Читать книгу Dancing With Shadows - Lynne Pemberton - Страница 7

Weston Kane arrived at the restaurant ten minutes. early. Carlos, the owner, waved, adopted his most ingratiating smile and extracted himself from a tight knot of chattering people. Swiftly he negotiated the closely packed tables, greeting Weston with what she knew was genuine warmth. She had known him since her father, Sinclair Kane, had first taken her to Umberto’s on her eighth birthday. Then Carlos had been a young maître d’ with the looks of a matinée idol and the kind of quick wit and instant charm that made whoever he was talking to feel special; as if he’d known the person all his life. Carlos had approached Sinclair Kane to finance a new restaurant; there had been no hesitation, and ten months later Carlos had opened the doors of Umberto’s.

Now, thirty-four years and five restaurants later, Carlos was no longer handsome. His love of food and late nights had added an extra thirty pounds of all too solid flesh. And age, though he swore it was worry, had taken most of his once thick hair. But time had not dulled his enthusiasm, nor had it robbed him of his sense of humour and unquenchable zest for life.

‘Miss Kane, you look younger every time I see you. How do you do it?’

Weston found herself smiling in response to his trademark flattery. ‘It’s in the genes.’ She pinched his arm. ‘The same as your charm.’

It was his turn to smile. ‘You’re the first, Miss Kane; you want to wait in the bar?’

‘I’ll go straight to the table, Carlos, thanks, and I’ll have my usual.’

Carlos gestured to a passing waiter. ‘A vodka martini, shaken, with a twist for Miss Kane. Her usual table.’

Several heads turned as Weston Kane crossed the crowded room to a corner spot where she always sat. After leaving college she’d often lunched with her father in the several top restaurants he used in Manhattan. In each establishment Sinclair always had the same table. If it wasn’t available for him, which was rare, he didn’t eat there. And on one occasion when he was promised his table and didn’t get it, he left and never set foot inside again. He called it the power table, the best one in the house – far from the noise and activity of the kitchen, far enough from the door to avoid the hustle and bustle, yet close enough to see exactly who was coming and going, as well as being able to scrutinize the entire restaurant in one sweeping glance. Part of the game, the social hierarchy game.

Weston slid her long legs under the table. She was tall, over six foot in high heels, with a square handsome face. The azure blue eyes she’d inherited from her mother scanned the room as always. They were spaced wide under a high brow and complemented the collar-length Titian hair which was her legacy from her father’s Scottish forebears. The tight auburn curls she’d hated as a child had been hacked off several times, once with a kitchen knife when she was eight, and on many occasions since. As a teenager, she had ached for long straight blonde hair, the silken type, without a vestige of curl, and had tried every straightening method known to mankind – from reverse perming to a hot iron and greaseproof paper. She shifted on her seat, picked a fleck of cotton off the taupe skirt of a suit she’d had for ten years. It still fitted perfectly. Weston cared little for clothes; in fact she was happiest in jeans and T’s in summer, and jeans with good cashmere sweaters in winter. When she did buy clothes, she bought good ones. It was the only lasting influence her mother Annette had achieved over her. On their rare shopping trips she was constantly accompanied by Annette’s high-pitched sing-song sighs of approval or disdain.

Such forays had filled her wardrobe with practical, simple well-cut outfits. Pants, invariably St Laurent; Armani jackets; and Valentino or Dior for evening. She knew she was a disappointment to her impeccably dressed mother, but then Weston had no desire to follow Annette on to the ‘Ten Best Dressed Women in America’ list; she didn’t need to. Her height, presence and minimalist style turned heads without fanciful flourishes. The two were completely different in every respect, so much so Weston often doubted her parentage; how could the capricious, totally vacuous Annette Elizabeth Sinclair be her mother? A woman whose main interests ranged from shopping and lunch to more shopping, followed by hair and beauty treatments. And when the shops were shut, Annette’s time seemed to be dedicated to modelling her purchases. How the bored young Weston used to hate the preening and pouting in front of the dressing-room mirror as her mother fished for compliments, interrogating her daughter in search of approval and adoration. She grew to abhor her mother’s lifestyle, her loathing only increased by her father’s worship of the empty-headed beauty he’d loved passionately for forty-six years. Weston had often longed instead for a fun mom, and later in her teens she’d longed for a friend.

