In Too Deep: A Romantic Suspense Novel (27 page)

I was tempted to tell her about my work, but I knew if I answered her question, her life would be in danger, and it'd likely push her away even more. "Sophie, I can't.....there are things about my life that I just can't tell you. I'm not trying to lie, I just can't." I didn't know what else to say. I felt defeated, laid bare, and there was nothing I could do about it. My mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water for a few seconds, before I just sighed. "I'm sorry."

Sophie looked at me, her anger softening, but she still took her bag and slung the strap over her shoulder. "Me too. But until you can tell me more . . . I need to go."

B
y the time
I got to the Shamrock that early evening for my shift, I was still in a downright shitty mood. The whole time going back to my apartment and then changing for work, my mind was whirling. Tabby had been disappointed that Mark wouldn't be at the pub, but told me she'd still come by around nine. In the meantime, I spent half my time calling myself a damn fool for walking out on Mark. He was more than a great lover. We enjoyed spending time together, whether we were hanging out and watching movies or having dinner he prepared for me, to just sitting around talking.

The other half of the time, I was telling myself I did the right thing. He kept secrets from me, that was obvious. I'd overlooked it for most of the month we'd been together since it was never in my face and as obvious as it was earlier. After all, every business has certain things they don't want other people to know. I'd dated a guy when I was an undergrad on and off for three months that worked at a Chinese restaurant. He told me that even though he'd worked there for five years, ever since high school, he'd never been allowed to learn what the chef used as his Mongolian barbecue sauce. Until Louis Lefort showed up at Mark's doorstep, I figured it was something as insignificant as that. But there was something about those two men, an almost palpable aura of danger and evil that made me feel uncomfortable the whole time they were inside. They looked like two men who really didn't care if I were alive or dead.

Also, what was up with Mark and that leather jacket? I'd never seen him wear it before, and the way he reached for the sleeves before stopping told me he had something in there, something he didn't want me or Lefort to see. It was just another thing that worried me, just like the worried expression that was on Mark's face the whole time they were there. I'd seen Mark confident, I'd seen him restful, I'd seen him thoughtful. But I'd never seen him worried or scared before.

All of these thoughts swirled through my mind as I entered the Shamrock and slung my backpack onto my coat hook in the back room. Taking a deep breath, I pulled my hair back into my work ponytail while knotting the Shamrock t-shirt near my left hip. It had taken me a while to catch on, but the tighter I made my shirt, the bigger the tips I got. I don't care what my feminist classmates might say; sex sells.

The bar was still pretty quiet when I clocked in, with a few folks enjoying early dinners. The Shamrock is a pub in the true Irish sense, so it had a chef in the back, a guy named Juan who turned out pretty good fish and chips, in my opinion. That an Irish pub had a Hispanic guy working the kitchen was just good irony. "How's the chips tonight, Juan?"

"
Hola
Sophie," he said. "You look down. You okay?"

"
No buena
," I said in reply. "But don't worry about it, I'll get through it all."

"Cool. Well, you know it's Saturday, so be on your toes."

"
Comprende
," I replied, going out behind the bar. The afternoon bartender, a nice older guy named Liam who was also the co-owner of the Shamrock along with his brother, gave me a smile and a nod before drawing a beer for a customer.

I
was soon caught
up in my work. After Liam got off, I was the main bartender, working with two others who shuttled beer and food out to the fifteen tables that dotted the area. About seven o'clock I was drawing a beer when I heard someone call out my name. "Hey, barkeeper?"

"Just a minute," I said, finishing off the pint of Guinness and drawing another of Kilkenny Red. I set the two pints on a tray and rang for Dave, the waiter working that table, for service. Wiping my hands on the towel I kept near my waist, I turned towards the voice. "What can I get you?"

The customer was one whose face I'd seen pretty often over the past three weeks. She was Asian, although I couldn't really tell you which origin. She'd been coming in almost every shift I was on, and I'd placed her as a new office worker in the area. She always wore a business suit, and she spoke with a bit of a British accent. I'd assumed she was a transfer from an overseas office, Royal Bank of Scotland had a regional office nearby. "I'll take a Porterhouse Oyster Stout, if you have them tonight," the woman asked, "I'm knackered."

