The Professional

Chapter 29

I MET BETH JACKSON for lunch in a restaurant in the Chestnut Hill Mall. She had a salad. In the spirit of the season I had a turkey sandwich.

“You’re still seeing Gary Eisenhower,” I said.

Beth was wearing a fur hat like a Russian Cossack, and she looked cuter than a body has a right to. She speared a cherry tomato from her salad and popped it into her mouth and chewed and swallowed.

“So?” she said.

“Didn’t you hire me to get him out of your life?”

“That was then,” she said. “This is now.”

“What caused the change?” I said.

She ate a piece of lettuce and pushed her plate away. She blotted her lips with her napkin. Then she folded the napkin and put it down on the table. She took some lip gloss out of her purse and touched up her lips using a small makeup mirror. Then she put that away, put her purse on the floor beside her chair, and smiled at me.

“A girl’s got a right to change her mind,” she said.

“So now you don’t want me to get him out of your life?” I said.

Her smile widened without becoming warmer. She put her hands together and touched the center of her upper lip with her steepled forefingers.

“I wanted you to get him out of everyone else’s life,” she said.

“So he could be all yours?” I said.

“Exactly,” she said.

“He’s blackmailing you,” I said.

She shrugged.

“We need the money,” she said.

“You and Gary?” I said.

“Yes,” she said. “So we can be together. Chet can spare it.”

“But why join the effort to get rid of him?” I said. “Why not just stay out of it, stay with him, and collect the money that the others are paying him.”

“You think I’m the only one slipping back to him?”

“I’ve stopped trying to think,” I said. “I’m just chasing information.”

“I didn’t want anyone to suspect that I was still with him,” she said. “So I agreed to the deal with the lawyer and you. I figured I could help him, even, by being on the inside, you know?”

She was as perky as a chickadee but dumber.

“You keep seeing him,” I said, “and you may get him killed.”

“Killed? Who’s going to kill him?”

I didn’t answer. I wasn’t sure why, but I wasn’t ready to quite give Chet up yet.

She smiled.

“You think Chet would kill him? For me?”

I didn’t answer that, either.

“That’s kind of exciting,” Beth said. “Isn’t that kind of fun? Like an old-fashioned movie. You know? Men killing each other over me?”

“It’s probably less fun than it looks,” I said.

“Oh, poo,” she said. “I can handle Chet.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But maybe Gary can’t.”

“So it is Chet?”

“Might be,” I said.

Christmas carols were playing. Many people were carrying packages with Christmas wrapping. It was like being in a commercial. I looked at Beth. I could see the tip of her tongue as she ran it back and forth over her lower lip.

“Well, I’m not backing off,” she said.

“Of course not,” I said. “What’s the most interesting thing about him?”

“Interesting?”

“Unusual, maybe,” I said. “What’s different about him?”

“That’s easy. He is into it all the way.”

“Is he more intense than other men?” I said.

“He is all over you. He gets hold of you, and you better like it, because if you don’t, you’re going to have to do it anyway, you know?”

“Forceful,” I said.

She nodded.

“And you like forceful?” I said.

“Yeahhhh,” she said.

She was breathing fast, now, as if she had just run up stairs. And the tip of her tongue was running fast back and forth across her lower lip. When she spoke her voice sounded a little hoarse.

“You get off on this?” Beth said. “Talking about it?”

“Which do you like best?” I said. “Being with Gary or thinking that someone might try to kill him because of it?”

She put her steepled fingers to her mouth again and pressed and turned her head a little so that she was looking at me from the corners of her eyes.

“Both are nice,” she said.