From as young as six Weston had lain awake long after she was supposed to be asleep, planning how she could create mischief and mayhem to gain attention. But by the time she was sixteen, she had simply decided that the lifestyle of her mother and her contemporaries was a ridiculous charade. Massaging precious egos, and playing sex games with philandering power brokers was not to be her fate. She set out to become highly successful, extremely rich and very powerful in her own right, and in that order. By twenty-eight she had produced her first television series; it was nominated for three Emmys and won two. A year later she’d joined forces with Imogen Irving, a fifty-two-year-old Hollywood legend and movie producer, who taught her all she knew about motion pictures and also initiated Weston into the joys of sapphism. Weston had never looked back.

She had gone on to head up her own production company Summit, and had recently negotiated a billion-dollar merger with Avesta Inc, a multi-national media giant spanning digital TV, cable, satellite and the Internet.

Now she was hungry for more power, more control. It was like a potent drug, addictive, the ultimate high. But be careful, Weston, power also corrupts, she could hear her father’s voice whispering in her ear.

The waiter had arrived with her drink; she swirled the olive around the glass before taking a sip, her thoughts digressing to her two closest friends, Beth Morgan and Kelly Prescott, who were both joining her for lunch. They were the two most important people in her life, the result of a friendship that had survived untarnished through three decades, since they’d all met at Wellesley College. This year was the twenty-sixth annual celebration of the special bond the three women had forged in their sophomore year. They had been hedonistic young feminists with far-reaching ambitions and ruthless energy, and had formed an immediate rapport. While other girls discussed vacations, boys or clothes, they had spent long hours working out how they would help each other achieve positions of real power. They agreed it would take time, it was a man’s world and they had to find a way to crack it, each giving the others a leg up the ladder whenever they could. The end of the century was their deadline – the millennium. And that was the pact they secretly swore: the Millennium Pact.

Way back in 1972 when they had called themselves sisters, the world was still waking up to female equality and as the balance of power between the sexes began to shift, they had been ideally placed to take advantage of the changing times. At that time the year 2000 had seemed so distant, yet here they all were nearly at the dawn of a new century, having achieved even more than they had aspired to in those early heady days. They still met six times a year, but their lunches never involved small talk or gossip. They spoke only about themselves, their careers, the next rung, and how each could help the other. Their get-togethers were more like board meetings, brainstorming sessions in which each new move was planned with the sharp precision of a military campaign. And now on the birthday of the Pact they could at last congratulate themselves, give each other a resounding pat on the back.

They had made it.

They had beaten men at their own game, and come out on top. Weston glanced at her watch. Beth, she knew, would be on time; she was punctual to a fault. Kelly, on the other hand, would be late for her own funeral. But she was so beautiful, so adorable, Weston would have forgiven her anything – especially after that night, that perfect night in the Hamptons. A vision of Kelly lying by the pool last summer entered her mind. Weston had been swimming and had surfaced where Kelly lay gloriously naked, milky white triangles of soft flesh emphasizing the secret places the sun hadn’t seen. Weston had warned her to wear sun screen, and then had moistened her lips with naked lust as she’d watched Kelly smooth the cream into her delicate skin, massaging it into her full and home-grown thirty-six DD breasts. She was a natural blonde, the all-American dream girl. The one all the guys talked about in the showers after the game, the one they thought about when jerking off, the girl every smart-assed jock had wanted to take to the prom. Weston moaned inwardly as the vision remained before her eyes. She blinked but Kelly was still there, opening her legs wide to apply the cream to her inner thighs. She felt the heat rise between her own, and her belly begin to ache thanks to that never-to-be-forgotten memory.

