmy Cunniff has never needed much sleep.
Jane gave him a lot of blowback, telling him she’s a big girl and can take care of herself, blah, blah, blah. Jimmy finally convinced her she can’t, not from this guy, whoever he is—that’s his gut. He finally wore her down, mostly because on this one, she knows he’s right.
Jimmy’s not entirely sure he can take care ofhimself, either, as much of a cowboy as he’s always been.
Somewhere out there is an ex-cop good enough to have gotten behind Jimmy, completely cool once he did, not rushing anything or giving away anything until he put the needle in Jimmy’s neck, and down went Cunniff.
Jimmy didn’t get himself checked out afterward, even though he felt like shit for two straight days, like he used to feel at the end of a serious bender. He figured it was etorphine, or something like it. Whatever it was, it made him feel as if he didn’t want to get out of bed. He told no one, certainly not Jane, how he was feeling, just because Jane is always in better shape than a Navy SEAL.
Even now, Jimmy still feels a little fuzzy.
When he finally does catch up with this guy, which he has promised himself he will or will die trying, he’ll owe him one for jabbing him that way.
On top of everything else.
I used to do what you used to do,the guy said.
He didn’t mean boxing, or writing, or owning a bar.
So he’d been a cop. Or so he said. Did that mean NYPD? Or does he just know enough about Jimmy to know he’s ex-NYPD?
During the past week, Jimmy has been calling guys in the department he’s still good with, seeing if they can remember ever being on the job with someone who fits this asshat’s profile, someone who might have the balls to kill a district attorney, and maybe a lot more people than him.
Maybe this guy was the last person Artie Shore talked to on the phone before he blew his brains out.
Maybe if he didn’t kill the Carson family, he knew who did.
But none of that is what’s driving Jimmy hard right now.
It’s that this mutt got inside Jane’s house.
He washere,the son of a bitch.
Even talked about killing her dog.
Jimmy thinks:He spared the dog the way he spared me.
But for how long?
