Night Passage (A Jesse Stone Novel)

head.
    “Oh?” Jo Jo said. “You just admitted you couldn’t do shit about it.”
    “No, sir,” Jesse said. “I said the restraining order probably wouldn’t work.”
    “Same thing,” Jo Jo said.
    “Not really,” Jesse said, and kicked Jo Jo in the groin.
    The movement seemed casual. But it was a very quick movement. And hard. Jo Jo gasped and doubled up and fell over and lay on the pale blue flowered carpet of the den and moaned. Jesse bent over him with a look of blank disinterest and grasped Jo Jo’s hair with his left hand and held his head up and put his face very close to Jo Jo’s and spoke to him.
    “You’re all mouth and show muscle,” Jesse said gently. “If you come near this woman again, or if anything happens to her or her kids, no matter what, and no matter whose fault it is, I will kick you around town until you look like roadkill. And if you are annoying, like you were today, maybe I’ll shoot you.” Jesse tapped Jo Jo on the bridge of the nose with the muzzle of his revolver. “Right here … capeesh?”
    Jo Jo was still moaning.
    “Answer me, Jo Jo,” Jesse said. “Or I will kick you in the balls again. Capeesh?”
    Jo Jo squeezed the word “capeesh” out between moans.
    Jesse let Jo Jo’s head go and it thumped on the rug. Jesse stood up.
    “Suitcase, you and Anthony stay here until Mr. Genest has gone,” Jesse said. “Ma’am, you should probably get those kids to a shrink.”
    Carole’s eyes were wide and bright. There was a flush of color on her cheekbones, as if she had a fever.
    “What if he comes back,” she said.
    “I don’t think he’ll come back,” Jesse said.
    He turned and walked out of the house and down the driveway to his car.
    Behind him he heard Suitcase Simpson say, “Jesus Christ!”

15
     
    Jesse sat in his office in the early evening with Abby Taylor.
    “The selectmen have asked me to talk with you,” she said.
    “Good,” Jesse said.
    She was wearing a black suit with a long jacket and a short skirt. At least she didn’t have on one of those frilly neck pieces that some professional women wore like a pretend necktie; her white blouse was open at the neck. Her briefcase was on the floor leaning against the leg of her chair. She wore black high-heeled shoes. Jesse thought her ankles were very nice.
    “I’m speaking now as town counsel,” Abby Taylor said carefully.
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    “May I call you Jesse?”
    “Of course, Abby.”
    She smiled automatically.
    “Now, I know,” she said, “that you are new not only to this job, but to this environment.”
    Jesse smiled helpfully.
    “But whatever the circumstances of your police work in Los Angeles, this is a town in which everyone’s civil liberties are important.”
    Jesse nodded. He seemed interested.
    “May I be frank with you?” Abby Taylor said.
    “Sure.”
    “You cannot go about beating people up,” she said. “It leaves the town vulnerable to lawsuit. I understand the provocation. And I certainly am sympathetic to Carole Genest’s situation. But we cannot permit you to take the law into your own hands. It is not only illegal. It simply is not right.”
    Jesse nodded thoughtfully.
    “Let me ask you a question,” he said.
    “Of course.”
    “You asked me if you could call me Jesse, and I said you could. But you didn’t.”
    “Excuse me?”
    “You never used my name.”
    “What the hell has that got to do with you brutalizing Mr. Genest?”
    “Just seemed odd to me,” Jesse said.
    “Well, if it does, it does,” Abby Taylor said. “I’m not going to be sidetracked.”
    “Course not, Abby.”
    “Do you have anything to say about the matter of your assault on Mr. Genest?”
    “Not really,” Jesse said.
    “I’m afraid there has to be more than that,” Abby Taylor said.
    “The restraining order wasn’t working,” Jesse said. “Think of me as implementing it.”
    “You really have to take this seriously,” Abby Taylor said.
    “ ‘You have to take this more seriously, Jesse,’ ” he said.
    Abby Taylor smiled.
    “You have to take this more seriously, Jesse.”
    “No I don’t, Abby.”
    “You don’t make it easy … Jesse.”
    He nodded and leaned back a little in his chair. His blue uniform shirt was tailored and carefully pressed. He had nice eyes, she noticed, with small wrinkles at the corners as if he had spent a lot of time squinting into the sun.
    “Jo Jo Genest should be kicked in the balls once a day,” Jesse said.