Page 83 of The Truths that Deceive

I pull her onto my lap, loving the feel of her tight ass, warm and shapely in the confines of the dress. “I like the jazz scene.”

She listens to the trumpet as someone starts on the sax, picking up the loose melody being created. Her nose wrinkles, spoiling her air of sophisticate and landing her in her correct age group, the era painted with techno beats, rappers, and annoying as fuck pop. “You like this?”

“Yes. Jazz is a passion, one I don’t get to indulge in that often.”

I don’t tell her I float through one or two jazz dens in Jamaica, Queens, and on the Lower East Side.

“Really, Grandpa? You like this?”

“Yes, brat, I do. Even the open mic nights. Some of it’s pretty good.”

She looks at me a moment with a slightly dreamy expression that knocks me for a loop. I’m not sure what that look is or why it’s suddenly appeared. Does she think she’s seeing a small slice of what makes me tick?

I want to break it to her that everything she sees is me, on a certain level. She’s suspicious of everything I tell her and rightly so. I’d be on my toes, too, if someone held me captive before threatening to turn me in to the authorities.

She just nods and the waitress comes over. I order Cuban rum. “For the nostalgia.”

Anger flashes, replacing the dreamy look.

Shit, I’m a dick. An old, asshole of a dick, bringing up what happened there.

Calista shakes head, the red hair swishing. “I wish I could kill with my bare hands.”

“This isn’t a movie, Calista,” I say. “There was no way you were getting out of that basement and away from those fucks.”

“I wanted to see them bleed.”

“I’d have paid to see you do that.”

The waitress returns with the drinks, and I hand her a couple of twenties.

Calista’s head tilts as she focuses on the stage where a woman in a fur stole and floor-length glittery dress joins in the instrumental ensemble with vocals.

Without looking at me, she says, “Well?”

I know what she wants. “Well, what?”

This time her head snaps around, her eyes shooting out a fiery glare. “What do you think I mean by ‘well’?”

I ease her off my lap. Then I reach into my inner pocket, pull out the slender cigarette case, and light one up.

She frowns as I blow smoke into the air. The room’s already got that smoky haze, the scent of cigarettes, weed, and even cigars. Calista’s face is flushed with outrage and annoyance. I take another drag.

The cigarettes are for the game, smoking gives me a thing to do when watching someone and weighing them up. It occupies my hands, and I can stretch out moments while reading the room or specific people in it.

That’s what I did downstairs at the club.

I’m smoking right now because I want desperately to kiss her, seduce her slowly, taking my time with her. I want to explore every inch and savor all of the newly discovered places, as well as slide into the ones I already know.

“I don’t know.”

Her fingers grip and jerk on her glass. “What?—?”

“What I mean is, I don’t know how it went. If it had been a game of chess, we’d have been in a stalemate.” I blow out a stream of smoke, not really wanting the cigarette, but it makes me keep my hands to myself. “He wanted to see what I had,but more than that, wanted to know what I knew. And…” I shrug. “I don’t know. Something was off. Could be he thought I was the one selling, looking to buy, and either he’s still very much CIA, or he’s off on his own. He’s good enough that I couldn’t tell.”

She swallows. I watch as her delicate throat moves, watch as her chest lifts with a breath and she dances her fingers over her glass. “Maybe he is one of the good guys.”

“And yet he threw you under the bus?”

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