Infernal

7

-81:28

"I'm so glad we could do this," Gia said, patting the back of Tom's hand.

They sat in the rear of a cab heading uptown toward Jack's place. Tom reached across and clasped her hand between both of his.

"It was wonderful, wasn't it. And you weren't exaggerating about Noelle's voice. Magnificent. But not as magnificent as the woman I shared the evening with."

Gia slipped her hand free and laughed.

"Mah, mah, Mister Tom," she said in a Southern-belle accent, "Ah declare, how you do go on."

Tom had to smile. She was good… maintained a distance between them without bruising his feelings.

Why was he so damn crazy about this woman? What was it about her that made him want to be her slave? Or babble like a fool?

Christ, when he'd been sipping champagne at the intermission he'd launched into a discourse on how it's usually a mixture of chardonnay, pinot noir, and pinot meunier, and how blanc de blanc was all chardonnay—blah-blah-blah until Gia's eyes had started to glaze over. And with good reason: He'd sounded like a pedantic twit.

And the last thing he wanted to do was bore her. He felt as if his past no longer existed, as if all his life he'd been marking time until he'd met her.

Marking time… thoughts of his present predicament brought him down from his high. If only he'd marked time instead of wheeling and dealing and lining his pockets, he'd be free and clear today. His ass would belong to him instead of a swarm of cops.

At least Gia didn't know the depth of his troubles, and as long as that remained the case, he could pretend to be the kind of man she could admire.

He well knew that, on the surface, that didn't make sense. She was carrying the baby of a man she loved—and he could tell how much by the way she looked at Jack—even though he was a career criminal. So why should Tom think she'd be repulsed if she knew the truth about him?

Jack had nailed it on the boat: Yeah, Jack was a criminal, but he wasn't a crook. Not mere semantics there. A whole world of difference.

On another day he might have told himself that he could offer Gia the gravitas Jack lacked. But he'd finally stopped doing the Nixon thing. He was a crook. Not the Great String-puller, not the Master of the System, a crook, and a tawdry one at that: A guy with a FOR HIRE sign on his soul.

At first he'd regretted his transgressions only because he'd got caught. Now he wished he'd played it straight all along, so he could play straight with Gia, talk to her about his record as a judge and point to it with pride.

But Gia… what would this woman who had a numinous core of probity and was so naturally and effortlessly good and straight that it seeped through her skin and suffused the air around her… what would she think of a man with his past?

Tom knew. And he couldn't bear the thought of her looking at him like a slug.

He thought of a line from As Good as It Gets: "You make me want to be a better man."

Yeah. He could say that to her and mean every word. But it was too late. Way too late. Now all he could do was look at her and think how she made him wish he'd been a better man.

Still, he couldn't understand what she saw in Jack.

He said, "You know I never got to ask how you and Jack met."

In truth he'd asked Jack but had been blown off with "at a party."

"Strangely enough, through the UN."

"The UN? Jack?" Talk about strange bedfellows.

"Yes, he was involved with the UK mission for a while."

"No kidding? Doing what?"

"I really can't say."

Tom could tell she meant won't say, but didn't press.

The UK mission to the UN… what could they have possibly wanted from Jack?

Little brother was just chock-full of secrets and surprises.

"I hope I'm not speaking out of turn, but you and Jack… you don't seem to go together."

She laughed: music.

"You probably are out of turn, but you're pretty much on the money." She glanced at him. "Did you and Jack talk much on your trip?"

He nodded. "I'd pretty much figured out how he lives and how he makes his living, and he pretty much confirmed it."

"'Pretty much'?"

"Well, I'm only starting to get to know my brother again, but it's not easy. He's not exactly forthcoming about himself."

Another soft laugh. "That's my Jack."

My Jack… Tom loathed the sound of that.

"So, given what I know, that's why I said—"

"That we don't seem to go together? On the surface we don't. I'm a vegetarian, he's an omnivore. I love the arts, he merely tolerates them. I'm a square and he's never the same shape twice. I'm a Mondrian, he's a Picasso. I'm an uptight, middle-class, law-abiding woman and he's… well, he's Jack. Yet despite the surface differences and divergent tastes, we agree on the big things—the things that matter. We agree on what's right and wrong, on being truthful, on value given for value received, on what's straight and what's crooked. We both believe in doing the right thing, even though we sometimes disagree on how to do it. I tend to try to tease out life's tangles. Jack tends toward Alexander's solution to the Gordian knot." Another soft laugh. "Two years ago if you'd told me I'd be partnered with this man and having his baby, I'd have laughed in your face."

"Why?"

"Because… I didn't know what I was looking for back then, but I was sure it wasn't him. I didn't see it at first, but Jack is a rock." She smiled. "The world flows past, but Jack doesn't move. Doesn't matter what's fashionable, what's in, what's out, what's politically correct, what's become legal, what's become illegal, Jack doesn't budge. I failed to appreciate that at first. I misunderstood him, got him all wrong, and ran from him. Said terrible, hurtful things to him. But when Vicky and I needed him, there he was, right where I'd left him. He was there for me then and he's been there for me ever since. I can always depend on Jack to do the right thing."

The right thing… when had Tom worried last about doing the right thing? He couldn't remember the last time the concept had made the faintest blip on his radar.

He forced a sigh. "The world's the way it is because not enough people do the right thing, wouldn't you say?"

"Hard to argue with that."

"But maybe some people have never had the right reason to do the right thing."

Gia glanced at him. "I've always figured the reason for doing the right thing is because it's the right thing."

"Do you think maybe someone who hasn't been doing the right thing could change for the right person?"

"I suppose, but then wouldn't he be doing the right thing for the wrong reason."

"I don't get you."

"Well, the way I see it, you don't do the right thing for anyone else, you do it for yourself. Because doing anything less diminishes you."

Tom fell silent. Her words were like stab wounds. If Gia was right, if doing the wrong thing diminished you, what was left of him?

A puff of smoke in the wind… if that.