High Profile

“You find any records of divorce?”

“Nope,” Suit said. “Not in Baltimore. Got a marriage license issued to Walton Weeks and Lorrie Pilarcik, and a marriage announcement from The Baltimore Sun. August twenty-sixth, 1990.”

“They could have divorced elsewhere,” Jesse said.

“I thought of that,” Suit said.

“Okay,” Jesse said, “take your time. Enjoy it.”

“I said to myself, Why would you not get divorced locally?”

“Because maybe they had moved to another state?” Jesse said.

“Maybe, or, I thought to myself, maybe they’re looking for a quickie. And where can you get a quickie divorce?”

“Dover-Foxcroft, Maine?” Jesse said.

“Las Vegas,” Suit said. “It did no harm to check.”

“And?”

“Lorraine Pilarcik and Conrad Lutz got a divorce on August fifteenth, after six weeks of residency in Vegas,” Suit said.

“Eleven days before she married Walton Weeks,” Jesse said.

“Makes your head hurt a little,” Suit said.

“It does. Did Weeks steal Lutz’s wife and continue to employ him as a bodyguard?”

“Maybe Lutz is a really forgiving guy,” Suit said.

“Maybe,” Jesse said.

51

Jesse came into Sunny’s loft at nine p.m. Rosie jumped down off Sunny’s bed and hustled down the loft to see him. He picked her up and patted her stomach, and got a lap on the nose, before he put her down.

“Drink?” Sunny said.

“Sure.”

They sat in her window bay with their drinks.

“Here’s what’s going on with Jenn,” Jesse said.

As Jesse talked, Rosie came over and stared up at Sunny and yapped. Still focused on Jesse’s recital, Sunny shifted a little in the chair to make room, and Rosie jumped up and wiggled around until she was comfortable.

When Jesse finished, Sunny shook her head.

“Poor thing,” she said.

Jesse nodded.

“She seeing a shrink these days?” Sunny said.

“She has,” Jesse said. “I don’t know if she is seeing one now.”

“She should,” Sunny said. “I know someone.”

“Not everybody can do it,” Jesse said.

“She should be able to,” Sunny said. “Maybe I’ll talk to her about it.”

Jesse shrugged.

“What would you like me to do?” Sunny said.

“I have to go to New York,” Jesse said. “If you could keep her together until I get back.”

“Would you like me, or Spike, to deal with Lloyd?” Sunny said.

“No,” Jesse said. “I’ll do that when I can. Just keep him away from her.”

Sunny got Jesse another scotch, and poured herself more white wine.

“You think Lloyd is dangerous?” Sunny said.

“I doubt it. Usually stalking is all stalkers do.”

“Except when they do more,” Sunny said.

“Except then,” Jesse said.

“We’ll be there,” Sunny said.

“Thank you.”

“How’s the double murder going?”

“It’s starting to move, I think.”

“That why you’re going to New York?”

“Yes.”

Jesse rattled the ice in his glass. Sunny sipped her wine. Rosie looked out from her spot in the chair, in back of Sunny’s hip.

“What are you going to do, Jesse?” Sunny asked.

“About Jenn?”

“Yes,” Sunny said. “Of course about Jenn.”

“I’ll take Lloyd off her back,” Jesse said.

“I’m sure you will,” Sunny said. “And then?”

Jesse drank some of his scotch and tilted his head back with his eyes closed while it eased down his throat.

“If I said to you,” Jesse said, “‘Sunny, will you marry me,’ what would you say?”

“I’d say it was a lovely offer,” she said.

“And would you say yes?”

Sunny was silent for a time.

Then she said, “No.”

“Because?”

“Because I can’t quite let go of Richie.”

Jesse nodded. He drank the rest of his scotch and put the empty glass down on the little table.

“And so it goes,” Jesse said.

52

Lorrie Weeks still lived in the Village, in the condo she had shared with Walton Weeks, in a shiny new skyscraper that had gone up at the far-west end of Perry Street with a big view of the Hudson River. Jesse stood with Suit outside the building.

“We couldn’t afford to live in there,” Suit said, looking up at the glass towers.

“No,” Jesse said.

“Fits nice into the neighborhood,” Suit said.

“Like a hooker at a picnic,” Jesse said.

“What are we hoping, exactly, to see?” Suit said.

“Lorrie Pilarcik Weeks,” Jesse said.

“And when we see her?”

“We watch her,” Jesse said.

“Because she’s all we’ve got?”

“Exactly,” Jesse said.

“And we don’t know what else to do?”

“Precisely,” Jesse said.

“It’s great to train under a master,” Suit said.

“I envy you the experience,” Jesse said.

It was after five p.m. when Alan Hendricks pulled up in a cab and got out and went into Lorrie Weeks’s building. At six fifteen they came out and walked up Perry Street away from the river. Jesse and Suit followed. They went into a restaurant on Greenwich Street. Jesse and Suit waited outside. At nine o’clock they came out of the restaurant, arm in arm, and walked back to the west end of Perry Street.

“Take the picture,” Jesse said.

Suit took several.

They went in together. By midnight Hendricks had not come out. Jesse and Suit went to their hotel.

The next morning they were back outside Lorrie’s building before nine. It was after ten when Hendricks strolled out wearing the same clothes he’d had on last night and walked up Perry Street.