It was six years ago, spring 1992; Weston had hosted an intimate dinner party at her house in South Hampton. A select gathering, spelling power and influence. It was a celebration: Kelly’s publishing company had just won two prestigious awards; one for a cutting-edge, investigative magazine that she had purchased three years previously for next to nothing, increasing the circulation to over half a million; and another for Editor of the Year. Weston had closely observed Kelly chatting to Todd Prescott, an extremely wealthy senator. The naturally gregarious Kelly had been in a strange mood all evening, and Weston had thought her distracted and withdrawn. After dinner Todd left, and Kelly had asked to stay the night. She and Weston had sniffed a few lines of cocaine, and listened to music. It was Marvin Gaye singing ‘I Heard It Through the Grapevine’ that prompted Kelly to dance. With her long hair whipped across her face, she had laughed, urging Weston to join her. Weston had refused, happy to watch her friend gyrate; happy to bask in the warm flush that spread from her nipples to her groin when Kelly began to take off her clothes.

Stripped to her panties, hips swaying, she’d danced till the end of the tape, then she stood very still in the middle of the room, panting, breasts rising and falling, her hands running up and down the entire length of her body leaving glistening trails in the sheen that clothed her. Kelly, not taking her eyes off Weston, had slowly slipped her panties down her legs and, sinking to her knees, she crawled to the sofa where Weston sat.

‘You want to eat me, don’t you?’ Kelly had said.

Weston, her mouth suddenly very dry, had merely nodded and watched, lost in desire and anticipation. When Kelly turned round, for a moment she’d thought she was going to crawl away. But instead she bent over gracefully, provocatively, and arched her back, thrusting her tight ass in the air. Weston had gasped when Kelly spread her legs, hands reaching back to ease her buttocks apart and tracing a line that ran down to the bud of her clitoris, which was being rubbed by one finger.

Weston could recall muttering, ‘You’re so beautiful,’ as she opened her mouth to taste Kelly. A fresh and faintly peachy sensation.

The following morning, over breakfast, Kelly had dismissed the encounter. She’d wanted to have a woman, been curious; the cocaine had made her feel horny, she’d needed to come, nothing more. They never mentioned it again.

Weston now took another sip of her drink to drown the memory before it engulfed her. Looking up afterwards, she spotted Beth coming into the restaurant – true to form on the dot of one o’clock. Weston saw her friend before a waiter directed her to the table, and had the opportunity to observe her unawares. Beth was wearing what she always wore, a badly fitting suit. She had appalling dress sense, and no idea what was right for her big-boned, pear-shaped frame. In summer she favoured either a cotton or linen suit, always with a sleeveless tank. The winter version was invariably in wool and usually worn with an assortment of bright polo-neck sweaters, or high-necked starched white shirts. Today she had opted for a black pinstripe, with a long jacket and knee-length skirt. Underneath she had chosen a canary yellow cable sweater, with a brightly patterned scarf tied at the neck. Her freshly cropped dark hair was gelled flat to her head, she wore no make-up save a slash of scarlet lipstick that made her white face look like a death mask. As Beth neared the table, Weston rose.

‘How long have you been here?’ Beth asked between kisses.

‘Not long, I got out of my meeting early so I thought …’ Weston pointed to the half-empty glass, ‘why not have myself a quick shot before you guys arrive.’

Beth dropped to a chair, black eyes darting round the restaurant. The pupils always reminded Weston of shiny jet beads.

‘I need a drink, too. Douglas is the prize prick of the month. I’m telling you the man is a shit, and if I wasn’t such a lady I’d punch him in the mouth.’

Weston laughed, teasing Beth as she summoned a waiter. ‘Being a lady’s never stopped you in the past.’

Beth grinned. ‘He’s bigger than me.’ Then to the waiter who was hovering, ‘Get me a Scotch on the rocks.’

‘Since when did you start drinking Scotch?’

