Killer Move

My hands were now still. For ten minutes after the meeting they’d been shaking. Sure, I’d planned to get man-to-man and cards-on-the-table with Tony at some point—but not today. The bottle of wine had been intended merely as an opening gambit. I’d logged the name and year, put out a notice on a beginners’ wine board I found on the Internet. A guy got in touch, declaring himself able to supply one and to also be in possession of another vintage that was an even bigger deal and guaranteed to be a huge hit with anyone who was searching for the first. I’d quickly snapped up both bottles—at a cost I hoped my wife did not discover before I’d had a chance to capitalize on the expense—and had been intending to get serious with Thompson only on production of the second. I actually had very little to offer him at this point. I’d taken a degree of license when describing the level of owner dissatisfaction, too, and was aware that Tony was a golf-and-drinking buddy of Peter Grant, founder-owner of Shore Realty. The two went back to the boom years, had been to school together, and socialized all the time. I was a Shore employee. Implicitly offering to set that to one side in order to run interference for The Breakers’ management was a very high-risk strategy.

And yet . . . it had felt like the thing to do.

Or I’d gone ahead and done it, at least, and it hadn’t yet exploded in my face. If Thompson had gotten straight on the phone to his friend, there’d be a message on my phone telling me to clear my desk and go fuck myself from here to Key West. No such missive had arrived—which hopefully meant I’d taken a massive step in the right direction.

I wasn’t even having a cigarette to celebrate, either. Behold the man, see how he grows.

There was a blarping sound from my pocket. It made me jump. I yanked out the phone and was relieved to see it was just a calendar reminder.

But then I swore—loud enough to startle nearby children and have their wrangler glaring at me—and ran up the pier toward the resort.

CHAPTER THREE

By nine thirty I was pretty drunk. This is something all the blogs and self-improvement gurus advise against, but I felt I deserved it. Not only had the day seen strides toward me becoming a bigger blip on Tony Thompson’s radar, but I had reason to be relieved to be where I was—at a great table in a great restaurant, enjoying another big glass of Merlot and hiding the effects very well, I believed.

“You’re pretty drunk,” Steph said.

“No. I’m just high. On the vision of outstanding natural beauty across the table from me.”

She laughed. “Corny. Even by your standards. Still, twelve years together. Eight, postknot. Can’t say we didn’t give it a try, right?”

“You’re still the one, babe.”

“You too.”

She raised her glass. We chinked, leaned across the table, and kissed for long enough to make nearby diners uncomfortable. She was happy, and so was I. I’d bought her something nice from her favorite jewelry store and also gotten huge props for fulfilling her primary request, securing a table on the upstairs balcony at Jonny Bo’s. This is the premium spot in the place, with the (alleged) exception of a fabled private upper dining room, which no one I knew had even seen, and which I was ninety percent sure was a suburban legend. Our table booking still had me a little mystified. I’d broken into foul language at the end of the pier because I realized I’d failed to make the reservation. I’d tried, a number of times, but the number had always been busy—I recalled muttering about this in the office a week or so ago (mainly, of course, as a way of bragging about the venue I was trying to book). And yet, when I’d called that afternoon on the slim chance of a cancellation, I discovered I had made a reservation after all. Obviously I’d got through at some point, become wrapped up in some other piece of business, and forgotten. Whatever. Today was evidently one of those days when the universe elected to throw me a couple of bones. Hence the extra glass of wine.

Our waitress appeared. She was a little older than most, late twenties, but otherwise standard issue: black pants, starched white shirt, black apron, capable-looking ponytail in blond or brown. This one’s was midbrown.

“Can I interest you fine people in the dessert menu?”

“Hell yes,” Steph said. “Thought you’d never ask.”

I declined, picked up my glass, and looked down over the Circle. Dessert selection is a serious business with Steph. It can take a while.