But I ain’t dead yet.
FIFTY-SEVEN
IT’S ALREADY BEEN ARRANGED that Jimmy is coming for dinner. When he arrives, he offers to take Rip to the beach for a quick run. I give them both my blessing.
“It occurs to me that I’m turning into a professional dog walker,” he says when they return. “Or runner, in this case.”
“But just think how much Ripwuvshis Uncle Jimmy,” I say.
“Don’t push it,” he says.
He’s brought steaks from Schiavoni’s Market in Sag Harbor. I tell him, almost as an apology now that he’s gone to the trouble, that I’m really not that hungry. He says, “I don’t give a shit, you need to eat.” Then he tells me I can sit on the terrace and learn from the master while he grills.
“Do you ever worry at all about my cholesterol?” I ask.
“I’ll get to that when I’m no longer worrying about the othercthing,” he says.
When we’re outside and he’s working his magic on the grill, I tell him all about my encounter with Eric Jacobson, almost word for word. Jimmy agrees I should have just shot the kid and called it self-defense.
“You would have been making the world a better place,” Jimmy says. “And a safer one, especially for girls.”
“I did nearly run him over,” I say.
“Mygirl,” Jimmy says.
When he announces that the meat is five minutes away from perfection, I go inside and slice up a tomato and some mozzarella and splash on some balsamic dressing.
Once we’re at the kitchen table, Jimmy keeps feeding Rip steak under the table even after being admonished not to.
“Dog doesn’t have to worry about cholesterol,” Jimmy says.
“Maybe he should.”
“Are you serious?” Jimmy says. “This is the first damndogwith nine lives.”
He’s drinking beer. I’m sticking with sparkling water tonight, taking no chances. With the first day of witnesses tomorrow, the last thing I need is my stomach giving me a middle-of-the-night wake-up call.
Jimmy takes a sip of beer and notices me smiling at him. “What?” he asks.
“Does it ever occur to you how much we sound like an old married couple?”
“Only because we are,” he says. “And the reason we’ve lasted this long is because we never ruined things with all the other—”
“Are you referring to sex, detective?”
“Hey,” he says, “can’t you see I’m eating here?”
When we finish, and I’ve eaten more than I expected to, he says that I should go sit down in the living room, he’ll clean up. When he joins me, he’s made himself a cup of coffee.
“You know what I think about sometimes?” I say. “A lot of the time, actually.”
“What’s that?”
“That I can’t go on winning forever.”
“Says who?”
Rip has settled in next to Jimmy, who’s absently reaching down and scratching him behind an ear.