‘Just. That Douglas creep has driven me to drink.’

‘So tell me about it. On second thoughts, I think you already have. The last time he dumped on you, and the time before that. I did warn you not to marry him. Come on, Beth, the man is gorgeous; women come on to him, he can’t resist. Why don’t you take my advice, and lose him? Like once and for all.’

‘Would you believe me if I told you we still have a great sex life? And that I love the louse?’

Weston raised her eyes. ‘Now that I can accept. It’s as good a reason as any for staying with the sonofabitch.’

The Scotch arrived and Beth took a sip, wrinkling up her tiny nose as it hit the back of her throat.

‘No, you’re right of course, I should dump him. But a gal’s got to do what a gal’s got to do, and I need a little pleasure in life. Running the numbers, playing the financial markets, acquisitions and mergers … moving billions of dollars around the world; believe me, it gets mighty tedious. And after fourteen hours of that every day, getting smashed and getting laid becomes top priority. Doug is convenient and he does it good, better than anyone I’ve ever known; he knows exactly how to ring my bells.’ Beth winked. ‘Know what I mean?’

Weston was about to retort that it had cost Beth dearly, both financially and emotionally, when Kelly swept into the restaurant – causing heads to swivel and subdued appreciative whispers.

Weston felt her heart leap. Kelly had that effect on most people, men and women alike. She was, to say the least, beautiful. But more than just on the surface; she had a radiance, a charismatic aura that was tangible. It was a rare man who was not immediately intoxicated by her; a rare woman who didn’t immediately want to be her. Today she was wearing her long hair piled high on her head in a fashionably messy topknot, several strands fell on to her oval face and down the nape of her long neck. When she reached the table she was smiling, but it wasn’t with her usual all-consuming warmth. This smile was taut, forced, polite, the type normally reserved for an unwelcome or distant acquaintance. Weston knew instinctively there was something awry. Reaching across, she covered Kelly’s hand with her own.

‘What is it, Kelly, is there something wrong?’

Kelly nodded, meeting Weston’s enquiring eyes and acknowledging Beth with a sigh. ‘I need a drink.’ She sat silently until a large glass of white wine was placed in front of her. Then she raised it. ‘First and foremost I want to drink to the Pact.’

The three women raised their glasses and drank. Weston was impatient but she knew not to press Kelly, she would tell all in her own time.

‘To the Pact.’ They said it in unison.

Kelly took three deep gulps of wine, placed her glass down carefully and looked first at Weston, then Beth. ‘Three guesses who I’ve just seen on the corner of Fifth and Fifty-second?’

‘Kevin Costner?’ Beth piped up, giggling.

‘This is serious, Beth.’

With a shrug of her shoulders, Beth retorted, ‘So don’t play games; who did you see?’

‘Jay Kaminsky.’

Weston and Beth both stiffened. Nobody spoke.

Eventually Weston broke the silence. ‘I knew he was out. You got my fax? I read the piece in the Globe.’

Kelly nodded. ‘He’s here, in Manhattan, and –’ She stopped speaking, squeezing Weston’s hand tight.

‘It was a shock seeing him like that, just hanging out at a news-stand buying a paper, looking for all the world like he was on his way to an office on Madison or Park. He was dressed like an uptown lawyer or advertising exec. He’s only a few blocks from here right now. In fact he could walk into this restaurant at any moment. I knew he’d got out, because all the papers announced it. And we all knew his sentence was up. But to see him like that, so close, after so long; wow, it freaked me out.’

Beth had paled. ‘And today of all days.’

‘Yes, today of all days,’ Kelly repeated.

‘So what if Jay Kaminsky is out, what difference does it make?’ Weston tried to calm the other two. ‘How can he harm us? What can he do? He’s a convicted felon, an ex-con; who’s going to take any notice of him? Come on, Kelly, relax.’

