Night Passage (A Jesse Stone Novel)

the bills.
    “Lucky you’re so strong, Jo Jo.”
    The counting continued. The bills were stacked and banded and put aside as Hathaway counted them.
    “I started as a teller,” he said as he counted. “You never forget.”
    “Yeah, yeah. I’m telling you, I counted already. There’s two million three hundred and twelve thousand, eight hundred and fifty-four dollars there.”
    “I have a fiduciary responsibility,” Hathaway said.
    “How come you started as a teller?” Jo Jo said. “Your father owned the fucking bank.”
    Hathaway smiled without answering and continued to count.
    “I hear you had a dispute with Jesse,” Hathaway said. “We were surprised at the outcome.”
    “Son of a bitch blindsided me,” Jo Jo said.
    “It makes us worry a little,” Hathaway said, carefully slipping the band over a stack of twenty-dollar bills, paying great attention to the process, “about our judgment.”
    “Don’t worry,” Jo Jo said. “He ain’t that good.”
    “I hope he isn’t. He was certainly hired on the assumption that he wouldn’t be. What also concerns us is that we hope you are better than the encounter suggests.”
    Jo Jo stopped taking bills from the suitcase and rose to his feet.
    “You ever been kicked in the balls?” he said.
    Hathaway shook his head and looked mildly contemptuous. People of his caste did not receive kicks in the balls.
    “He suckered me once, he won’t do it again.”
    “We hope not,” Hathaway said.
    Jo Jo stood looking down at him, feeling the anger surge along his latissimus dorsi. He could pick the little twerp up and strangle him like a chicken. It annoyed him that Hathaway was not more aware of that.
    “Look at me,” Jo Jo said. “Look at him, next time you see him. You think I’m not going to even it up?”
    “Not directly,” Hathaway said.
    “Whaddya mean?”
    “He’s the Chief of Police,” Hathaway said.
    As he spoke he continued to count.
    “So fucking what?” Jo Jo said. “Anyone screws around with me, has to pay.”
    “You are a valuable member of our team, and we can’t compromise the team mission for petty personal reasons.”
    “Hey,” Jo Jo said. “I’m not anybody’s team, you unnerstand, I’m just me, Jo Jo. I do what I goddamned please.”
    Hathaway stopped counting and looked up at Jo Jo silently with his pale blue eyes.
    “We want you to avoid any confrontation with Jesse Stone,” Hathaway said.
    “And maybe I do it anyway.”
    Again the silence while Hathaway looked at him, and Jo Jo felt a little tingle of fear inside the protective muscle layers.
    “We’ll have to insist,” Hathaway said.
    Jo Jo held his look for a long moment and then shrugged and crouched and began to take money from the open suitcase. The little pussy was going to get his someday too, but there was no point arguing with him now. He was still useful. They finished the count in silence.
    “I get two million, one hundred and fourteen thousand, nine hundred and five dollars,” Hathaway said when the money was counted. “Do you want to recount it?”
    “Hell no,” Jo Jo said. “I’ll take your count.”
    “Fine,” Hathaway said. “You get four percent?”
    “Yeah.”
    Hathaway tapped on a calculator for a moment.
    “Eighty-four thousand, five hundred and ninety-six dollars and twenty cents,” Hathaway said. “If we’d used your count it would have been more like ninety-two thousand.”
    “Don’t matter,” Jo Jo said. “Plenty more coming.”
    “Fine.”
    Hathaway counted out Jo Jo’s percentage.
    “Keep the twenty cents, too,” Jo Jo said and laughed.
    Hathaway made no response except to shrug slightly.
    “Would you like that in an envelope?” Hathaway said.
    “Sure.”
    Hathaway folded it neatly, put it in a plain brown envelope, and handed it to Jo Jo. He put it back in one of the suitcases, picked up both of them, and started for the door.
    Hathaway said, “Why don’t you have a seat while I get this deposited and get you a receipt?”
    Jo Jo tried to look like he didn’t care, although in fact, he had been in a hurry to get out of Hathaway’s office and had forgotten that he needed a receipt to show Gino. He sat and looked at the boat models while Hathaway and two tellers deposited the cash.
    Hathaway returned when it was gone and gave Jo Jo a deposit slip.
    “What do you get outta this?” Jo Jo said.
    Hathaway looked at him blankly without answering. Jo Jo shrugged, tucked the deposit receipt in his shirt pocket,