Read Online Night Passage by Robert B. Parker - Free Book Online

he’s still got a key.”
    “It’s my house,” Jo Jo said. He was smiling like a man patiently indulging some children. “It’s my wife. I’ll come and go as I fucking please.”
    “Did he force his way in?”
    “Yes. I tried to hold the door, but he’s—look at him—what am I supposed to do against him?”
    “You did what you should have done, ma’am,” Jesse said.
    “How about you, Slim?” Jo Jo said to Jesse. “What are you supposed to do against me?”
    “But he didn’t assault you?”
    “Not this time. He didn’t have time. He beat the shit out of me last time he came. He raped me once. I shoulda gone to the cops then, but we weren’t divorced yet, and … you know conjugal rights … and the kids … I mean how do they feel, everybody talking about how their father raped their mother?”
    Her voice trailed off.
    “There was no rape and you know it, a husband can’t rape his wife,” Jo Jo said. “You didn’t go to the cops because you loved it.”
    As they argued, Jesse nodded, almost absently, as if he were thinking of something else.
    “We probably don’t have an assault charge here,” Jesse said to Simpson. “We might get forced entry, even though he had a key. We obviously have him for violating the restraining order.”
    Jo Jo laughed.
    “Big fucking deal,” he said. “Restraining orders don’t mean shit and you know it.”
    “Yes, sir,” Jesse said. “I know.”
    “I go to court with my lawyer. They issue a new restraining order. I walk out of court twenty minutes later.”
    “That’s how it usually works, sir,” Jesse said pleasantly, “especially if you’ve got some money.”
    “Which I do,” Jo Jo said. “And some clout and I can come in here and grab her crotch, or whatever else I want to grab, anytime I goddamned want to.”
    “Is that right?” Carole said to Jesse.
    Jesse shook his head.
    “Oh?” Jo Jo said. “You just admitted you couldn’t do shit about it.”
    “No, sir,” Jesse said. “I said the restraining order probably wouldn’t work.”
    “Same thing,” Jo Jo said.
    “Not really,” Jesse said, and kicked Jo Jo in the groin.
    The movement seemed casual. But it was a very quick movement. And hard. Jo Jo gasped and doubled up and fell over and lay on the pale blue flowered carpet of the den and moaned. Jesse bent over him with a look of blank disinterest and grasped Jo Jo’s hair with his left hand and held his head up and put his face very close to Jo Jo’s and spoke to him.
    “You’re all mouth and show muscle,” Jesse said gently. “If you come near this woman again, or if anything happens to her or her kids, no matter what, and no matter whose fault it is, I will kick you around town until you look like roadkill. And if you are annoying, like you were today, maybe I’ll shoot you.” Jesse tapped Jo Jo on the bridge of the nose with the muzzle of his revolver. “Right here … capeesh?”
    Jo Jo was still moaning.
    “Answer me, Jo Jo,” Jesse said. “Or I will kick you in the balls again. Capeesh?”
    Jo Jo squeezed the word “capeesh” out between moans.
    Jesse let Jo Jo’s head go and it thumped on the rug. Jesse stood up.
    “Suitcase, you and Anthony stay here until Mr. Genest has gone,” Jesse said. “Ma’am, you should probably get those kids to a shrink.”
    Carole’s eyes were wide and bright. There was a flush of color on her cheekbones, as if she had a fever.
    “What if he comes back,” she said.
    “I don’t think he’ll come back,” Jesse said.
    He turned and walked out of the house and down the driveway to his car.
    Behind him he heard Suitcase Simpson say, “Jesus Christ!”

15
    Jesse sat in his office in the early evening with Abby Taylor.
    “The selectmen have asked me to talk with you,” she said.
    “Good,” Jesse said.
    She was wearing a black suit with a long jacket and a short skirt. At least she didn’t have on one of those frilly neck pieces that some professional women wore like