When Kelly did not respond she turned her attention to Beth. ‘This year is the twenty-sixth anniversary of our Pact; this is celebration time. We can’t let Kaminsky get in the way. We didn’t back then, so we’re certainly not going to now.’ Weston looked from one apprehensive face to the other. ‘Come on, what’s done is done, no turning back. We’re going forward into the twenty-first century on top, in power, in control.’ Keeping hold of Kelly’s hand, she took Beth’s from her lap and holding it reassuringly tight said, ‘We’ve got each other, nothing and no one is going to change that. Let’s drink to our continuing friendship, and our journey into the next century. Together we can surmount anything: we’re strong, empowered, united.’

Weston raised her glass and drained the last dregs. Kelly took a sip of iced water, and Beth finished her whisky. Their hands were still joined as Carlos came to the table.

‘Message for Mrs Prescott.’

Kelly was handed a slip of paper. On it was one line, neatly handwritten in black ink: The past always has a future.

The flight to Washington landed on time. As she walked through the arrivals terminal, Kelly searched the sea of faces for her driver, Jim. A moment later she spotted him rushing through the revolving entrance doors. He waved and stood still watching her approach.

Kelly felt tired; thoughts of Jay and too much white wine had combined to keep her awake for most of the previous night. Todd was out of town, and wouldn’t be back until later that evening. She moved towards the chauffeur, determinedly pushing all thoughts of Jay to the darkest recesses of her mind.

When she walks

She’s like a samba

That sways so sweet,

And moves so gentle,

And when she passes

He smiles but she doesn’t see …

Jay hummed the tune but the words that rumba’d through his head were not about ‘The Girl from Ipanema’. They were about the girl from Temple Texas who went on to become the girl from Capitol Hill.

Long-limbed, with an ease of movement more usual in a Polynesian princess than an apple-pie, homespun American girl, Kelly looked graceful, sleek and majestic to Jay as he watched her cross the arrivals hall. He had a clear view from his vantage position in a telephone booth facing the busy concourse.

She was carrying a fur coat and a small tan leather bag. Clad in a midnight blue suit, jacket nipped into the waist, straight skirt skimming her knees, Kelly held her neat head high – flaxen hair like a slick of gold paint across her shoulders. Several male heads turned, eyes bewitched, blatantly undressing her, and for a brief possessive moment Jay wanted to hit one particularly lecherous pot-bellied executive. Yet the object of all the attention was totally oblivious. Jay supposed it was the nature of the beast: such a combination of beauty, charisma and raw sex appeal was bound to be so acquainted with admiring glances and goggle eyes that it becomes immune to them.

He fell into a quick trot behind her, only holding back as she strode out into the sunlight and dipped into a waiting limousine. Moments later, Jay was in the back of a taxi. The black stretch, three cars ahead, inched forward, indicating left. The taxi followed, fitting in behind on the Beltway leading to the I-75 that went into Washington. As the limo picked up speed, Jay imagined Kelly in the back sitting with legs crossed. Idly he wondered if she was wearing pantyhose or stockings, and, if the latter, whether her garter belt was white, black or the flesh colour of her skin.

In prison every time he’d seen a film clip of a couple in the back seat of a limo, he’d had erotic fantasies of hitching up a full skirt to find stocking tops and milky white thighs belonging to a beautiful, scented woman who wanted him. Always, he would go down on her, while the driver politely readjusted his rear view mirror and turned up the radio.

The cab had followed the limo across the Potomac river, passing the Marriott Hotel where he was staying as of late last night. When they entered Georgetown they got snarled up in traffic, losing the limo for a few nervous moments. Then Jay caught sight of it again and directed the cab driver into M Street, where the limo was gliding to a halt outside an imposing colonial-style house.

Jay looked with a pang of envy at the red brick façade, white portico and gleaming sash windows. The house was seriously elegant, it reeked of money and understated grandeur. He watched Kelly get out of the car and go inside before he asked his cabbie to take him back to the Marriott.

