Page 15 of Hard to Kill

Brigid could afford Switzerland because Rob Jacobson, her college friend from Duke and former lover, paid for it. And said he was willing to do it again if he had to. I can afford the Meier Clinic because of what Jacobson paidmefor getting him acquitted. I’d called him by now at Nassau County Correctional in East Meadow to tell him that I was taking his case, but that he is sworn to secrecy until I get back.

Brigid and I are about ten minutes out from Kennedy when she says, “Rob is so pleased that you’ve agreed to represent him again.”

“So much for swearing him to secrecy,” I say.

“He says we’re all family.”

“The hell we are.”

She’s wearing her glasses. Hands at nine and three on the steering wheel. Even her driving posture is perfect.

“He’s still my friend, Jane.”

I angle myself to face her, so she can glimpse my smile. “Everybody makes mistakes.”

“You’re the one going back to work for him.”

Still smiling I say, “I worry sometimes that it’s spread to my brain.”

“He says he’s innocent.”

“Got it,” I say. “And I’m just heading off to Switzerland because I had a sudden urge to look at a bunch of Alps.”

Brigid finally pulls the car up in front of the United terminal. I get my carry-on from the back of her SUV. Since I don’t expect to do much socializing, or having the need to dress up in Switzerland, I’m traveling light.

After we’ve finished our hugging and kissing, Brigid says, “I want you to remember one thing while you’re away.”

“Not to lose my passport?”

“Just remember that you’re Jane Fucking Smith, and you do not lose.”

Not even “effing.”

And her the good girl.

TWELVE

Jimmy

AN HOUR AND A half later, Jimmy is in the back room at P. J. Clarke’s, a New York joint where they shot a lot of the movieThe Lost Weekend.Jimmy thinks the place should long have been awarded landmark status where it’s still sitting—or maybe squatting—at the corner of 55th and Third.

Detective Craig Jackson, the best friend Jimmy has left at the NYPD now that his old partner Mickey Dunne is dead, is waiting for him.

They’re here because Jimmy really was way ahead of Jane on Rob Jacobson and the weird connection there is between the two of them, whether she wants to admit it’s there or not. Like some hold the guy had on her even before the hook was in her all over again, even though there had been a time during the first trial when she actually slapped the shit out of him.

Jimmy has decided to go all the way back to the beginning with the mutt, which means the day when Jacobson’s old man did shoot a teenage girl named Carey Watson before shooting himself.

Or so the police report said at the time.

Only now Jimmy is doing what all good cops do when they don’t feel they’ve satisfactorily buttoned up a case. He is startingall over again. The back-to-square-one rule of detecting. He is doing it in Clarke’s with Craig Jackson. Jackson, he knows, is here out of friendship, on his own time, because he believes in the brotherhood the way Jimmy does, even if Jimmy is no longer officially part of it.

Looks-wise he has always reminded Jimmy of another Jackson, Samuel L., even before Samuel L. really hit it big and seemed to be in every other movie and even more television commercials.

“I ordered for you,” Jackson says to Jimmy.

There are two beers on the table.

“What if I want something stronger than beer?”

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