Infernal

"Which tells me nothing. It's not as if you're a priest and he told you something in confession."

"Yes, it is."

Jack looked around again. Where the hell was Tom?

7

When will I learn to keep my big yap shut? Tom thought as he extracted himself from the cab. I should be back at Joe O's, feasting on John L. Tyleski's tab.

Instead he was going to get stuck with a three-meal bill in a midtown restaurant.

He slammed the cab door and looked around. Jack had given him a West 42nd Street address but nothing here looked like a restaurant. The Lion King… the biggest McDonald's he'd ever seen with a huge, Broadway-style flashing marquee… Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum… all so different from what he remembered.

Back in his late teens and early twenties, this block had been lined with grindhouse theaters showing grade-Z sleaze.

Then he spotted it: a marquee with B. B. KING scrawled across the top in big red letters. The place looked like a converted movie theater. Probably—no, most likely—one of those grindhouses from the earlier days. Even had a ticket booth out front.

But Jack had said this was the place. Lucille's—anyone who knew anything knew that B. B. King called his guitar Lucille—had to be inside.

If nothing else, the music should be good.

And he was dying to see what sort of floozy Jack had hooked up with. Maybe she had a friend…

Tom entered to the left of the ticket booth and found himself in a small souvenir shop. He asked the T-shirted girl behind the counter for the restaurant and followed her point down a wide circular staircase. He spotted "Lucille's Grill" in red neon over a doorway and walked through. Before the receptionist could ask about a reservation, he spotted Jack and a blonde at the bar.

He pointed. "I'm with them."

He approached from the rear. He couldn't see the woman's face, but he noticed that she dressed on the conservative side, and that her short blond hair did not appear to have originated in a bottle.

Surprise, surprise. Jack had latched onto a babe with a little class.

"Sorry, I'm late," he said.

Jack and the woman turned. Jack's expression remained neutral, but the woman smiled and Tom felt as if he'd run face first into an invisible wall.

That smile, those blue eyes, that face and the way her hair framed it and curved into feathery little wings… it seemed as if he'd stepped into some kind of cosmic shampoo commercial where everything dropped into slow motion as he approached her. He tingled, he flushed, he buzzed with an instantaneous chemical reaction.

A corny, old-hat question burned through his brain: Where have you been all my life?

He was blown away. Blown. A. Way.

Her lips moved. She was saying something. Had to come out of this, had to focus and hear that voice…

"… not believe this!"

"Believe what?" Jack said.

"How much you two look alike. My God, it's incredible."

Her voice… like liquid, like liquor, sending a gush of warmth into his belly.

Jack said, "Tom, this is Gia DiLauro. Gia, my brother, Tom. But you seem to have figured that out already."

She extended her hand. Her skin was like silk, her touch a revelation. He sensed every nucleotide in his DNA drawing him toward her.

Gia… even her name was beautiful… soft, smooth, sensual…

Her azure eyes locked on his. "If Jack had told me he was an only child and you'd sat down at the other end of the bar, I'd have thought you were his long-lost brother."

Okay. She wasn't perfect. She obviously needed glasses. He and Jack looked nothing alike.

Jack shook his head. "You know, that's the second time today we've heard that. I don't get it. We couldn't be more different."

"When was the last time you saw yourselves side by side? Before the night's over, go into the men's room and look at yourselves in the mirror."

Tom figured he'd pass on that.

8

They'd moved to their table, a half banquet in a rear corner with a good view of the stage. The backrests were done in alternating sections of black and white; their table sported pieces of blond and brown wood done up in an art deco-ish pattern.

Tom looked around. Only half the tables were occupied. His brother's reservation had been redundant.

Ca

"Where's this band you came to see?" he said.

Jack shrugged. "It's blasphemy for a blues band to start on time."

Tom hoped they never came on. He wanted to talk to Gia, learn all about her. Something he couldn't do if the band really cranked up.

"Do you like blues?" Gia said.

"I like all kinds of music."

Her eyebrows rose. "Really? How about opera?"

"Love it. Tristan and Isolde is my favorite."

Not necessarily true. He used to hate opera, but part of the politics of his judgeship included attending an endless line of functions and fundraisers. Too many of them included nights at the opera, or the ballet, or at an art museum. Boring as all hell, but his wives, all three, had loved the affairs, loved mingling with Philadelphia's haul monde. Those were the times they appreciated being the wife of a judge.

Along the way, mostly through osmosis, Tom had managed to become an esthete manque, absorbing enough culture to blow highbrow smoke when the situation called for it.

As Gia's eyes lit, he sensed this might be one of those situations.

"I love that one too," she said. "The Merry Widow is another of my favorites. It's at the Met now." She cocked her head at Jack. "But try getting your brother to go. He hates opera."

"Don't listen to her," Jack said. "I like opera just fine… it's just the singing and all the gesturing I don't like. Lose those and do it in English and I could be a major fan."

Gia laughed and leaned against him. "Stop it."

Jack turned to him. "Gia's an artist—she sees things in opera and ballet that I can't."

"That's because you don't lend yourself to the experience," Gia said.

"Artist?" Tom said. "Have you had a show?"

Still smiling, she shook her head. "I hope to someday, but it's commercial art that pays my bills—advertising, book covers, that sort of thing. Between assignments I'm working on a series of fine-art oils for an eventual show."

Time to score some points, Tom thought as he nodded.

"Speaking of fine art, Gia, may I say that you are a vision straight out of a Botticelli."

Her cheeks colored. "What a sweet thing to say."

He didn't mention that he was trying to picture her posed as Botticelli's Venus.

"Botticelli…" Jack said, snapping his fingers and looking perplexed. "Botticelli… isn't that the tropical plant place down on Sixth?"

"Ignore him," Gia said with a laugh. "He loves to play the philistine."

"Are you sure he's playing?"

Her fingers wrapped around Jack's hand. "I'm sure."

Tom repressed an insane urge to grab those intertwined hands and yank them apart. Gia should be holding his hand.

He took a sip of his vodka and forced himself to lean back.

What was the matter with him? Why was he so… so smitten with this woman? Yes, that was what he was: smitten. He'd been under her spell since the instant he'd laid eyes on her. Why?

Maybe it was genetic. Jack was obviously smitten too. Maybe Gia emitted a pheromone that interacted with the genes they shared.

She added, "But he really does not like opera."

"Or ballet," Jack said.

Gia noddled. "Right. Hates ballet."

Jack said, "Hold on now. I don't know about hate. Don't I go to The Nutcracker with you and Vicks every year?"