An hour later he was in his room, freshly showered, wearing a towelling bathrobe and sitting in front of a club sandwich and French fries. He’d just taken the first bite when the phone rang. Jay picked it up after four rings. It was the call he’d been waiting for.

‘Good to hear you, Luther. When did you get in? Hotel OK?’

Luther’s voice sounded jaunty. ‘It sure beats the dump I’ve been living in for the last eight months.’

‘Good, I suggest we meet for breakfast here in the coffee shop – eight-thirty in the morning.’

‘Have you located the –’

‘Yes,’ Jay interrupted abruptly; he didn’t trust telephones. ‘We’ll talk tomorrow.’

‘I’ll be there.’

Jay replaced the telephone and sat down on the bed, closing his eyes. But he had too much going on inside his head to contemplate sleep. In prison the nights had been his time for solitary contemplation. How he’d longed for the zookeepers to lock the cages, to shut out the incessant and repetitive male babble. The close of another monotonous day in hell had always been, for him, a relief. Time to dream.

But tonight, on the outside at last, there was no time for dreams or introspection, tonight was for plans. Jay believed in careful and strategic planning. Every move had to be thought out, like chess of which he was a master, with precision and patience. He had both and he relished the long hours ahead; while others slept he would plot. And by dawn he knew he would be more alert than if he’d had eight hours’ undisturbed sleep.

Jay hadn’t seen Luther Ross for six years, but he would have recognized his big head anywhere. It was still shaven and gleaming like a bowling ball. When Jay approached the corner table, Luther looked up and his button black eyes were the same, if a little duller, and the gap-toothed grin hadn’t changed – it was as broad and as warm as Jay remembered. He’d used bits of Luther for a character in his first book; not the best bits either, yet Luther had been delighted, thrilled to taste a meagre morsel of fame.

When the other man stood up he seemed smaller than Jay recalled, but maybe that was the outside – on the outside the world seemed to dwarf everyone in it. As if to compensate Luther had gained a lot of weight and his stomach protruded over the top of his trousers. He extended his hand.

‘Jay, man! Good to see you.’

Jay felt Luther’s firm grip. Genuinely pleased to see the ex-boxer, he returned the greeting. ‘It’s good to see you too, Luther.’

Luther was smiling as Jay slid into a chair. He began the ritual of ex-cons everywhere. ‘You been out long?’

‘Just a few days, but it seems like years. Hell, it feels strange after all that hoping, waiting, longing for a normal life on the outside. Living through movies and books doesn’t exactly prepare you for the real thing, does it? I wake up in the middle of the night convinced I’m still in the pen, waiting for the familiar sounds, and it takes me hours to get back to sleep – if ever. Some days I feel like I’m acting, like this is not real life and I’m going back inside when it’s over. Weird. I suppose it’s going to take a long, long time. I’ve been locked away for a quarter of a fucking century.’

Silently Luther nodded, he’d heard the same story too many times, from too many friends encountered on the outside. He let Jay continue.

‘Thank God I started to write; when I think back I don’t know what I’d have done without that as an escape. My sales are doing well, so my agent tells me. According to him, I’m the Hemingway of the nineties, and – check this – Hollywood is interested in Killing Time.’

‘Geez, man, you’re doing good! Fucking great, Jay. Waddya say I look after security on the set. Uh?’ Luther laughed.

A waiter approached and Jay ordered coffee, eggs sunny-side up, bacon and toast.

‘So how have things been for you, Luther?’

‘Not so good, buddy; but then …’ He pointed to his temple, ‘You’ve got a great brain, man. I got no muscle up there. I think when Randy Lewis knocked me out in sixty-eight, I left a whole heap of brain cells on the canvas and forgot to pick ’em up.’

Grinning, Jay said, ‘You working?’

