Fourteen Jimmy

FOURTEEN

Jimmy

WHEN HE'S GOTTEN OUT of the city and is finally flying up the LIE, Jimmy has finally calmed down, knowing how close he'd come to bouncing McKenzie around, even in a bar full of cell phone cameras.

What he had done, though, before McKenzie knew it was happening, was get him up and out of his chair and into the small lobby between Bemelmans and the Café Carlyle, where Bobby Short used to play the piano in the old days.

Out there, nobody around except the girl in no clothes, Amber, making bird noises, Jimmy put McKenzie up against the wall.

"You got any other smart comments you want to make?" Jimmy had said to him, their faces close enough that he could smell the whiskey on McKenzie's breath.

"You have no idea what a mistake you're making," McKenzie said.

An older couple walked through the door from Madison Avenue, took one look at them, and left.

"It's the other way around," Jimmy said. "I'm the last guy in town you want up in your shit."

McKenzie had smiled at him.

"Well, maybe not the last guy."

"You think you're some kind of badass, Eddie?"

The smirk was back in place. "No," McKenzie said. "But I know some. Now get your hands off me before I start yelling for security."

Jimmy did. McKenzie walked out onto Madison, his girlfriend following him.

Jimmy gets to Southampton and cuts through Shinnecock Hills Golf Club; taking North Sea and then Noyac Road, the bay on his left, passing Ferry Road because he's not going down to the Shelter Island Ferry but into North Haven and the turn on his street.

He loves driving around at this time of night, hardly any other cars out, sometimes going a couple of miles without seeing any headlights or taillights.

As late as it is, he knows it's still too early in Switzerland to call Jane and tell her about his night. And before she left he promised her, and himself, that he wasn't going to give her daily updates while she was over there, even though she tells him it will take her mind off the reason she went there in the first place.

As if any update he was going to give her could do that.

He knows he needs to find out more about McKenzie, figure out how much badass he might have behind him, maybe even from Sonny Blum, who might still be in business with Edmund McKenzie's old man. Who might still be fixing things for the family.

One thing was certain: McKenzie had seemed pretty goddamned sure of himself, after he'd asked how many times Jane and Jimmy might let Rob Jacobson, his old high school pal, get away with murder.

Jimmy parks his car in the driveway, finally ready to sleep, as if driving back out has really driven the adrenaline he was feeling at Bemelmans right out of him.

They're waiting for him inside the front door, on him in the dark before he can throw the light switch.

A needle goes into the back of his neck then.

The last thing Jimmy hears is a voice behind him in the darkness saying, "Remember what this feels like?"