“Nickname.”
“Like Tatum O’Neal?”
He grimaced, sucking down his drink. “No, not like fucking Tatum O’Neal. Tatum like Jack Tatum.”
“Who’s Jack Tatum?”
“Meanest football player that ever lived. Defensive back, Oakland Raiders. He’s the guy who popped Darryl Stingley and turned him quadriplegic. They used to call him Assassin. Hell, he liked to call himself Assassin.”
“Is that what you call yourself, too? Assassin?”
He leaned into the table, his expression turning very serious. “Isn’t that why you’re here?”
She was about to answer, but the bartender was suddenly standing beside their booth. He glared at Sally and said, “What you meetin’ with this guy for?”
“Excuse me?” she said.
“This piece of dirt sittin’ on the other side of the table. What you meetin’ with him for?”
She looked at Tatum, then back at the bartender. “That’s really none of your business.”
“This is my bar. It’s definitely my business.”
Tatum spoke up. “Theo, just put a cork in it, will you?”
“I want you out of here.”
“Ain’t finished my drink yet.”
“You got five minutes,” said Theo. “Then be gone.” He turned and walked back to his place behind the bar.
“What’s with him?” asked Sally.
“Tightass. Guy finds some lawyer to get him off death row, thinks he’s better ’n everyone else.”
“You don’t think he knows what we’re here talking about, do you?”
“Hell no. He probably thinks I’m pimping you.”
Her rain-soaked blouse suddenly felt even more clingy. “I guess I brought that on myself.”
“Never mind him. Let’s cut the crap and get down to it.”
“I didn’t bring any money.”
“Naturally. I didn’t give you a price yet.”
“How much is it going to be?”
“Depends.”
“On what?”
“How complicated the job is.”
“What do you need to know?”
“For starters, what exactly do you want? Two broken ribs? A concussion? Stitches? Mess with his face, don’t mess with his face? I can put the guy in the hospital for a month, if you want.”
“I want more than that.”
“More?”
She looked one way, then the other, as if to make sure they were alone. “I want this person dead.”
Tatum didn’t answer.
She said, “How much for that?”
He burrowed his tongue into his cheek, thinking, as if sizing her up all over again. “That depends, too.”
“On what?”
“Well, who’s your target?”
She lowered her eyes, then looked straight at him. “You’re not going to believe it.”
“Try me.”
She almost chuckled, then shook it off. “I’m way serious. You are really not going to believe it.”
Two
Her day had finally arrived.
Sally felt a rush of adrenaline as she sat at her kitchen table enjoying her morning coffee. No cream, two packs of artificial sweetener. A toasted plain bagel with no butter or cream cheese, just a side of raspberry preserves that went untouched. A small glass of juice, fresh-squeezed from the pink grapefruit that her gardener had handpicked from the tree in her backyard. It was her usual weekday breakfast, and today was to be no different from any other.
Except that today, she knew, would change everything.
“More coffee, ma’am?” asked Dinah, her live-in domestic.
“No, thank you.” She laid her newspaper aside and headed upstairs to the bedroom. The house had two large master suites on the second story. Hers was on the east side, facing the bay, decorated in an airy, British Colonial style that was reminiscent of the Caribbean islands. His was on the west, a much darker room with wood-beamed ceilings and an African motif. Sally didn’t like all the dead animals on the walls, so they used his room only when he wasn’t abroad, which was about every other month for their entire eighteen months of marriage. The arrangement had lasted just long enough for her to reach the first financial milestone of an elaborate prenuptial agreement. Eighteen months equaled eighteen million dollars, plus the house-big money for Sally, chump change for Jean Luc Trudeau. Lucky for her, she’d had the foresight to take the eighteen million not in cash but in stock in her husband’s company, which promptly went public and-kaboom!-she was suddenly worth forty-six million dollars. She could have earned another quarter-million for each additional month, and there were certainly worse men to be married to than Jean Luc. He was rich, successful, reasonably handsome, and plenty generous to his third and much younger wife. But Sally wasn’t happy. People said she was never happy. She didn’t apologize for that. She had her reasons.
Sally stepped into her dressing room, draped her robe over the back of a chair, and pulled on a pair of sheer panty hose. Naked from the waist up, she stood in silence before the three-way mirror. Slowly, she raised both arms, her twenty-nine-year-old body seeming to defy the pull of gravity as she turned. In the full-length panel she saw it, still visible after all this time. A two-inch pink scar at the base of the rib cage. She felt it with the tips of her fingers, lightly at first, then touching more firmly, and finally pressing until it hurt, as if she were trying to stop the bleeding all over again. Years later, and it was still there. Cosmetic surgery could have hidden it, but that would only have destroyed her most important daily reminder that she had in fact survived the attack. Sadly, her first marriage had not survived.
Tragically, neither had her daughter.
“Anything to iron today, Miss Sally?”
Instinctively, she covered her breasts at the sound of a voice, but she was alone in the dressing room. Dinah was waiting on the other side of the closed door.
“I don’t think so,” she answered, pulling on her robe.
As the sound of Dinah’s footsteps faded away, Sally opened the door and walked to the bathroom to fix her hair and makeup. She returned to the dressing room to select an outfit, which took longer than usual, as she wanted it to be just right. She settled on a basic blue Chanel suit with a peach blouse and new Ferragamo shoes, finishing the look with a strand of pearls with matching earrings. Her platinum and diamond wedding band-two rows of stones for a total of four karats-felt like overkill, as always, but she wore it anyway. She thought she’d put it away for good with the divorce, but today it served a purpose.
Sally stepped back and took one last look in the mirror-a good, long look. For the first time in ages, she allowed herself a trace of a genuine smile.
This is your day, girl.
She grabbed her purse and headed downstairs, leaving through the front doors to the porte cochere, where her Mercedes convertible was parked and waiting with the top down. Her hair was secure in a French twist, but she nevertheless donned the Princess Grace look, a white scarf and dark sunglasses. She climbed behind the wheel, started the engine, and followed the brick driveway to the iron gate. It opened automatically, and she exited to the street.
She drove at a leisurely pace through her neighborhood, the warm south Florida sun on her face. It was a glorious day, even by Miami standards. Seventy degrees, relatively low humidity, a cloudless blue sky. Growing up
