Infernal

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.