Straits of Fortune - Anthony Gagliano [49]
Then the smile vanished and something human came into her expression, and I thought she looked sad and drawn out, though her beauty was still vibrant enough to hide it, except if you had met her back when I had. She smiled for real this time and shook her head as she studied me.
“You look like hell,” she said.
“I didn’t expect you to make it down here until Monday.”
“I almost didn’t. The prosecutor asked for a postponement in the case I’m trying. Seems someone down at the property room misplaced a few kilos of evidence. So here I am.” She lifted the valise off the table and set it down beside her.
“How’s it going?” I asked.
“You’re asking me that?”
I looked her over. She looked like money. Her days as a prosecutor were way behind her, and the drug money of her former adversaries was making her rich, one overpriced hour at a time.
“How does it feel to be making decent money for a change?” I asked.
She thought that over for a moment. “You may have trouble believing it, but in a lot of ways I liked being a prosecutor better.”
“No, I’m not surprised. You’re the type that likes to get her hands dirty. Money can’t change that, though that is a pretty nice suit you’re wearing.”
“It’s starting to come back to me now,” she said, frowning.
“What is?”
“What it was I liked about you. Now, before we get too comfortable, tell me again how you wound up in the drink this morning with a man in a speedboat shooting at you.”
I told her almost everything but left out the juicy parts. It was just me, the kayak, and some good and bad luck mixed together. As for Williams, I told her I didn’t have a clue. Maybe a case of mistaken identity. Lying to your lawyer was a dead-end street, but I couldn’t very well tell her the truth. She would have wanted the whole story, and I could not yet afford to give it to her—especially as there was so much of it I didn’t know myself.
“A little suspicious, at least from a cop’s point of view, but legally speaking it doesn’t sound all that bad. Like I said on the phone, though, I can’t do a thing until they bring you down to federal court for arraignment.”
“For smuggling?”
“I know it’s all bullshit, but they have to go through the motions.”
“How long am I supposed to sit here while they figure out I didn’t do anything?”
“Maybe it would help if you told them why that guy in the speedboat was shooting at you. That’s really what they’re after.”
Before I could answer, her expression changed and she stood up abruptly, the way you stand up in a bar when the time for talking has passed. I turned around and saw Inspector Cortez walking toward us. His hands were in his pockets, and he was grinning cautiously.
I glanced back at Susan. She looked like a tomahawk about to hurl itself across the room.
“Well, now, what a surprise!” Cortez said. “Just couldn’t stay away from me, could you, babe?”
Never let it be said that time heals all wounds. Whoever said that must have suffered from acute amnesia. The lids of Susan’s eyes lowered ever so slightly, and the corner of her mouth twitched. She leaned over and hoisted her valise onto the table, slipped the brief she’d been reading inside, and then, with very careful movements, fastened the straps again. She looked up at me. I stood.
“I’ll see you down at federal, Mr. Vaughn. Until then have a nice weekend.”
Susan came out from behind the bench and went by us like a cold wind from north of the Arctic Circle. The guard at the door started to say something to her but was enough of a survivor to let her pass unmolested. It was just as well he decided to do so, as very few of us are greatly improved by a quick knee directed at the scrotum.
After she had left, Cortez turned to me. “You ever notice how some skirts make a woman’s ass look bigger than it actually is?” he asked in a confidential tone.
“I guess it depends on the cut.”
“She likes you. I could tell by the way she froze up when I came in. What were you two talking about?”
“About me getting out of here, what else?”
“I don’t see