"Good choice," I replied, grabbing a bottle from the cooler chest and popping the top. "Bottle or glass?"

"I'll take a glass if you don't mind," the woman replied. I poured carefully, making sure to get just the right amount of head, and set it along with the rest of the bottle in front of her. "Thanks. By the way, I'm Becky. Been seeing you around a lot lately."

"Sophie," I replied with a professional smile. "Well, my school work is wrapping up, and I haven't gotten any bites back on my resume yet. So, I asked and they let me pick up a few extra shifts."

"Well, it's good to have you around. The guy before you keeps giving me the horny eyeball, if you know what I mean. But you don't look yourself tonight. Everything okay?"

"Ah, not too bad. I had a bit of a falling out with a guy I've been seeing this morning."

Becky took a sip of her glass and sighed. "I know what you mean. What caused it? Caught him in bed with another woman? Text messages?"

I shook my head and chuckled. "Nothing so dramatic. Just.... he's got a secret side to him that he won't let me into."

"I understand. I've lost a few boyfriends to that myself. The last one turned out to not trust me when I told him that yes, I really was working late and no, I couldn't tell him. After all, if what I knew got out to the wrong people, the NASDAQ takes a hit and the SEC is knocking on my door."

"I know, I'd thought of that, but I met a few of his coworkers today. And let's just say they weren't very nice guys."

Our conversation continued on and off for the next hour, as I got called away to fill orders. Still, each time I ended up drifting back down the bar to where Becky was sitting, and we just kept talking. As we did, I just felt comfortable sharing with her everything I was worried about between Mark and I. His handsomeness, our economic differences, even our difference in education. Finally, Becky set down her glass after finishing off her second stout, and looked levelly at me. "You mind if I ask a blunt question?"

"Go ahead," I said, keeping my eyes on the bar. A guy down on the end gestured, and I got him a pint of Harp Lager before coming back. "Might want to hurry, though. The place is getting busy, and the band starts up in twenty minutes. Once they do, you won't be able to hear a damn thing most of the time."

"Sure. Listen, this man, is he a good man? Not the secrets, not the money, none of that other shite, but is he a good man?"

I didn't even need to think about my answer. "Yes. One of the best men I've ever known."

Becky smiled and drained her glass. "Then I think you know what you should do next. Listen, I gotta go, I love the beer here but I hate the band. I'll see you around." She handed me her glass and bottle, and by the time I got back she was gone, with a fifty dollar tip tucked under her coaster along with a note. "I kept you from enough customers, you deserve it. Call him. -B"

I tucked the note into my pocket, stuck the fifty in the tip jar I shared with the other staff, and called out to the waiter on the floor. "Dave! Take the bar for five minutes, I need to step out."

A
fter Sophie walked out
, I stared at my front door, for the first time since my mother died feeling mentally paralyzed. Hell, I'd celebrated when I left home when I graduated high school, my dad was too far into the bottle to give a damn anyway. There I was, standing half naked in my bedroom, and I couldn't figure out what to do. I'd already done my first paid job for some of my clients, running basic errands. I didn't graduate to my current line of work until a year later, and that was quite by accident. The sound of a helicopter flying over my building broke my fugue, and I shook my head. I couldn't just let Sophie walk out of my life, that was for sure. I grabbed the first thing in my dresser, a black t-shirt (not unexpected) and a pair of urban camo fatigue pants (a bit unexpected, I didn't wear those unless I was working in certain neighborhoods). I grabbed a pair of short boots, the type used by some of the SWAT teams in California and had the left one on when my cell phone rang. I snatched it up from my nightstand table, praying it was Sophie. I cursed silently when I saw who it was. "Hello, Sal."

"Marco, Marco . . . I just got a very disturbing report from Louis. The Frog says that the rumors of you having a romantic interest are true. You know we need to talk about this."

