“Sooner or later,” he said. “Sooner or damn later.”

He drove on toward Gillette, alone in the big prairie, no one else in sight on the narrow road. The only other car, a maroon Buick behind him, had turned off at Bill. He felt exhilarated by the thought that he might do something to change things. As long as he could think about it without actually doing it, he felt excited, and possible. He’d felt it before, but he was not introspective and he didn’t think much about the difference between thinking it and doing it, or how often he’d thought it before without doing it. When he actually began to imagine doing it, what he would say to the FBI agent in Cheyenne, what he might do if he had to go back to Paradise and testify, the bottom of himself got watery and loose, and his throat narrowed so it was difficult to swallow. But he wasn’t thinking of that now, he was thinking about how he would face the problem someday, and he was feeling as good as he was able to feel in his exile when the Dodge exploded beneath him. The hood of the truck, and part of the dashboard, and some bits of Tom Carson, went a hundred feet in the air and landed thirty yards from the roadway, sending two mule deer into a terrified run. The remainder of the truck, and of Tom Carson, was an impenetrable ball of flame in the empty roadway that burned unobserved as the deer, their white tails flashing, disappeared over the hillcrest.

Chapter 17

They were outside the Gray Gull Restaurant, on the deck overlooking the harbor. Abby had an Absolut martini, up, with several olives. Jesse had a beer. He didn’t look like the beer type to her. Her father had been a beer drinker, burly, red-faced, tending to fat as he got older. He always said he didn’t have a problem as long as he drank beer. But he had drunk a lot of beer, and she knew he had a problem. She wondered sometimes if she did. Originally she had switched from white wine to martinis because she liked white wine too much and felt that martinis would be something she could sip through an evening. She smiled to herself with some sadness as she sipped this one. She had learned to like martinis very much and, sometimes, if her self-control slipped, would sip four or five during an evening.

“What’s a lobster roll?” Jesse said as they looked at the menus.

“A lobster roll?”

“Yes. Is it a kind of sushi or what?”

Abby smiled.

“God, you California kids,” she said. “A lobster roll is lobster salad in a hot dog roll.”

“Oh,” Jesse said. “Actually I wasn’t a California kid. Didn’t move there until I was fifteen.”

“Where’d you grow up before then?”

“Around Tucson. My father was with the Pima County Sheriff’s Department.”

“Ah,” Abby said. “Second generation.”

“Un huh.”

“Why’d you move?”

“My father was working paid detail with a film crew in Tucson, and he got friendly with one of the stars and took a job as the star’s driver, personal assistant, bodyguard, whatever. So we moved.”

“So do you know a lot of famous movie people?”

“Nope, my father lasted about a month and got fired and took a job at Hughes.”

“Oh my,” Abby said. “Who was the star?”

Jesse shook his head.

“Why not?” Abby said.

“Old news,” Jesse said.

“Well, aren’t you private,” Abby said. “Your folks still alive?”

“No.”

“Brothers? Sisters?”

“Brother.”

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know. He and my father didn’t get along. He took off.”

“And you don’t know where he went?”

“No.”

She drank the rest of her martini. The waitress stopped by at once. The profit here was on drinks. Abby nodded yes, she’d have another one, and she noticed that Jesse had another beer.

“I wouldn’t have figured you for a beer drinker,” Abby said.

“I’m not. I’m a scotch on the rocks drinker, but I didn’t want to get drunk on our first date.”

“Do you get drunk?”

“I have some trouble stopping when I start,” Jesse said.

“You’re open about it,” Abby said.

Jesse shrugged.

“I have trouble too,” she said.

“Stopping?”

“Un huh. My father was a boozer.” She smiled. “Drank only beer.”

“In my house it was my mother.”

“What did she drink?”

“Port,” Jesse said.

Abby wrinkled her nose.

“Ugh,” she said.

The waitress came back and took food orders. It was a noisy crowd out on the deck. Young men and women, many of them from the same condo complex where Jesse was renting, single, well employed, affluent, stylish, and loud. They were drinking things like Long Island iced teas and tequila sunrises. As Abby looked across the table at him, Jesse seemed to her a figure of stillness in the midst of turbulence, as if he were the only boat with an anchor. He sat perfectly still, his hands resting on the tabletop. When he moved it was for a reason, to pour beer, to drink beer, to pick up the menu. He wasted no energy. It was hard to imagine him drunk and out of control. It was hard to imagine him kicking Jo Jo Genest in the balls, too. Though her official position required her to disapprove, she was glad he had. No one deserved a kick in the balls more than Jo Jo Genest, she thought. Her martini was gone. She could handle one more, all right. She loved the feeling of integration and certainty the drinks gave her. He would be an interesting guy to have sex with. See how contained and steady he was then.

“I’m going to go ahead and order another martini,” she said to Jesse. “If you want to order a scotch, go ahead. Our cards are on the table, I’m willing to risk it, if you are.”

Jesse smiled and ordered a Black Label on the rocks.

“You have any children, Jesse?”

“No. You?”

“No, we tried and couldn’t seem to. I guess I’m barren.”

“Or he is,” Jesse said.

The drinks came. Jesse was barely able to stifle a sigh as he took some of his scotch in and felt the ease begin to seep through him. Abby smiled at him over the rim of her martini.

“Good times,” she said and held the glass out. He clinked it with his. Each of them drank again.

“Can a man be barren?” Abby said.

“You mean is it a word you can use about men?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know,” Jesse said. “But if the two of you couldn’t have children, it doesn’t mean you were the one that couldn’t. You do any testing?”

“He refused,” she said.

Jesse nodded as if his point had been made. There was something about his eyes, she thought, as if he saw the world in a funny way and was quietly amused. He had on a blue blazer and a white shirt open at the neck and his skin had a healthy out-of-doors look to it. He was clean-shaven, his dark hair was cut close, and the sideburns were neatly trimmed.

“How long were you married?” Abby said.

“Five years.”

“What happened?”

“She was, is, an actress. She started sleeping with a guy, maybe guys for all I know, who could help her in her career.”

“Did you know?”

“Not at first.”

“Did you suspect?”

“Eventually.”

“And that was the end?”

“Yes, I think.”

“You think?”

“Well, at first I sort of denied it, and then I increased my drinking and finally, in fact, she left me. I got fired in L.A. for drinking. It had to be in my record. Hell, I was sort of drunk when I interviewed for this job.”

“Did they know?”

“I don’t know how they could have missed it,” Jesse said. “I must have smelled like a rum cake.”

“And they hired you anyway?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll be damned. They must have seen something in you.”

“Maybe.”

“Well, so far you seem to have justified their faith in you.”

“Maybe,” Jesse said.

“Why the maybes?” Abby said.

“Maybe they wanted a lush for a police chief.”

She frowned.

“Why on earth would they?”