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“I heard you couldn’t get it up anyway, Arthur,” Peter Perkins said.

“Give you a list of satisfied customer, you want,” Arthur said.

“Look at the weapon on that guy,” Buddy Hall said.

“Jesus,” Suitcase said, “if that’s a penis, what am I walking around with?”

The film ended after about eight minutes with Florence apparently having an historic orgasm while the cops laughed and bantered. Jesse wondered if the banter covered any dis-comfort. He didn’t enjoy porn very much. But he didn’t mind it much unless it was gross. Jesse had always thought heterosexual anal sex verged on gross. Nothing in Florence’s home movie had changed his mind about that.

“Didn’t see any clues,” Peter Perkins said. “Maybe we should play it more.”

“Did you look at the guys?” Jesse said.

Nobody said anything.

“Okay, we’ll run it again,”Jesse said.

Around the table the cops groaned. Perkins had been kidding. Most of them were bored with it already.

“Look at the guys, this time,” Jesse said. “Maybe we’ll see one again.”

Jesse rewound the tape. And rolled it. The cops watched again, looking at the men. Jesse noticed they were quieter.

Less uncomfortable, maybe. Jesse looked, too. There was nothing in the film to tell him where it was shot. Just a bed-5 6

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room. Or at least a place with a bed. There was a hint of decorative brass. The room looked small. Could be a boat.

When the tape had finished, Jesse said, “Okay, Peter, you’re the evidence specialist. Take the tape and get some head shots made of the guys. May as well get one of Florence, too. It’s better than her license photo.”

“Guys at the lab will love this,” Perkins said.

“Just make sure it comes back,” Jesse said.

“You don’t think they’ll make a dupe?”

“Of course they will,” Jesse said. “But I want the original in our case folder.”

“Yessir.”

Perkins started to remove the tape from the VCR.

“Leave it,” Jesse said. “I’ll give it to you after lunch.”

“Gotta look for more clues, Jesse?”

“Chief Jesse to you, pal. Go relieve Molly on the desk. Tell her I want to see her in my office.”

Perkins saluted and the cops filed out. Jesse took the tape and went in his office. In a moment Molly came in. Jesse put the tape into the office VCR.

“You know how to run this?” Jesse said.

“No.”

“Okay, I’ll start it and leave.”

Molly nodded. Jesse punched up the tape and went out.

He closed the office door behind him and leaned on the wall near it. He smiled to himself. Porn guard.

When Molly came out she said, “That was disgusting.”

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“Yes,” Jesse said. “It was.”

“Did the guys like it?”

Jesse shrugged.

“They pretended to. In fact, I think they probably found it a little disgusting, too.”

“Did you?”

“Yes.”

“You going to get head shots made?”

“Peter Perkins is going to take care of it,” Jesse said.

Molly nodded. “Thanks for letting me watch it alone,” she said.

Jesse shrugged.

“You’re a nicer guy than most people know,” Molly said.

Jesse smiled at her. “Let’s not let that get around,” he said.

5 8

14

W hen Jesse went to meet Jenn for lunch she was finishing a long Steadicam walk-and-talk the length of the town pier with the sail-dappled harbor in the background. Jesse walked down and stopped beside Marty the producer. She picked up a pair of earphones that were hanging on the back of a fold-ing chair and handed them to Jesse. He put them on. He could hear Jenn.

“What draws them here,” she was saying. “What brings them from all over the Atlantic coast to converge here . . . in Paradise . . . for Race Week.”

The director who had been staring at the monitor yelled R O B E R T B . P A R K E R

“Cut.” And as Jenn looked up at him with her hands on her hips, he yelled, “Keeper.” Jenn nodded as if to say It better be, and came up the dock toward Jesse. He applauded silently as she came. When she reached him, Jenn kissed him.

“I smell Emmy,” Jesse said.

“You smell something,” Jenn said and took his hand. “I’m sick of the Gull. Is there someplace else? Quick? Good?”

“We could walk up to Daisy’s,” Jesse said. “They bake all their own bread.”

“Let’s,” Jenn said.

“So what does draw them?” Jesse said as they walked up Washington Street. “Top-flight police work?”

“Probably that,” Jenn said. “And a full month of booze and sex.”

“Anybody sail?” Jesse said.

“Not in the evening,” Jenn said. “I mean, wow! Like Mardi Gras.”

“For us, it’s mostly fights and public urination and van-dalism,” Jesse said.

“Boy,” Jenn said, “just like Mardi Gras.”

“What’s up this afternoon?” Jesse said.

“I’m off a couple hours,” Jenn said. “Marty and Jake are going out and get B roll of the races.”

“Without you?”

“In a helicopter.”

“Without you,” Jesse said.

The crowd on the streets, even at midday, was thick and 6 0

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boisterous. The range of dress was extreme. Horizontal-striped shirts were popular, with three-quarter-length white canvas pants. There were a lot of women in big hats and gauzy dresses. Men in blazers and white flannels. Some of the crowd looked like eighteenth-century sailors. Some of them looked like they were at Churchill Downs. Jesse wore jeans and a blue short-sleeved oxford shirt. He had his gun and badge on his belt. Two young men and two young women, all in tank tops and cutoff jeans, were walking along carrying open bottles of beer. Jesse pointed at his badge, then at the beer, then, with his thumb, at a trash container chained to the lamppost. They looked like they wanted to argue, but none of them did. They dropped the beer into the trash and moved away.

“Zero tolerance,” Jesse said.

“Egad,” Jenn said at Daisy’s door. “Maybe we should have gone to the Gull.”

The door was open and the line of people waiting was out onto the sidewalk.

“Be the same,” Jesse said. “It’s like this everywhere.”

Several people on the sidewalk had drinks. Jesse ignored them.

“Selective enforcement?” Jenn said.

“You bet,” Jesse said. “They’re just waiting to have lunch.

They won’t do any harm. Besides, I don’t want to hurt Daisy’s business.”

“Is there actually a Daisy?”

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“I’ll introduce you,” Jesse said.

“But first, could you arrest somebody at a good table,”

Jenn said. “So we can have it.”

“I’ll talk to Daisy. Stay here.”

Jesse slid past the crowd and in through the open door. He came back out with a strapping red-faced blond woman wearing a big white apron and holding a spatula. The woman pointed at Jenn.

“You Jenn?” she said.

“I am.”

“I’m Daisy, get your ass in here,” she said.

A woman in wraparound sunglasses and a large straw hat said, “We’ve been waiting half an hour.”

“And you’ll wait a lot longer,” Daisy said, “you keep talking.”

“But they . . .”

Daisy waved the spatula under the woman’s chin.

“My restaurant,” Daisy said. “I decide. Come on, Jenn.”

Jenn slid sheepishly in behind Daisy, and followed her to a table by the back window where Jesse was drinking root beer. Inside, the restaurant was not crowded. The tables were well spaced and the conversation was absorbed by carpeting and sailcloth that draped the ceiling.

“Sorry I left you twisting in the wind out there,” Jesse said.

Jenn sat down.