51

Jenn was always late. Most of the women Jesse knew were late.

Rita was there at seven. She carried her purse over her shoulder, a small bag that might have been a briefcase over the other shoulder, and in her arms a large paper bag. She handed him the bag when he opened the door.

“I am beautiful and dangerous,” Rita said.

“But I don’t carry

things very well.”

Jesse took the bag and backed away from the door.

“I’m glad to see you,” he said.

“And I you,” she said. “The plea

bargaining was

interminable.”

“Four lawyers in a room,” Jesse said.

Rita put her purse and her shoulder bag on the living room floor

next to the coffee table.

“No wonder they hate lawyers,” Rita said.

“For crissake, I hate

lawyers … except me.”

Jesse smiled. He took the paper bag to the kitchen and set it on

the counter.

“Shall I unload?” he said.

“Sure. I like domesticity in a man,” Rita said.

Jesse took out a bottle of Riesling, two kinds of cheese, a big

sausage, two loaves of French bread, some red grapes, some green grapes, and four green apples.

“Would you like some of this wine?” Jesse said.

“I brought it in case,” Rita said.

“What I’d actually like, if

you have it, is a very large, very dry martini.”

“Sure,” Jesse said. “Gin or

vodka?”

“You have Ketel One?”

“I do.”

“Yes,” she said.

Jesse made the martini in a silver shaker, plopped two big olives in a wide martini glass, and poured Rita a drink.

“Aren’t you having something?”

she said.

Jesse shook his head.

“I don’t drink,” he said.

“Didn’t you used to,” Rita said.

“I did,” Jesse said. “Now I

don’t.”

He was a little startled at the firmness with which he said it.

“Get something,” Rita said, “a

glass of water, anything. I hate

to drink alone.”

Jesse went to the refrigerator and poured himself a glass of orange juice. He brought it into the living room and sat opposite Rita, who was on the sofa.

“That a boy,” Rita said. “Get

your vitamins.”

Jesse grinned. “How’d the plea bargaining come out,” he

said.

“Nothing you’d like. They get three

years’ probation, mandatory

counseling, and a hundred and twenty hours each of community service.”

“And Candace gets her life ruined,” Jesse said.

“I’m a lawyer,” Rita said.

“I represent my

client.”

“I know,” Jesse said.

Rita put her feet up on Jesse’s coffee table. She was wearing a

tailored beige suit with a fitted jacket and a short skirt. Jesse admired her legs.

“And,” Rita said, “people

recover from rape.”

“I guess so,” Jesse said. “And

maybe she will. But she doesn’t

think so now.”

Rita stared at him.

“My God,” she said. “You really

care about her.”

“Right now,” Jesse said, “home

alone, maybe in her room

listening to CDs, she cannot imagine going to school tomorrow. She cannot imagine facing all the kids who will know that she was gang-raped and photographed naked. And the three guys who did it will be in the same high school, maybe the same class, certainly the same cafeteria … Think back, when you were sixteen.”

Rita crossed her ankles on the coffee table. She was wearing dark high heels with pointed toes and thin ankle straps. She sipped her martini and stared at her shoes for a moment while she swallowed slowly.

“I represented Marino. My job, since I couldn’t get him off, was

to bargain for the best deal he could get. The other lawyers jumped in with me, and we came up with a package deal. I did a good job.

While I am,” Rita smiled at him, “no longer a little girl, I am a

woman, and as a woman I sympathize with the girl. But I wasn’t

hired to be a woman.”

“A lot of the kids in her school will think she was probably

asking for it, and they’ll think she finked to the cops, and ruined

it for three good guys including their football star.”

Rita took another sip of martini.

“I know,” she said.

They were silent. Rita looked past her martini glass at something very distant. Jesse drank some orange juice.

“I saw the pictures, of course,” Rita said. “Spread-eagled naked

on the ground. Raped, photographed … to them she was just another form of masturbation.”

Jesse was silent.

“A sex toy,” Rita said. “A

thing.”

They were both quiet. Rita finished her martini. Jesse poured the rest of the shaker into her glass. She took two olives from the small bowl on the coffee table and plomped them into her drink.

“The court going to specify the community service?” Jesse

said.

“They’ll leave it to the prosecution. Once they’re sentenced

we’ll get together with Reagan and decide something. Usually the

prosecution consults the schools.”

“You have any input in this?”

“Informally, sure. Besides, Reagan wants to score me.”

“Don’t blame him,” Jesse said.

“Who supervises their

service?”

“The court, in theory. In fact the people they’re assigned to

serve with are supposed to keep track of their hours, and rat them out if they don’t do what they’re supposed to.”

“Which often makes community service a joke,” Jesse

said.

“Often,” Rita said.

“How about they serve their sentence with me?” Jesse

said.

Rita stared at him and began to smile.

“They sweep up,” Jesse said,

“empty trash, run errands, shovel

snow, keep the cruisers clean … like that.”

Rita smiled at him some more.

“And you would, of course, take your supervisory responsibilities seriously,” she said.

“I would bust their chops,” Jesse said.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Rita

said.

She put her martini glass down and stood and stepped around the

coffee table and straddled him where he sat on the leather hassock and sat on his lap facing him. The movement lifted her short skirt almost to her waist. She pressed her mouth against his. After a time she leaned back.

“If I could use your shower,” she said,

“I’d fluff up my body a

little.”

“Down the hall on the right, off my

bedroom.”

Jesse’s voice sounded hoarse to him.

“Conveniently located,” Rita said.

She stood, smoothed her short skirt over her thighs, and walked

to the bathroom.

52

It had begun to snow softly when Jesse pulled into the visitor’s

parking space near the Seascape entrance. The same elegant and careful concierge tried not to stare at the rifle he was carrying as she phoned the Lincolns.

“Penthouse floor,” she said.

“I remember,” Jesse said.

Lincoln was waiting for him again, in the small foyer.

“Oh,” he said, “my

gun.”

Jesse handed it to him. Lincoln smiled.

“It’s not linked to any drive-by shootings or anything?” Lincoln

said.

“None that we could discover,” Jesse said.

“And it wasn’t used

to kill the four people in Paradise.”

“Oh good.”

Brianna Lincoln came into the living room.

“Mr. Stone,” she said. “What a

nice surprise.”

“Jesse was just returning our rifle, Brianna.”

Lincoln smiled again.

“He said it has not been involved in any crime.”

“I’ll put it away,” Brianna

said. “Can I get you coffee, Mr.

Stone?”

“Jesse. Sure, that would be fine.”

“Cream, two sugars?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She smiled.

“Brianna,” she said.

“Ma’am is my mother.”