Page 25 of A Friend in the Glass

Del arched one trimmed white eyebrow. “Good morning.”

Rufus shrugged. “It’s a morning. So, you visiting the city?”

“I’m sorry, do I know you?”

“My manners. You’d think I was raised by an underage hooker.” Rufus held a hand out. “Rufus Smith.”

Del considered his hand. Then he moved his phone and glass closer. “I’m sorry, Mr. Smith. I’m flattered, of course. But I’m not interested. No offense.” He smiled thinly. “You understand.”

Rufus lowered his hand a fraction before blurting, “What? Oh no, no, no. I’m not into older guys. I mean—a few years is fine, but you’re in a completely different generational bracket.” Unfolding the paper, Rufus put it on the tabletop, but with a palm firmly over it so it couldn’t be snatched. “JLTV models M1279.S and M1280.S,” he read. “Wow. That’s a mouthful. I’ll just call it Stonefish. So it was a big success, huh?”

This time, both eyebrows went up, and it looked like Del was fighting the urge to lean forward to inspect the paper. “That’s a nice bit of showmanship. I’m supposed to wonder what you have.”

“But you are wondering, aren’t you?” Rufus met Del’s steady gaze with one of his shit-eating grins.

On the other side of the tinted glass, traffic ebbed and flowed. Light glanced off a taxi’s windows, but it looked gray and matte through the treated glass. A horn blared. It sounded like it was a mile off.

Del pocketed his phone. He sipped his scotch, and as the glass clicked against the table, he said, “I assume Stonefish is supposed to mean something to me. Why don’t you tell me what you want, Mr. Smith, and quit wasting my time?”

Rufus smoothed the paper a few times, enough for the action to hold Del’s attention, then he carefully folded the top down so that the string of numbers on the backside was visible. “Why don’t you start with Shareed Baker and finish with why she’d want you and your sales lady to have her bank account and routing number.” He looked at Del, and with feigned ignorance, said, “Weird.”

“I don’t know anyone by that name, and I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’d like you to leave now.”

“Oh, sure, sure. I have to call my cop-daddy with the NYPD anyway.”

“I’m sure he’ll be interested in—what was it you said?” Del started to rise. “Good luck to you.”

“That sure lit a fire under your ass. First you wantedmeto leave, but then maybe I mention the cops, maybe I mention they’re investigating a dead woman found in her hotel room yesterday, maybe I even mention said dead woman had a financial interest in you and your expo buddies, and suddenly you’ve gotta run?”

“A dead woman,” Del said. He still had one hand on the table. His fingertips were bloodless. “What are you talking about?”

Rufus narrowed his eyes a little. His tone shifted from something playful and cocky to somber as he answered, “Shareed Baker called the Javits over and over just before she died. She died after having left Evangeline Ridgeway with what amounted to blackmail. That’s what I’m talking about.”

“I don’t know what I could possibly have to do with—”

“Yes, you do. That’s why you want to get the fuck out of here.”

Del’s lips pressed together, pinched and white. With what looked like a great deal of effort, he peeled his hand from the table in a slow, controlled movement. “I was on a Conasauga jet yesterday morning with the rest of my staff. Whatever happened to that poor woman, whoever she is, I had nothing to do with it. Goodbye, Mr. Smith. If you contact me again, you’ll hear from my lawyer.”

Rufus raised a hand to the side of his head and saluted Del as the older man left the bar. He waited a full minute before helping himself to the rest of Del’s mostly untouched drink, and thenwalked out. Rufus was coughing and thumping his chest as he returned to Sam. “That bartender pours strong.”

“What’d he say?”

Rufus finished clearing his throat. “He denied everything. The only thing I could get out of him that wasn’tI have no idea what you’re talking about, was that he was on a Conasauga jet yesterday morning—when Shareed died.”

Sam’s hands tightened and then relaxed. “That makes sense. If he was involved—if—he would have sent someone else to do it. It doesn’t tell us anything one way or another.”

“It tells us Conasauga has a jet,” Rufus replied. “I’d be curious to find out how many of the folks at MoDe were on that jet at the same time.”

“Sure. It’s worth finding out.”

Rufus scratched the stubble on his chin. “Would Lew have been on that jet, you think?”

“No.”

“We should find out where he was yesterday morning.” Rufus hastily continued, “But before you kill Lew, we have to consider the fact that this press release was in Evangeline’s room, and that Del jumped to alibi himself when I mentioned Shareed was dead. Whatever’s going on is messier than what I expected. We need totalkto Lew.”

Sam opened his mouth, but he must have changed what he was going to say because he hesitated. “So let’s talk to him. Move things along so we can get to the killing part.”

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