Devil s Bargin Page 0,65

gave her a long, measuring stare. "You have to come back. You know that, right? I don't give you permission not to come back."

Jazz smiled. "I have to sign bonus checks," she said.

"Damn straight."

It wasn't romantic, really, as dinners went. Maybe midway between the Formica bustle of Arthur Bryant's and some French restaurant with low lights and unpronounceable food - the restaurant was brightly lit, Italian, and full of the smells of garlic and parmesan and red sauce. Instead of soothing violins discreetly whispering through concealed speakers, this place featured waiters who sang opera. Loudly. Jazz supposed they were lucky the waiters actually could sing.

She politely clapped after the second aria from the guy topping off her tea and gave him a not-too-subtle bug-off sign, which he took with good grace. Across from her, James Borden was digging into a plate of chicken parmesan, with bread sticks. She stuck to spaghetti.

"Here," he said, as she was questing for a meatball with her fork. He slid an envelope across the table toward her. Not red, this time. White, but still the size and shape of a card. She raised her eyebrows and opened it up.

It really was a card. Flowers on the front, and inside, a handwritten note that said, simply, Thank you.

With a plane ticket for one to Los Angeles, leaving in - she checked her watch - four hours.

"Should give you enough time to eat, get there, check in and relax a little," he said, watching her.

"You bought the ticket this morning. Before you actually talked to me."

He substituted a mouthful of chicken parmesan for an answer.

"Am I actually that easy?"

"No," he mumbled. "I was willing to take the risk."

She studied him, twirling spaghetti on her fork, and said, "Tell me about your friend."

He did, after swallowing. Lowell Santoro. College roommate. One of those running buddies that Jazz had always wanted and somehow never really had, apart from McCarthy - someone to laugh with, raise hell with, experience life with. "He was older than I was," Borden said. "It didn't matter, we both acted like twelve-year-olds. He never met a girl he didn't try to talk into bed, but he never had one hate him afterward, either. Lowell's always been - honest. I know that sounds strange, but it's true. He's just got nothing but truth in him."

"Uh-huh," she said doubtfully, and took a sip of crisp white wine. It had a nice cool undertone to it, the perfect counterpoint to the salt of the spaghetti sauce. "So he's Don Juan and Saint Francis, all rolled up into one. And he was, what? A law student?"

"He changed after the first year, took film courses. That's how he got into producing. It was a good thing. He wasn't going to be a great lawyer. Too honest."

"Unlike you."

"Unlike me," he agreed. "He met Susan - his wife - his last year in college. They got married, moved out to L.A. He's a good guy, Jazz. What's going to happen to him - he doesn't deserve it."

"What is going to happen to him?" Because that wasn't in the letter. Just instructions on how to conduct surveillance. No warnings. She supposed the Cross Society thought it would predispose her toward what to watch out for.

"It's not clear," Borden said. Or prevaricated. "Something fatal. And something painful."

"Car accident? Building collapse? Bullet?"

"It's a human agency, that's all that I know."

"I hate it when you talk like - "

"Like a member of the Society? Jazz. I am one."

She knew that. She just didn't like to think about it. Conversation collapsed into silence as they ate, and the waiter came around to deliver a selection from The Marriage of Figaro, and it was dessert by the time Jazz said, "About the fruit basket?"

He looked up from his tiramisu, took a sip of wine and raised his eyebrows.

"Was it Laskins's idea?"

"Mine," he said.

"You're hopeless."

Borden had the good sense to look embarrassed as he shrugged. It might have been the wine, or the marinara sauce, but she felt a surge of warmth toward him, entirely unconnected to the undeniable surge of - what the hell had that been? Lust? - she'd felt in her office, when she'd had him up against the wall. That was unsettling. She preferred lust. Lust was simple - it had a beginning, middle and end to it. You could shut lust up by giving it what it wanted.

This feeling...it had more of a feeling of sticking around.

He was watching her. She realized