I pursed my lips, tempted to tell Salvatore Giardino to take a long leap from my balcony. First of all, I'm not Italian. Why the hell he kept turning my name into Marco was beyond me. However, I'm not the sort of person interested in making men like Sal angry, so I kept my reply polite. "I know you had some expectations for me, Sal. I'll be honest, though, I didn't think this was worth your attention."

"Now Marco, do you really think that I've gotten to the position I have without making sure nothing is beyond my attention? Since you've been such a valuable member of my team, I'm feeling generous. Where would you like to meet?"

Like it mattered. I knew Giordano would have men everywhere, regardless. I could have chosen the inside of a bank vault and it wouldn't have changed a thing. Still, I needed to at least make an effort to look like I was trying to cover my ass. "How about the Park? We can feed the ducks over by Hamilton Pond. Most of the old men who hang out there wouldn't care even if they could hear us."

Giordano laughed, an ugly sound that I detested. "All right. Thirty minutes by Hamilton Pond. I'll even bring the breadcrumbs."

I hung up my phone and closed my eyes, letting my eyes close and forcing my breath to still. It's my greatest advantage, more than my physical strength, or my ability to set aside the better parts of me when I needed to and do the hard thing. Instead, I drew upon that inner pool of stillness I've had as long as I could remember. When I was a boy growing up in the country, I'd taken quite a few whitetail deer with that skill, more than hunters twice my age. My father, who usually ended our hunting trips drunk, kept swearing it was dumb luck. A seven-year-old boy does not take a ten point buck down with an old M-1 carbine at two hundred yards. You're not even supposed to shoot deer at that range with that size round, it's not powerful enough. But I knew, and the bullet took the buck just right, going between the thick ribs and piercing the heart. The buck dropped like a rock.

As I got older I explored meditation and various other ways to allow myself to quickly find that stillness. I learned how to be still while moving, and even in the midst of a whirlwind of activity my mind remained clear and perceptive. I yearned for this now, knowing I'd need it. It only took me a minute before I felt centered. I prepared for my meeting with Sal Giordano, and left for the Park. I knew it would be useless to sit down at a bench before Sal, he would be, as normal, extremely paranoid. Instead, I stood next to the railing overlooking the pond, keeping my eyes open. I didn't have to wait long.

Sal wasn't dressed like a man who owns four hotels in Atlantic City. Before you start thinking he was dressed like Tony Soprano or something, he wasn't dressed like your stereotypical Italian either. Instead, he was dressed kind of like you would expect your doctor to be on a Saturday afternoon, in a Ralph Lauren polo shirt, some Dockers khakis, and brown casual Skechers of all things. He approached me by himself, carrying a shopping bag, and I could immediately spot two of his men staying a respectful distance back. "Marco, it's good to see you."

"Thank you Sal. It's been a long time, hasn't it? You look like you're keeping yourself fit."

Sal patted his reasonably trim stomach for a fifty-year-old man and nodded. "New girlfriend, you know. To keep up with her, I've had to lay off the cannolis. Ah, but the benefits... those are worth a few cannolis. Sit down, let's talk."

Sal led me the short distance to an empty park bench before opening his bag. Inside there were three packs of Ritz crackers, still sealed in their foil tubes. "I couldn't find any bread that was dry enough on short notice," he explained, handing me one of the tubes. "But, my grandson says the birds like these just as much as bread, so I decided to give them a try."

"I hope the family is in good health," I said evenly, opening my pack after squeezing, crunching the crackers and making sure there wasn't something else inside. I took a few crumbs and tossed them onto the sidewalk in front of us, watching as pigeons waddled over and started to eat. These were city pigeons, they didn't feel the need to hurry for anything.

"They are, but let's get down to business," Sal said, his voice still friendly but his eyes going cold. "Marco, before I agreed to engage your services, I gave you some very specific rules. Do you remember what they were?"

"Of course, Sal."

"Really? Because one of the ones I remember being very explicit about was that if you were going to do contracts for me, you were not allowed to have any sort of romantic relationships. If you wanted to go out and fuck women, you could do that all you want. I don't expect a man to be a saint, even though I go to Mass every Sunday. But a girlfriend? No way Marco. No way."