Be more enjoyable with company, wouldnt it? The man aimed another smile her way, pulled out the chair next to her. Sinking into it, he continued, Im Tyler Stodgill, by the way. I placed my order right after yours. My food should be coming any minute. No reason for us to eat alone.
Looking at him, she said succinctly, But I want to eat alone.
Bad for the digestion. Believe me, I know. Im on the road three or four days a week. Im a pharmaceutical salesman. He flashed his teeth again. I hit forty-fifty medical offices a month.
Deliberately, she set her knife and fork down, before she was tempted to use them on him. He wasnt bad looking. He was a little stocky, with short-cropped sandy hair, brown eyes and a rounded jaw. His navy blazer jacket and wheat-colored pants were sharply creased, his white shirt spotless. He could have been a lonely traveling salesperson, looking for a little companionship. She might have believed it if it wasnt for his eyes. This was no dense oaf without the social skills to sense her lack of welcome. This was a man filled with an overinflated sense of self-importance anda womans worst night-marea gross overestimation of his own appeal.
She sighed and reached for some rapidly dwindling patience. Look, Ive had a hard week. I just want a drink, a steak and silence. I wouldnt be good company.
His expression went ugly. Looked like your company was fine when Jake was here.
She blinked. Who?
You know. The owner. The guy you were drinking with.
Jake. The name suited the man somehow, tough and no-nonsense. I told him basically the same thing Im telling you. She aimed a pointed look at him. He took it with more grace.
His face had smoothed. Whatever it is thats bothering you, Im just the guy to make you forget about all your troubles. With a sense of disbelief, she felt his hand on her thigh below the table, caressing her leg suggestively through her white slacks. Im staying at a hotel not too far from here. After dinner, maybe we could Whatever he had been about to say ended in a yelp as she bent his two middle fingers far enough to nearly touch the back of his hand.
She kept her expression pleasant, but her tone was lethal. You need to learn to pay attention. Im not interested. Do you understand now?
With his teeth clenched, he grasped, Youre breaking my damn fingers.
Not yet. But I could. She exerted just enough pressure on the joints to back up her words, and a whimper escaped him. A man at a table nearby gave them a cursory glance. Ria wasnt concerned. The long table linen would hide her actions.
Stodgills face was rapidly losing color. She noted the approach of the waitress. Your food is coming. I want you to take it and ask for a different table. One where I cant see you. If you dont, I am really, really going to hurt you.
All right! Let go!
She did, only because the waitress had halted at his table, clearly uncertain about where to set his food. He immediately shoved back his chair, a vicious expression on his face, muttering an obscenity. Ria picked up her silverware again. I think a table on the other side of the bar might suit your needs best.
He rose, the chair clattering behind him. I want a different table, he told the server in a loud voice. I dont like the view from here.
The young woman said, But you asked for a view of the river, sir. This is the best
Dammit, I said I want a new table! Something over there. He lurched off, leaving the waitress to follow with his tray of food.
While a few diners watched the small scene, Ria reached for her Scotch, drained the glass. The bottle was still there, a silent temptation, one she wouldnt allow herself to succumb to. She couldnt afford weaknesses in her life. Weaknesses led to mistakes. And even one slip could lead yet another assassin to her doorstep, like the one whod found her in Santa Cristo.
And the second whod caught up with her in L.A.
She cut another piece of steak and brought it to her mouth, savoring the taste. A woman who had faced death as often as she had had learned to enjoy lifes small pleasures. Even now she couldnt pinpoint how the second killer had managed to track her from San Diego to L.A., although she suspected the money shed taken off the first one had somehow been traced. She hadnt been in Los Angeles two weeks before a man had been waiting for her one night in the room shed rented.
Hed been as able as the first killer, his intent just as deadly. But instead of a knife, his weapon of choice had been a garrotea thin wire used for strangling victims quickly and silently. The savage fight had lasted no more than a few minutes, but in the end it had been the stranger who had ended up dead on the floor, without ever having spoken a word.
Hed been dressed exactly as the first would-be killer, down to the pouch at his waist. Again, it had held only a vial, a syringe and a wad of ten one-hundred-dollar bills.
And the tattoo identical to her own, and that of the first killer, had been found on his right shoulder.
This time shed taken a few precautions before fleeing. Shed gone to a department store and bought a disposable camera, using one of the bills shed taken off the man. Then, using city transit, she went from one discount store to the next, buying items shed need, each time carefully exchanging the mans money. When shed gotten back to her room, shed taken several pictures of the killer and the tattoo before packing quickly and leaving L.A. behind.
Ria stopped devouring the steak long enough to taste the baked potato, drenched in melted butter. She could practically feel her arteries clogging, but shed work off the calories the next day at the gym. Tripolo had a new YMCA with a very decent weight room. One of the first things shed done upon moving there was to join it. Staying in shape was as vital for her new occupation as it had been for whatever her former one had been.
Shed purposefully crisscrossed the western United States in a random manner meant to confuse. When shed gotten low on money, shed stolen more, and found herself distastefully adept at it. Shed landed on the campus of the University of Iowa, where it had been surprisingly easy to join a group of prospective new students there for orientation, and obtain a photo ID. And then shed melted in with the other twenty-nine thousand students and gone back to work. Before she could set about discovering her real identity, shed first had to manufacture a new one.
Would you like any dessert this evening? The waitress was back with a practiced smile.
No, but I will take some coffee. Ria waited for her to return with it and fill her cup, then had her leave the carafe on the table.
Ria drank pensively, lost in memories that began six years ago. At the U of I shed haunted the computer labs, careful to use different ones each time, searching for anything that would connect to her.
The discovery of the body shed left in her L.A. apartment had warranted a three-inch article buried deep in the L.A. Times. Shed hoped that a revelation of the assassins identity would provide clues to her own. Shed even called the news desk at the Times on a couple of occasions, talked to the crime reporter who had covered the story. By feeding him some careful details, she was able to whet his interest enough to have him digging further. But the dead man had remained a John Doe, and the case had eventually been shelved as unsolved. The only thing of value shed learned was that neither of their fingerprints had been on file in the national Automated Fingerprint Identification System. Whoever the would-be killer had been, his death had caused as little stir as had her own disappearance.