'Thanks for talking to me,' Griffen continued. 'I know this has been hard for you. If there's ever anything I can do for you, I'd be pleased if you would consider me a friend.'
Raoul Otero was wearing a custom-tailored gray suit with a fine blue weave, a white silk shirt and a yellow- and-blue Hermes tie.
In the subdued lighting of Casa Maria, he could easily be mistaken for a successful executive, but a brighter light would have revealed the pockmarked face and wary eyes of a child of Mexico City's most dangerous slum.
'You're looking good for a dead man, amigo,' Otero said as he threw his arms around Charlie Deems. Otero was putting on weight, but Deems could still feel muscle as the big man smothered him.
'I'm feeling good,' Deems said when Otero let him go.
'You know Bobby Cruz?' Otero asked. A thin man with a sallow complexion and a pencil-thin mustache was sitting quietly in the center of the booth. He had not risen when Otero greeted Deems, but his pale eyes never left Charlie.
'Sure. I know Bobby,' Deems said. Neither seemed pleased to see the other. Cruz was wearing an open- necked white shirt and a sports jacket.
Deems knew Cruz was armed, but he was not concerned about Otero's bodyguard.
'So,' Otero said, sliding back into the booth, 'how does it feel to be out?'
'Better than being in,' Deems cracked. Otero laughed.
'That's what I like about you, amigo. You got a sense of humor. Most guys, they'd come off the row all bitter. You, you're making jokes.'
Deems shrugged.
'We already ate,' Otero said, gesturing apologetically at the remains of his meal. 'You want a beer, some coffee?'
'That's okay, Baoul. I'd rather get down to business. I've got fifteen and I want a key.'
Otero looked uncomfortable. 'That may be a problem, Charlie.'
'Oh? That's not the price?'
'The price is right, but I can't deal with you right now.'
'I know one key ain't much, Raoul, but this is just the beginning. I'm going to be into some big money soon and I just need the key to help me reestablish myself.'
'I can't do it.'
Deems cocked his head to one side and studied Otero.
'My money was always good before. What's the problem?'
'You're hot. You start dealing and the cops gonna be all over you and everyone you're seen with. There's plenty people still pretty mad about you takin' out that kid. It caused trouble. We couldn't push shit for three months. The operation was almost shut down. I wish you'd talked to me before you done it, amigo.'
'Hey,' Deems asked, 'what was I supposed to do? Stand in a lineup and hope Mr. Citizen didn't pick me? The fuck should have minded his own business.'
Otero shook his head. 'If you'd come to me, I could have worked it out.
Taking out that little girl was bad for business, Charlie.'
Deems leaned across the table. Cruz tensed. Deems ignored Cruz and looked directly into Otero's eyes.
'Was it bad for business when I took care of Harold Shoe?'
Deems asked. 'Was it bad for business when I didn't tell the cops the name of the person who thought it would be neato if someone performed unnecessary surgery on Mr. Shoe while he was wide awake?'
Otero held up a hand. 'I never said you wasn't a stand-up guy, Charlie.
This is business. I bet the cops been following you since you got out.
Any business we do is gonna be on videotape. Things are back to normal and I want to keep it that way.'
Charlie smiled coldly and shook his head.
'This is bullshit, Raoul. You owe me.'
Otero flushed. 'I'm tryin' to say this politely, Charlie, 'cause I don't want to hurt your feelings, okay? I ain't gonna do business with you. It's too risky. Maybe, in the future, when things quiet down, but not now. I can't make it any clearer.'
'It might be worse for business to fuck with me.'
'What's that supposed to mean?'
'You're a smart guy. Figure it out.' Charlie stood up. 'I'm gonna be in a position to move a lot more than a key pretty soon.
When I'm ready, I'll be back to see you. That will give you time to think about how intelligent it is to stiff a guy who went to the row instead of trading your fat ass for a life sentence. A person like that isn't afraid of death, Raoul. Are you?'
Cruz started to bring his right hand out from under the table, but Otero clamped a hand on Cruz's forearm.
'I'll think about what you said, amigo.'
'It's always better to think than to act rashly, Raoul. See you soon.'
Deems walked out of the restaurant.
'Charlie Deems has been too long on this earth, Raoul,' Cruz told Otero in Spanish, still watching the front of the restaurant.
'Charlie's just upset,' Raoul answered in a tone that made it clear he was not certain about what he was saying. 'He's just being the man.
When he calms down, he'll do what he told me to do. Think. Then he'll see things my way.'
'I don' know. Charlie, he ain't like other guys. He don' think like other guys. He's fucked up in the head. Better I take him out, Raoul.
That way we don' take no chances.'
Otero looked troubled. Killing people was bad for business, but Bobby Cruz was right when he said Charlie Deems didn't think like other people. Charlie Deems was different from any man Raoul Otero had ever met and he had met some bad hombres in his time.
Charlie Deems sat in his car behind the restaurant. Anger was flowing through him like a red tide. The anger was directed at Raoul, whom he'd gone to death row to protect and who now turned his back on him. It was also directed at Abigail Griffen, the bitch who was responsible for all his troubles. If she hadn't made prosecuting him a personal crusade, he would not have lost almost two years of his life.
Charlie let his imagination run wild. In his fantasy, Deems saw himself gut-shooting Raoul, then sitting in a chair with a beer as he watched him die slowly and in excruciating pain. His fantasy about Abigail Griffen was quite different.
Caruso's did not have the best Italian food in Portland or great atmosphere, but it did have subdued lighting, stiff drinks and the privacy Abigail Griffen needed to brood about her bastard husband, who was in her thoughts because she had just come from a two-hour conference with the attorney who was handling her divorce.
At thirty-three, Abbie felt she had lived long enough to have some idea of what life was supposed to be about, but she was still in a state of tortured confusion when the subject was love. Abbie's parents were killed in a car accident when she was three and she grew up believing that she was missing a special kind of love that all the children with mothers and fathers received.
Abbie was afraid to form relationships with men, because she was afraid that the love she shared would disappear like the love that had been snatched away when her parents were taken from her. It wasn't until her sophomore year at the University of Wisconsin that she fell in love for the first time.
Abbie sipped from her wineglass and thought about Larry Ross, a sure sign that she was courting severe depression. When she married Robert, Abbie had been so happy that she stopped thinking about Larry, but she found herself clinging to his memory with increasing urgency as her marriage soured.
The alcohol Abbie had consumed since entering Caruso's was beginning to make her woozy. She tried to remember what Larry looked like, but his image was blurred and insubstantial. What if Larry's memory slipped away forever?
Larry Ross was a quiet, considerate pre-med student who was a friend for a year before he became Abbie's first lover. When Larry started medical school at Columbia University, Abbie sent out applications to every law
