Undercover with the Mob. Elizabeth Bevarly

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ Yeah, right. If there was anyone lurking these days, it was Jack. When had he been reduced to such a thing? he asked himself irritably. And why, suddenly, did his job seem kind of sordid and tawdry? He’d always taken pride in his work before. Before Natalie Dorset had come along looking all squeaky-clean and dewy and wholesome. Ever since meeting her, Jack had felt sinister in the extreme. Which made no sense, because what he did for a living was a highly regarded tradition in his family. His father, his father’s father, his father’s father’s father back in the old country, all of them had been in the same line of work. Jack respected his heritage, and had always taken pride in his birthright. Since meeting Natalie, though, his heritage seemed almost tarnished somehow.

      Which really made no sense at all, because he barely knew the woman. Yeah, sure, he’d run into her a few times this week, so he knew her a little. Like, he knew she left for work everyday at 7:30 a.m. on the dot, which meant she was punctual. And he knew she often ate breakfast and dinner with their landlady, Mrs. Klosterman, which made him think she was one of those women who felt obligated to take care of other people. And he knew she drove an old Volkswagen, to which she seemed totally suited, because it was kind of funky, and so was she. Not just because of the singing pajamas she’d been wearing that first morning he met her, but because of the way she dressed at other times, too. Like, for instance, oh, he didn’t know…today. She was sort of a combination of Ralph Lauren and Fishin’ with Orlando. And somehow, on Natalie, it worked.

      And Jack knew she taught high school, because he’d seen her downstairs grading papers one evening and asked her about it. A high school teacher, he reflected again. She didn’t seem the type. Hell, where he’d gone to high school in Brooklyn, a teacher who looked like her wouldn’t have lasted through lunch. Jeez, she would have been lunch for some of the guys he’d run around with. But she’d claimed to actually enjoy teaching English to teenagers. She’d assigned James Fenimore Cooper on purpose.

      And Jack knew she liked old movies, because he’d come in a couple of nights to find her and Mrs. Klosterman watching movies on TV, black-and-white jobs from the forties. Cary Grant, he’d heard them talking about as he’d climbed the stairs to his apartment. The suave, debonair, tuxedoed type. The leading man type. The type Jack most certainly was not. He preferred to think of himself as more of an antihero. Okay, so maybe he was more anti- than he was hero sometimes. That was beside the point. The point was…

      What was the point again?

      Oh, yeah. The point was he had no business hiding behind a sculpture sneaking peeks at a woman when he had a job to do. Especially a woman like Natalie Dorset, with whom he had absolutely nothing in common. Maybe if she’d been a combination of Frederick’s of Hollywood and Fishin’ with Orlando, then maybe his attraction to her would have made sense. Or if she’d taught exotic dancing classes instead of high school, and assigned bumps and grinds instead of Natty Bumppo. Or if she’d left for work around ten o’clock every night to serve drinks in some smoky bar. Or if she’d had breakfast and dinner with her bookie. Or if she’d driven a sporty little red number on the verge of being repo’d. Then, maybe his attraction to her wouldn’t have been such a shock. Because women like Natalie Dorset normally didn’t even make it onto Jack’s radar.

      She sure was cute, though.

      Still, even if Jack did have something in common with her, he still had no business sneaking peeks at her. Or talking to her. Or being preoccupied by her. Or wondering what she looked like naked. But he’d only done that last thing once…okay, maybe twice…okay, five, or at most fifty times, and only because he’d had too much Chianti. Except for all those times when he’d done it while he was sober. But that was only because he’d accidentally come across Body Heat on cable that night. But then there was that time when he’d done it while watching the Weather Channel, too…

      Ah, hell.

      The point was he was only here to do a job, and that job did not include Natalie Dorset, clothed or unclothed, in or out of his bed. Or on the sofa. Or in the shower. Or atop the kitchen table. The kitchen counter. The kitchen pantry. The kitchen floor…

      Um, what was the question again?

      Oh, yeah. It wasn’t a question. It was a fact. He could not allow himself to be sidetracked while doing this job. He would just have to avoid Natalie Dorset from here on out, and keep his focus on his target. Who…oh, dammit…seemed to have disappeared.

      Jack scanned the crowded museum, starting with the last place he’d seen the man in the trench coat, invariably finding Natalie instead, then forcing his gaze away again, over everyone else in the room. There. He found him. Two paintings down from the one he’d just finished looking at. Jack groaned inwardly. Just how much longer could the guy look at paintings? Jack was ready to go for pizza. And a beer. And a naked high school English teacher.

      He threw back his head in disgust with himself, only to have it smack against hard stone. He turned and realized he’d been leaning all this time against a reproduction of Rodin’s The Kiss, and that he’d just bonked his head on a naked breast hard enough to make himself see stars.

      Man, oh, man, he thought as he rubbed at the lump that was already beginning to form. This job was going to shorten his life for sure.

      AS NATALIE WAS climbing the stairs to her apartment that evening, juggling two bags of groceries she’d picked up on the way home from the museum, she came to a halt in the second floor landing to adjust the strap on her purse. It had nothing to do with the fact that she heard someone inside Jack Miller’s apartment talking. And she only hesitated a moment after completing that adjustment because she needed to rest. It wasn’t because she thought she heard him use the word whacked. Because he might not have said whacked. He might have said fact. Or quacked. Or shellacked. And those were all totally harmless words.

      Then again, maybe he’d said hacked, she thought as a teensy little feeling of paranoia wedged its way under her skin. Or smacked. Or even hijacked. Which weren’t so harmless words.

      Or maybe he’d said cracked, she thought wryly, since he could have been talking to someone about the mental state of his new upstairs neighbor.

      She really had been spending too much time listening to Mrs. Klosterman this week. And she knew better than to take seriously someone who thought The X-Files was a series of documentaries by Ken Burns. Sighing to herself, Natalie finished adjusting her purse strap and shifted her grocery bags to a more manageable position, then settled her foot on the next step.

      And then stopped dead in her tracks—and she really wished she’d come up with a better way to think about that than dead in her tracks—because she heard Jack’s voice say, clear as day, “I’ll kill ’im.”

      Telling herself she was just imagining things, Natalie turned her ear toward the door, if for no other reason than to reassure herself that she was just imagining things. But instead of being reassured, she heard Jack’s voice again, louder and more emphatic this time, saying, “No, Manny, I mean it. I’m gonna kill the guy. No way will I let ’im get away with that.”

      And then Natalie’s world went a little fuzzy, and she had to sit down. Which—hey, whattaya know—gave her a really great seat for eavesdropping on the rest of Jack’s conversation. But when she realized she was hearing only his side, she concluded he must be on the telephone with someone. Still, only his side told her plenty.

      There was a long pause after that second avowal of his intent to murder someone, then, “Look, I had him in my sights all day,” she heard Jack continue, “but there was always a crowd around, so an opportunity never presented itself.”

      There was more silence for a moment, wherein Natalie assumed the other person was speaking again, СКАЧАТЬ