I stared at him and he shrugged.
We crossed the street and walked under a sign welcoming us to the Santa Cruz Boardwalk. Framed by dusky purple mountains, Monterey Bay gleamed silvery blue, the water calm except for a froth of surf lapping at a long expanse of beach. The amusement park, on two levels, was the retro throwback Quinn had promised, with its famous carousel, along with a Ferris wheel, pirate ship, sherbet-colored sky glider cable cars disappearing into the mist down the beach—and the Giant Dipper.
“Turn right,” Quinn said. “No rides for us today.”
The burgundy and pale gold colonnade, with its carnival-like rows of flashing lights running along the ceiling, seemed relatively quiet for a Monday morning in the middle of summer. Only a handful of the small metal tables lining the arcade railing were occupied. Quinn picked one that had a checkerboard painted on it and we sat down on two of the low welded-on bar stools to wait. The sunlight made perfect half-moon circles of each arch on the concrete walkway, the Beatles sang “Love Me Do,” and the fronds of the scalped-looking palm trees growing a few feet away in the sand rustled in the cool ocean breeze.
Quinn had taken the seat facing the Boardwalk entrance, as I’d guessed he would do. Thirty seconds later Allen Cantor came into view. I knew at once because of the tiny tightening in Quinn’s eyes and the way his body tensed—like a fighter waiting for the opening bell so he could get into the ring and demolish his opponent. His gaze flicked back at me, a coded message not to turn around. I wondered, as I suspected he did, whether Cantor had been watching us from somewhere on the upper deck of the amusement park and Quinn somehow missed seeing him. Advantage, Cantor. Quinn stood up and held a hand out. I took it and he pulled me up.
“Showtime,” he said under his breath.
He had never physically described Allen Cantor to me, and for some reason I’d pictured a short, wiry man with scrimshawlike tattoos, a bandy-legged swagger, and a nervous tic in one eye so that he never looked right at you. In my mind, he’d always been as sleazy as a snake-oil salesman, a liar, a cheat, a thief—so obvious that I’d often wondered why Quinn hadn’t seen it coming when Allen finally got caught, even though in public I defended his innocence, saying he’d been blindsided, just like I told Mick Dunne the other day. But deep down I’d pegged Cantor as the kind of guy mothers told their daughters to keep away from because he was nothing but trouble, that one.
He was trouble, all right, but in the beautiful, dangerous way a lot of women had found irresistible. Quinn should have warned me, but I understood at once why he hadn’t. Allen Cantor looked me over the way some men look at women who come into a bar alone. I couldn’t stop staring back into those hypnotic blue eyes.
Physically he could have been Quinn’s older brother—the same fit, taut build, same salt-and-pepper curls, though Cantor wore his hair longer, the same deep crow’s-feet laugh lines around the eyes. It even looked like they’d broken their noses in the same place. But there was something in Cantor’s don’t-you-want-to-know-more? stare that gave me goose bumps and dared me not to look away.
“Allen,” Quinn’s voice was sharp. “Knock it off, will you? This isn’t a singles’ bar. Stop trying to put a move on her already, goddammit.”
Cantor tore his gaze from me. “Just appreciating a beautiful woman, buddy. Nothing wrong with looking.”
He’d done more than that. He’d mentally undressed me.
“Keep it that way,” Quinn said.
“Nice to see you, too, Quinn. What do you want? I haven’t got all day.”
“Oh, yeah? Where you working these days, buddy?” He emphasized
Cantor stood up. “Screw you, Santori. I was just trying to do you a favor because you asked. I don’t need to take your crap. I’m out of here.”
“No.” I reached for his arm. “Please, don’t go. Both of you, can you please not do this right now?”
Allen Cantor looked down at my hand on his arm and sat down. “What do you want? Lucie, isn’t it?”
I removed my hand and nodded. “Yes. Quinn, are you all right?”
“Yeah.” He jerked his head in a nod and looked out at the ocean. “I’m just frickin’ fine.”
He sat, too, but I could feel his leg shaking violently under the table. I nudged him with my knee and he stopped. Cantor noticed.
“Maybe we could all use some coffee,” I said. “I’ll get it.”
“I’d like a beer,” Cantor said. “And some eggs.”
“I’ll take care of this.” Quinn dug in his pocket for his wallet. “That was the deal. Beer and breakfast in return for information, if you’ve got it.”
There was an edge in his voice when he got in that last faint taunt and I glared at him. “That would be great,” I said.
He walked across to the restaurant. Cantor looked at me again, steadily.
“I heard about Nic,” he said. “Sorry for Quinn’s loss, but she was trouble for him from the day he put the ring on her finger. You his girl now?”
He meant Nicole Martin Santori, Quinn’s ex-wife, a raven-haired beauty I’d met briefly once, long after they’d split and shortly before she was killed by a jealous lover. Allen, as I recalled, had also been one of her paramours and now that I knew him, the two of them getting together seemed as inevitable as night following day.
I gave him a brittle smile. “I’m not anybody’s ‘girl.’ ”
He didn’t flinch. “You should be.”
Quinn set down the beer and some fries. He went back for coffees for the two of us and sat down again next to me. “Talking about the weather, are we? Your eggs and sausage will be ready in a couple of minutes.”
I opened the coffee and found that Quinn had already put cream and sugar in mine.
“We’d like some help,” I said to Cantor.
“Information about a winemaker who used to work in Napa. Outside Calistoga,” Quinn added.
“I don’t know much about that anymore,” Cantor said. “Don’t keep in touch with many people … I think that’s my order over there.”
He got up and walked across to the restaurant counter, picking up a bottle of ketchup. After drowning whatever was on his plate, he joined us again.
“What makes you think I’ll know this dude?” he asked through a mouthful of eggs. “It is a guy, isn’t it?”
I wondered how regular his meals were these days and what he did now for a living. Then I wondered why I was wondering.
I nodded. “Yes.”
He looked from Quinn to me. “I get it. He’s dirty, isn’t he?”
“I … no. I mean, we don’t know,” I said. “He might be someone who changed his identity, is all.”
“Or it might just be blowing smoke and someone got their wires crossed.” Quinn shrugged. “Set Lucie up for something they want to know, asked her for a favor.”
That was shrewd, making me the damsel in distress and being purposely vague about my anonymous favor. The two of them exchanged more testosterone-laced looks.
Cantor took a long swallow of beer. “Who is it?”
“Teddy Fargo. Owned a vineyard called Rose Hill up in Calistoga,” Quinn said.
“Rose Hill.” Cantor slapped a hand down on the table so hard it made his plate jump and shook his head, flashing a knowing smile. “Well, I’ll be damned. Small world isn’t it, Quinny? You know who owns it now, don’t you?”
Quinn glanced sideways at me. “Brooke.”
“Yup.” He wiped his mouth with a paper napkin and set it on the table. “You keep in touch with her?”
“Nope. You?”
“You must be kidding. But I do keep an eye on her. Graduated top of her class from Davis. She’s a smart winemaker, did it right, starting small. She wants to control everything. Not let anyone pull the wool over her eyes, the way I did with her old man.” He paused, a shadow crossing his face that could have been remorse, or maybe regret. Then it was gone and his eyes glittered. “So you haven’t seen her, then?”
“I said no, didn’t I?” Now Quinn was the one who sounded edgy.
“Well, well,” Cantor said. “Are you in for a surprise. She turned out to be quite a beauty. Guess she got all her mother’s looks. A knockout, man.”
