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The bar is closed by now, a couple of hours, even for the stayers. When Jimmy leaves here in a few minutes, he’ll be replaced by Kenny Stanton. Retired now from the NYPD with full disability. Shot in the back by a gangbanger; recovered enough to walk again, but came out of it hooked on Oxy. Clean now for six months, he said, and Jimmy believed him. Kenny doesn’t sleep much, either, said he’d honestly rather be working a stakeout than pushing drinks, all due respect. Said it reminded him of working the late show when he was still on the job.
Jimmy knows the feeling.
Would an ex-cop risk circling back to Jane’s house, this close to having been there the first time?
Jimmy isn’t sure. But to his mind? Everything is on the table at this point.
Because if this guy took out McCall that cleanly, made him disappear without leaving any trace evidence behind, then everythinghasto be on the table.
No other way to approach it.
Behind him he sees Kenny Stanton blink his lights to let Jimmy know he’s here. Jimmy puts his car in gear. Maybe he can shut off his brain when he gets home and gets himself a couple of hours of sleep. He wants to take a ride into the city tomorrow, maybe after court, talk to his old partner, Mickey Dunne—they’ve been missing each other for a couple of days—see if he has any thoughts about a bad ex-cop who maybe has turned into a much, much worse one.
Jimmy is on Route 114, heading back to Sag Harbor, when he gets the call about the bar being on fire.
Forty-Three
Jimmy
“MAYBE WHOEVER IT WASfailed to take into consideration that the fire department is just up Main Street,” Chief Eddie Thompson says to Jimmy.
“Or maybe they didn’t give a shit.”
“You got enemies?”
“How much time you got?”
They are standing on Main Street across from his bar. The fire has been put out, but the air down at this end of Main is still thick and heavy and lousy with smoke. Engine 3 is still out front. Two of Thompson’s guys, in their black-and-yellow jackets, have just gone back inside.
“Whoeverdiddo this didn’t even attempt to hide what he was doing,” Thompson says. “The gasoline can was right inside the front door.”
He has his helmet in his hand.
“You probably don’t want to hear this, but it could’ve been a lot worse. Hey, I thought you were pretty popular in this town.”
“It’s an out-of-town job.”
“So you do know who did it.”
“I do and I don’t.”
“But this out-of-town guy has it in for you.”
“Very much so,” Jimmy says.
“But no name.”
“Not yet.”
The Sag Harbor chief of police, Pete Garry, comes walking out of Jimmy’s bar to where they’re standing.
“Your thoughts?” Garry says to Jimmy.
Jimmy shorthands his way through the whole story about the Carsons and McCall and getting drugged and Jane’s dog. He knows he’s left things out. He’s too tired and too pissed off to care at the moment.
“He hasn’t threatened your ass enough already?” Garry says.
“Apparently not.”
