Eighty-Five

EIGHTY-FIVE

DANNY ESPOSITO AND I are at Jimmy's bar.

Still no word from him.

"I can call the boys back at our office and see if they can try to track him off the cell towers out here, when you can find a goddamn tower," Esposito says. "Maybe have them do that triangulation thing they do."

"I just keep telling myself that there must be a reason why he doesn't want to be located," I say, "and why he hasn't reached out."

We're at the end of the bar, my usual seat when it's Jimmy and me. The Yankee game is on the TV closest to us. Esposito tells me that he's not much for baseball, he's more of a hockey guy.

"I knew eventually there had to be something about you I'd find appealing," I tell him.

He drinks some of his beer, licks foam off his upper lip, and grins. "I'm getting this feeling—you must be getting the same one—that there's a bond starting to form here."

"Fight it."

While we sip our beers, I catch him up on Licata, McKenzie, Eric Jacobson. My ex. Even my brief trip to the hospital.

"You lead a very rich and full life," Esposito says.

"Full of what?"

He runs a hand through his wavy hair. "How motivated might McKenzie and the Jacobson kid be to jam up your client if they got the chance?"

"Very."

"Now Cunniff goes off to jam them up if he gets his chance."

"Trying to add to his own rich and full life."

"You act like it's no big deal that he's not here," Esposito says. "But being as he's a highly decorated investigator, I can see that you're worried about him."

"Very," I say again.

I have settled into a nice routine. Talking with Danny Esposito, checking the game, checking my phone, watching the front door, waiting for Jimmy to walk through it.

I know how much I love my sister. I have come to love Dr. Ben Kalinsky.

I love my work, more than I should.

I love the holy hell out of my dog.

But Jimmy, in all the important ways, is the true love of my life.

If something ever happened to him, I would want to die.

Where is he?

Something happens in the ball game, something that must be good for the Yankees, because the Yankee fans in the place are cheering and clapping.

I check my phone again, the Find My app.

Jimmy's last location was in the middle of Southampton town.

I look back at the door, trying to will Jimmy to come walking through it.

"You think McKenzie and Eric Jacobson could take Jimmy down, if it ever came to that?" Esposito asks.

"Not unless McKenzie has a stockpile of automatic weapons at his house."

"Then he'll be here."

" When ?" I snap and slap the bar with the palm of my hand, loud enough that some of the guys at the other end turn to look at me.

Jimmy finally comes walking through the door about fifteen minutes later. I can see how pissed he is before he gets to the bar, or says a word, because that's how well I know him, he might as well be carrying a sign.

"I got played," he says, and takes the seat next to Esposito.

He makes a motion to Kenny that he wants a drink and wants it right now.

"Beer, boss?" Kenny asks.

"Bourbon. The good stuff."

Kenny brings him a glass of what I know is Pappy Van Winkle. Jimmy throws half of it down in one shot.

"Sometimes," he says, looking past Esposito at me, "I think somebody's been playing us since we took this freaking case, and trying to run us in circles."

"But who?" I ask.

"I thought you were supposed to be the brains of this operation," Jimmy says.

"If you still believe that," I tell him, "then you're right. You have been played."