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“No,” Jane said, “we certainly wouldn’t want that.”
“I mean it.”
“Your lips, God’s ears.”
Jimmy knows Ahearn is a born-again. At that point he actually asked Jane if she’d accepted Jesus as her Lord and Savior.
“I keep telling myself I’ll get around to it. But I’ve been a little jammed up lately.”
Jimmy cautioned Ahearn that at least some of the members of the local constabulary, didn’t matter which town, weren’t too keen on Jane at the moment, without telling him about the other Jane-involved shooting over in the Springs that night. Ahearn told Jimmy he’d already made it crystal clear to all departments that if anything happened to Jane Smith on their watch, their next duty would be directing traffic at the corner of Main Street and Newtown Lane at the Fourth of July parade.
Jimmy is at the bar tonight. Kenny Stanton is working the stick. Good crowd. But then business has generally been better than ever since the fire, as if the town wants to let whoever did it know that shit won’t stand.
The Yankees game is on television. They’ve won four or five in a row. But it’s too early for Jimmy to get excited about them; they’ve burned him too many times before by showing him early speed.
Jimmy’s been nursing a Johnnie Walker Blue, the good stuff, since he sat down. Jane just called to tell him she was still waiting to get with Jacobson at the hospital.
“The good news,” she told Jimmy, “is that it appears to have been a false alarm on the heart attack, and that he’s going to live.”
“Bad news?”
“That he’s going to live.”
Kenny walks down to where Jimmy is sitting and asks if he wants his drink topped off. Jimmy says he’s good. Kenny asks how Jimmy’s shoulder feels. Jimmy says bad, but not bad enough to take the pain pills he had left over in his medicine chest at home.
Kenny says, “You know what you need to do with those pills, right?”
“Flush ’em.”
“Good boy.”
Kenny stands there, arms crossed, grinning at Jimmy.
“What?”
“I know that look by now, is all.”
“What look?”
“The one where you act like you’re watching the ball game but all’s you’re really doing is thinking about that Joe Champi.”
Jimmy puts up his uninjured arm, half surrendering. “You got me.”
“You’ll catch up with the jag-off eventually,” Kenny says.
“How do you figure?”
“Because you always have.”
“Kiss ass.”
“Betyour ass.”
Jimmy drinks the last of his Johnnie Walker. The small house he bought about five years ago, in North Haven, right after the divorce, a mile or so from the Shelter Island Ferry, is five minutes away, tops.
Too early to head home, though. But if he sits here he’s going to have to answer more questions about the goddamn trial. Or deal with regulars wanting to know if there’re any new leads on whoever tried to torch the place.
He hears a burst of laughter from a cop table at the other side of the room, Mike Rousselle is there. When he sees Jimmy eyeballing him, he grins and gives him the finger.