‘Kind of.’ Luther paused, sipped his coffee, then said, ‘I was straight for three years.’ He stuck three fingers in the air. ‘Worked as a kitchen porter, room service waiter, and a cab driver. I was real straight, man; no shit. I met a woman, a good woman. A great-looking broad with a good job, a duty manageress in the St Regis Hotel.’ He whistled. ‘Legs, like you’ve never seen legs! Long enough to be continued. And an amazing butt, big and beautiful. Oh yeah, and the face of an angel. Believe it or not, Jay, this incredible chick fell for Luther Ross. Can you imagine? She’s crazy about me. It’s enough to send anyone straight. So we get ourselves an apartment together. Not a bad place on the lower Eastside. Shirley, she does it up real smart – white sofas and white cotton sheets. I ain’t never slept on cotton like that … yunno? White folk cotton. Anyway I have the best time of my life – I mean the best, man. And just when I’m telling myself it can’t get any better, Shirley goes and quits on me.’

He clicked his fingers with a loud snap, lowering his head at the same time. ‘Big C, man. First it’s in her right breast, they take that away. Then they find some more of the shit. But this time they don’t operate cause it’s gone into her lymph glands, and spreading fast; like fucking weed, man. She was dead within six months.’

Luther took a deep breath and there was a long pause until Jay said that he was sorry.

Luther looked into the bottom of his empty cup. ‘I knew it couldn’t last.’

The eggs and bacon arrived. Jay took one look at it, and pushed the plate to one side.

‘I lost it after that. Did some drugs, went a little crazy, got in touch with a couple of old contacts. I’ve done a few odd jobs. Nothing big, I’m getting too old for the really heavy stuff. Just small heists. Clean. Easy. In, out. It pays the rent.’

Jay bit into a slice of toast as Luther looked at the discarded plate

‘You not eating?’

‘I just lost my appetite.’

‘I ain’t lost mine, you mind?’

Jay pushed the plate in front of him. ‘Be my guest.’

Luther sawed into a strip of bacon before speaking again. ‘So whaddya need, buddy?’

‘I need a wire job on Senator Todd Prescott’s house. I don’t want to hear what the senator has to say, I’m more interested in what his wife is up to.’

As Jay slid a photograph of Kelly across the table, Luther let out a low whistle. ‘Ouch! I sure know what I’d like to say to this babe.’

Jay nodded but made no comment. He was afraid his voice would betray him. ‘I need a neat job, and I need it done now. I know from the press that the senator’s away campaigning from next week.’

Egg yolk trickled from the corner of Luther’s mouth as he looked at the photograph again, then pointed at Jay with his fork. ‘It’s a hot gig, heavy security; high risk, I’m not sure.’

Jay’s eyes narrowed. ‘That’s why I want you. You’re the best.’

Luther’s grin confirmed to Jay that the big man’s ego had kicked in.

‘How much?’

‘I’ll pay you three grand,’ Jay said, knowing Luther would ask for five at least.

‘Come on, man, this is a senator’s pad; they can be mean bastards, as mean as the mob when they get upset.’

‘OK, five,’ said Jay, knowing Luther would have asked for ten if he’d offered five thousand bucks in the first place.

‘Five, plus expenses,’ urged Luther.

Jay nodded and held out his hand, aware as he did so that Luther was wondering if he’d asked too little. ‘OK, five plus expenses it is. We got a deal?’

Luther wiped his right hand on the table top, before holding up a meaty paw in front of Jay. ‘Am I allowed to ask why?’

Jay trusted him. ‘I was in love with this woman.’ He pointed to the photograph. ‘So was the man I’m supposed to have murdered. She was very close friends with two other women; she still is. At the time of my trial I had a hunch they were hiding something. It’s only a hunch, but I’ve got to start somewhere. Kelly seems as good a place as any.’

Jay’s eyes had not left the picture of Kelly and Luther had noticed. ‘You sure that’s all it is, man?’

Jay seemed dazed. ‘It’ll do for starters. You on or not, Luther?’

‘What do you think? Gimme five for five, man.’

Jay slapped palms as he was told, ‘We should be on line this time next week.’

Both men smiled.