Killing the Blues - Michael Brandman [23]
“I couldn’t get the image of the widow out of my mind. She was so grief-stricken. She was trying to hold it together, but the worst was yet to come, and I could see in her eyes that she knew it.”
“So you got drunk?”
“Yes.”
“But you haven’t gotten drunk again?”
“No.”
Dix didn’t say anything.
“I identified with her grief.”
“Jenn?”
“Yes.”
Neither of them said anything.
“I regretted it,” Jesse said. “I’m determined not to let her get to me again.”
They sat silently for a while.
“Is there anything else you want to tell me,” Dix said.
“I’ve started seeing someone.”
“Someone other than Sunny Randall?”
“Yes.”
“So you’re not seeing Sunny any longer?”
“She’s away.”
“If she were here?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why?”
“I flew too close to the flame.”
“Which means?”
“I like it better where it’s cooler.”
Dix didn’t say anything.
“I don’t think I’m ready.”
They sat quietly for a while.
“Do you take these sessions seriously,” Dix said.
“I do,” Jesse said.
“Do you find them helpful?”
“Mostly.”
“Do you reflect on them?”
“Sometimes. Why?”
“Because you’re often obtuse.”
Jesse didn’t say anything.
“I don’t want you to wander off the path toward self-realization,” Dix said.
“It’s when I wander that I come to see you.”
“Which is a good thing.”
“If you say so.”
25
Jesse returned to the safe house. He parked in the garage and went inside.
Everything was as it had been except that both Perkins and Suit now had two days’ worth of beard.
“Anything I should know about,” Jesse said.
“He’s agitated. He’s been asking for you,” Suitcase said.
“That’s a start,” Jesse said.
They went to the door and watched Lopresti for a while.
He, too, needed a shave. Jesse went into the room.
“Good morning,” he said.
“Where were you? Why in hell did you take so long to come back?”
“Did you miss me?”
“Don’t fuck with me.”
“Do you have something to tell me?”
“I might.”
“I’ll want to know several things, but first I’d like to learn who you’re working for.”
“How do I know that you’ll let me go if I tell you,” Lopresti said.
“You don’t.”
“You said something about verifying what I might tell you. How does that happen?”
“That’s my concern.”
“How much information will I have to give you?”
“Enough to satisfy me.”
“You don’t give an inch, do you?”
“Someone has died because of this business, Robert. I intend to put a stop to it. If you help me, you’ll go free. You’ll have to trust in that.”
Lopresti thought about it. “John Lombardo,” he said.
“How do I find John Lombardo?”
“I don’t know. He finds me.”
“That’s not good enough, Robert.”
“Listen, I don’t know how to find him. If I need him, I call his cell.”
“What’s the number?”
Jesse wrote it down as Lopresti recited it.
“How did you come to know Mr. Lombardo,” Jesse said.
“Fall River. I was workin’ the streets. Me and Santino. Every now and then we’d lift a car. Mostly just to see if we could. I knew a guy was interested in parts. We’d sell the cars to him.”
“And?”
“And this one time we brought in a car and our friend told us that Mr. Lombardo might have work for us.”
Jesse didn’t say anything.
“So we met with him. He asked if we’d like to join his operation. The money was good. So we did,” Lopresti said.
“How long ago was that?”
“Six months or so.”
“And you’ve been working for him ever since?”
“Yeah.”
“Where?”
“What?”
“Where have you been working,” Jesse said.
“Here and there. No one place.”
“Until you set up shop in Paradise.”
“Yeah.”
“Which you did because . . . ?”
“Because Mr. Lombardo said to. He said he wanted to find a new place for a shop. He mentioned Paradise. He purchased the farm and told us to work there.”
“Where do I find Mr. Lombardo?”
“I already told you I don’t know.”
“Did you ever meet him in Boston,” Jesse said.
“Yeah.”
“Where?”
“At a restaurant.”
“What restaurant?”
“Some place he likes in Cambridge.”
“What place?”
“An Italian place. Il Capriccio. On Ash Street. Go verify this shit, will ya? My wife must be climbin’ the walls.”
“Who killed Mike Lytell,” Jesse said.
“Who the fuck is