Jesse?”
Jesse smiled.
“I’m meeting someone,” he said.
“I know, she’s here already. I put her by the window, that
okay?”
“Swell,” Jesse said.
Rita Fiore was sitting sideways to the table with her legs crossed, sipping a glass of white wine. She was wearing a black suit with a long jacket and a short skirt. Her white blouse had a low scoop neck, and the sun reflecting through the window off the harbor made her thick red hair glisten. She smiled at Jesse.
“I feel like I walked into some kind of fashion shoot,” Jesse
said.
“Yes,” Rita said as he sat down.
“My plan is that you’ll be so
taken with my appearance that you’ll do whatever I want.”
“It’s working,” Jesse said.
The maitre d‘ put the menu down in front of Jesse, took Jesse’s
order for a cranberry juice and soda, and departed.
“Thanks for meeting me,” Rita said.
“Didn’t want to run the press
gauntlet?”
“I thought it might be nicer if we stayed away from all of
that,” Rita said.
She sipped her wine and looked out at the harbor.
“This is a lovely spot,” she said.
“How’s the
food?”
“Adequate,” Jesse said. “The
view’s better.”
A waiter brought Jesse his cranberry and soda. He looked at Rita’s glass, and she shook her head. Sitting across from her,
Jesse could feel her energy. There was a sense of intelligence and of kinetic sensuality that radiated from her in equal portions.
“Are you thinking long thoughts?” Rita said.
“Mostly I’m thinking, wow!”
“Good,” Rita said. “I like
wow.”
“In the small moments between thinking wow, I’m wondering why
you wanted to see me.”
Rita looked at him for a while without speaking. Somehow she managed to sit with a wiggle. I wonder how she does that?
“Like so much in life,” Rita said,
“there are several reasons,
including the hope that you might in fact think wow.”
Jesse smiled. The waiter came. Rita ordered a Caesar salad.
Jesse ordered a club sandwich. The waiter left. Jesse waited.
“First, I now represent only Bo Marino,”
Rita
said.
“Nice,” Jesse said.
Rita wrinkled her nose.
“Everyone is entitled to the best defense he can get,” she
said.
“Which would be you.”
“Yes.”
