Nine

NINE

I'M AT THE END of the bar with Jimmy, having already told him about my meeting with Jacobson. The Yankee game is on both television sets. No Mets tonight. It means Jimmy has pulled rank on me. But then he does own the place. There have to be some perks that go along with that.

"You're gonna do this, aren't you? It doesn't matter what I say to try to change your mind."

"Maybe I'll be the one to change my mind while I'm away."

"No, you won't. We both know you were gonna do it before they had the cuffs on him the other day, whether you gave him a firm answer today or not."

I point at the TV set closest to us. "Would you mind terribly putting on the Mets game?"

"Yes, I would mind."

"Try to be the bigger man for once."

"Bigger man than you? Impossible."

That gets a laugh out of me. I reach for his bottle and take a sip of his Montauk Summer Ale.

"Hey," he says.

I tell him not to worry, I'm not contagious.

"It really would make me feel better if I could watch the Mets."

"You're playing the sick card over a ball game ?" But he reluctantly points the remote at the set and switches to the Mets.

"So we're doing this with Jacobson," Jimmy says. "I'll be a sonofabitch."

"We're both doing it."

"You know and I know that Jacobson sent Joe Champi to kill you, whether he'll ever admit that or not. Then we get to the fact how you're the one who keeps telling me that you want Jacobson to be innocent of killing the entire damn Gates family because you don't want to die thinking you got an acquittal for a guilty man."

He realizes instantly that he had just put "dying" into play.

"I didn't mean that the way it came out."

"I know."

"But you just said to me the other day that you still don't know about this guy. Jacobson."

"That I do know."

"So explain to me, in a way I can understand, why we're going back to work for him."

"I can't."

He grins. "Jesus, Janie," he says. "You really are sick. In the head. "

I look at him, my own face serious now. "And please don't tell me again that life's too short to waste on Rob Jacobson."

"Even if I want to?"

"Even if."

He asks me if I want something to drink. I tell him that I'm going to head home.

"You really ready for this?"

"You mean another trial?"

"You know that's not what I'm talking about."

He's talking about the trip I am taking to Switzerland in the morning, to the same cancer clinic outside of Geneva where my sister, Brigid, was treated. Targeted immunotherapy was on the table. Enhanced chemotherapy. Perhaps some experimental meds not yet FDA-approved. If I respond favorably to their treatment program, I'm only there two weeks. If I don't, then we see.

My sister and me. Both with cancer, if different kinds. I know. Some families have all the luck. My mother died of it, too. At least Brigid's is in remission for the time being.

"I'm as ready as I'll ever be," I tell Jimmy. "Mostly because I have nothing to lose."

In a soft voice, my tough-guy partner says, "I do."

He walks me out the back door to my car.

We hug for a long time.

"This has to work," I whisper to him.

"I'll mention that to God at Sunday Mass this week," he whispers back.

That gets me to pull back.

"Wait. You're going to church again?"

"Desperate times."

"Would you mind asking Her something for me?" I ask.

"You got it."

"Ask Her in a nice way if She could please stop screwing with me."