I smiled, waved the match out. “No. I don’t smoke. It’s bad for you.”
“Here’s the hostess. She can seat you. We’ll be serving in about fifteen minutes.”
I turned and watched the hostess approach.
She was a very attractive blonde with dark blue eyes, in a light blue, wide white-belted turtleneck dress, menus tucked under her arm. She filled the dress out nicely, if not spectacularly, but what was most impressive was the white dazzling smile. That, and the fact that I knew her.
She recognized me immediately, too. “Why, Mr. Ryan. Hello again.”
I climbed off the bar stool. “How many jobs do you have, Ms. Jordan?”
“Make it Angela and I’ll make it Jack. Deal?”
“Deal.”
“And it’s two jobs. Fulltime at Best Buy, and weekends here. I’m a single, working parent.”
“How many kids?”
“Two. Both girls. One in second grade, another in sixth. Where would you like to sit? The upstairs dining room doesn’t open till six, but you can eat out here in the bar, by the fire, if you like, or.. ”
“Out where I can have a river view.”
“Fine.”
And I followed her through the dining room proper, past prints of riverboats and your occasional cigar store Indian, out onto a sort of sun porch, a glassed-in greenhouse-like area with plenty of plants and more rustic knicknacks.
I sat down and said, “Why don’t you join me for a few minutes? Nobody’s here yet.”
She smiled, glanced behind her. “I shouldn’t.”
“Have a seat. After all, the boss is dead.”
She tipped her head, viewed me through narrowed eyes. “How do you know that?”
“I read the papers. Sit down, please.”
“That wasn’t a very nice thing to say.”
“If the fella was a friend of yours, I apologize. I was just trying to get your attention.”
She smirked wryly. “Well, you got it.” And she sat across from me, on the edge of her chair, ready to get up at a moment’s notice, casting an occasional eye through the dining room into the bar area, watching for customers. A few wait- resses, in black skirts and white blouses, were milling around.
“Really, that was a thoughtless thing to say,” I said, and shook my head.
“That’s okay.” She leaned forward. “He was a sonof-a-bitch, anyway.”
I smiled. “Really?”
She raised a hand and squeezed the air, palm up. “Handsy. You know.”
“That’s illegal. Sexual harassment.”
“Tell me about it.”
“How’s your other boss in that department?”
“Lonny? He’s very sweet to me. We’re just friends.”
“You say that like maybe he wishes you were more.”
“Well…” She smiled a little, a modest smile, showing just a touch of dazzling white. “Maybe he does. Frankly, I got both these jobs because of who I am.”
“Who are you?”
“Maybe I should say who I was. This is embarrassing. I hardly know you.”
“I’m the guy who bought a car from you today.”
“And don’t think I don’t appreciate it. The commission will help pay Jenny’s orthodontics bill. Her father sure won’t.”
“No alimony? No child support?”
“He’s way behind. The courts are slow. What can I say? But I have him to thank for my two jobs, in a way. That’s what I started to say. Lonny Best is a good friend of Bob’s, my husband, ex-husband. I think he… Lonny always… well, a woman knows.”
“When one of her husband’s friends has the hots for her, you mean.”
She laughed shortly and shook her head. “Do you always say exactly what’s on your mind?”
“No. The world isn’t ready for that just yet.”
Her smile turned arch. “Is that right?”
“That’s right. So Lonny Best feels sorry for the sorry financial condition his pal Bob has put you in.”
“Something like that. We have something else in common, too.” She glanced out at the bar; no customers yet.
“What’s that?”
“Well… boy, this is a little much to get into. Why do you want to know this?”
“I like you.”
Wry little smirk. “Oh, yeah?”
“I bought a car from you, didn’t I?”
“You’re milkin’ that for all it’s worth, aren’t you?”
“Wringing it dry. But I like to get to know a woman, if I’m attracted to her.”
“You seem to say most of what’s on your mind.”
“What else do you and Lonny Best have in common? It’s not stamp collecting.”
“It’s not stamp collecting,” she admitted. “Lonny and Bob and I met… this sounds stupid. At a political rally.”
“A political rally.”
“Yes, I was there because this actor from a soap opera… this sounds really stupid… this actor was speaking. On behalf of the candidate. I just wanted to see this actor, get his autograph. I didn’t care two cents about politics either way.”
“When was this?”
“Roughly ten years ago. Anyway, I met Bob and was, well, attracted to him right off the bat; thought he was real interesting. He was kind of a… well, a man’s man. He’d been to Vietnam, he was in something called Air America, too.”
A mercenary.
“He didn’t look all that rugged, but he had a way about him. He seemed… dangerous. He was working for Victor Werner, on his ‘personal staff,’ at the time. What that amounted to was, well, he was a bodyguard. Carried a gun. I found that exciting. It sounds stupid, and immature, but I’m older and wiser now.”
“What was he doing at this political rally? And don’t tell me he was there to get the soap opera star’s autograph, too.”
“He’d been hired as security, another bodyguard stint really, but was told to blend in with the crowd. Only he ended up getting caught up in it, too.”
“Caught up in it?”
She nodded, sighed, smiled sadly. “Preston Freed. He put both Bob and me under his spell. Bob’s still under it. That’s the problem.”
“Preston Freed,” I said, reflectively. “He’s supposed to be a lunatic-fringe right-winger, isn’t he?”
“He most certainly is,” she said, and now her smile was tinged with self-disgust. “But you’re talking to a real sucker for a persuasive line-or at least somebody who used to be a sucker for that kind of thing. I used to be a ‘born-again’ Christian-got saved over the TV when I was still in high school. I was into that heavy, which is how I met my first husband-a wimp and a weasel who ran off with a born-again bitch-and…” She shook her head again, not smiling. “Never again. Never again.”
“Never again what?”
“Will I fall for some guy just because we belong to the same goddamn club. That’s what these things are, you know.”
“These things?”
“Ah, born-again anything. Preston Freed, his Democratic Action party, it’s a club. No-it’s a cult. Freed is a great speaker… hypnotic. He’s got these light blue eyes, this terrific smile.”
She said this smiling her own terrific smile. She could, under different circumstances, a lifetime or two ago,
