Free Trouble in Paradise by Robert B. Parker Page A

what you need. Then you have to get it. And install it. It’ll take some time.
    You can’t get away ten days for a million bucks?“
    ”Old lady’ll croak,“ Fran said.
    ”I tell her I’m leaving her alone with four kids for ten days.“
    ”You’ll have to deal with your wife,“ Macklin said.
    The two of them were silent then, their forearms resting on the railing, the littered sea water washing tamely against the pier. The harbor was busy with small boats and behind them Harbor Place was raucous with teenagers.
    ”Okay,“ Fran said finally.
    ”I’ll deal with her.“
    Macklin smiled and put out his hand. Fran shook it slowly.
    ”I’ll be in touch,“ Macklin said.

 
     
    TWENTY
    Surveillance was easy enough. Stay out of sight and watch. He’d done a lot of it in L.A. and the greatest enemy was boredom.
    Tonight in the Back Bay, outside Jenn’s apartment, there was no boredom. He’d found space to park on a hydrant in view of her front door. And he sat in his car in the dark with a feeling of such complex intensity that he didn’t understand it. He knew that he felt anticipation and anger and excitement, which was at least partly sexual. He also felt calmness and curiosity and hope and guilt and something like strength.
    Too hard for me, he said to himself and settled back against the car seat. He didn’t let the motor run because that was a dead giveaway to surveillance, a car parked with its motor on. He didn’t play the radio. He simply sat and waited. People moved along the sidewalk past his parked car. There was money in the Back Bay and the four-story brick town houses along Beacon Street were full of young, well-dressed, good-looking men and women. It was evening and many of them were coming home from dinner or movies or working late. Dogs were being walked, and elegantly dressed women in high heels were carrying plastic bags to clean up after them.
    Dog shit does not respect social status, Jesse thought.
    He looked at his watch. Nine-thirty. If she’d left the station by seven and gone to dinner with somebody, she’d be coming home now. Unless she was spending the night somewhere else. He took in some air and let it out slowly with his lips pursed in a kind of silent whistle.
    He felt the comfortable weight of his gun near his right hip. If she were with another guy, he could kill him. He could feel the release it would bring him. He could imagine the near ejaculatory surge of relief he would get, and he rolled the thought around in his mind passionately. And then what. Now that I’ve croaked your boyfriend, honey, let’s you and me get together? That wouldn’t work.
    It would also get him jailed. Even police chiefs weren’t permitted to kill people for dating their ex-wives. He could probably do it secretively and get away with it. But how many would he have to kill off? And mightn’t Jenn get a bit suspicious when her dates kept getting clipped? And how often could he get away with it? Cops normally looked for the disgruntled lover when some men get killed that are dating the same women. He gave it up slowly, knowing he’d never really thought he could. So why was he here? He shrugged in the darkness. Better to know than not know.
    Jenn turned the corner at Dartmouth Street and walked down Beacon Street beside a short man. They were holding hands. Jesse knew Jenn’s walk in the dimness before he could recognize any feature. As they got closer, Jesse recognized the evening news anchor, Tony Salt. He was much shorter than he appeared on the tube.
    Shorter than Jenn. But he had a large head and a strong chin and deep masculine smile lines around his mouth. His walk seemed stilted, and Jesse realized that Tony Salt was teetering on high heeled cowboy boots. Christ, in his bare feet he can walk under bar stools, Jesse thought.
    They were walking close together and their shoulders brushed often. Jenn was talking in that brilliant, animated way she had when she seemed to put her whole self