The Last Assassin

started yet and Midori must have been somewhere in back. She half-expected to see Rain. She didn't know when he was leaving for Tokyo. Well, if he showed up, the hell with it, he could just sort out the situation himself. She had as much right to be here as he did.

The place was mostly full, but there was an open seat at the front of the room, near the stage, and she took it. Her heart was beating moderately hard and she realized she was nervous. It almost made her laugh. She'd handled assignments where if she'd slipped, or if anyone had otherwise caught on to her, she would have been killed without question. But here she was, with the stakes trivial by comparison, and she had an amateur's shakes. It was ridiculous. She ordered another red wine.

She felt men at some of the tables watching her, and knew a few of them would be trying to get up their courage to approach. It was like that whenever she went out by herself. Invariably one man would come forward. If she liked him, which was rare, she would have a companion. If she didn't like him, she would send him off and after that the others would all be afraid to try.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw someone get up two tables down. The one with the short dark hair and stubble in the beat-up leather jacket, she predicted. She had noticed him on the way in, as she was scoping the room for any problems.

She was right. The man stood a respectful but not timorous distance from her table and said, 'Excuse me.'

Delilah looked at him and raised her eyebrows.

'You're probably waiting for someone,' he went on, with a smile, 'but if you're not, my friends and I would love to have you join us at our table. Are you a fan of Midori's?'

Actually, he was kind of cute. She liked the jacket and he had an appealing bad-boy smile. But not tonight.

'I'm just getting to know her,' Delilah said. 'And I am waiting for someone. But that was nice of you. Thanks.'

The man nodded. 'Well, if for some reason he loses his mind and doesn't show up, we're two tables down.'

Delilah said, 'Thank you.' This time the thanks was a dismissal. The man gave her another smile and left.

A moment later, Midori and two young men came out from the back. They were all wearing black, but on Midori, as opposed to some of the poseurs at the Mercer, it looked unpretentious. God, unpretentious was the least of it, alongside that black hair and white skin it looked fantastic. The words she has a child with him flashed across her mind, and she was surprised by the intensity of jealousy that accompanied the thought.

Midori sat at the piano; the men, at the bass guitar and drums. The lights went down and they started to play. Delilah didn't know jazz the way Rain did, but she recognized the piece they began with, Bill Evans's 'Detour Ahead.'

Sure, she thought. But for whom?

A waiter brought her the wine she had ordered. By the time she was halfway through it, some of her earlier jumpiness had started to smooth out. She realized why she was nervous: she wasn't pretending to be someone else. On assignment, she was always undercover. Cover, that was the perfect word. Something you could hide behind, something that would protect you. Something without which you would feel naked.

She'd come here with only a vague notion of what she wanted to do. Warn Midori off, scare her, say something or do something that would poison whatever was happening between her and Rain. But that was just crude reflex. Her ego wanted it so badly that it was blinding her to other possibilities.

Information, that was the thing. There was a lot she wanted to know. And she wasn't going to get it by being the hurt, angry, resentful woman she felt like. No. She would get it by putting all that aside tonight and being someone else. Someone Midori would feel comfortable with, even drawn to, someone she would talk to and open up with.

By the time the set ended and the applause was over an hour later, her nervousness was long gone. She knew who she was tonight, she knew what she wanted, she knew how she was going to get it.

Some of the patrons were lining up to exchange a word with Midori or her band. A few had bought CDs up front and were waiting to have them signed. Delilah watched. The woman was friendly and gracious with her fans, but Delilah could tell there was a professional facade she stood behind while chatting with them. The facade wasn't fake, exactly, the warmth was certainly real enough — but it wasn't the real woman, either. Delilah smiled slightly. Seeing the public display would make it that much easier to know when she had burrowed through to the private person beneath.

The guy in the leather jacket came over and said, 'Looks like whoever he was, he did lose his mind. You feel like a drink?'

Delilah smiled. She knew he'd been watching, and that he'd noticed she was still alone. She liked that he asked again. Someone with a little less confidence might have just sent a drink over at some point. She got that all the time and hated it. It was so lame, a way of trying to force an obligation on someone from a safe distance.

'Thanks for asking,' Delilah said. 'But I'm going to meet him now. I just want to talk to Midori first.'

'Okay…' he said, that nice smile lingering, hoping for more.

Delilah smiled back to let him know she was flattered — he deserved that. But she also dipped her head to let him know the answer was final. He said a gracious good night and they were done.

When the line had dwindled, Delilah got up and walked over. She knew Midori had noticed her during the performance, and then afterward, and now the woman offered a smile, part welcome, part apology for having kept her waiting, part curiosity about who this attractive woman alone might be.

Delilah smiled back and said in a heavier than usual Parisian accent, 'I have to tell you, you play beautifully. I'm so glad I had to come to New York on the same night you were performing.'

Midori said, 'Thank you. Where are you from?'

'Paris.'

'You've heard of me in France? I'm flattered.'