ALT BEEF on rye!” Hard echoes of the rasping call bounced around the deli’s midday crush.
I should have ordered a lighter sandwich but what the hell, they were so good here. Maybe I could burn it off with the effort it would take me to get back in time. Four minutes from now I was due back at the stakeout. It was a seven minute walk away.
A huge man, tall, wide and slow moving, reached across, stretching across me with his big paw out for my sandwich. A sidearm hung under his leather jacket and an amused sparkle lit his eye. It was reflex that made me wonder if he had a valid permit for it. It wasn’t a show-off civilian gun or a gangbanger’s desperate nine.
The weight, the tailored holster and the glimpse of dull metal betrayed a discreet piece of precision artillery. From the stock I recognized a regular Special Forces weapon of choice.
I shouldered forward through the crowd to the counter. “Excuse me,” with, the most confident smile I could put in place, I needed to collect my lunch and get out of there. “I think that’s mine.”
A sardonic grin spread slowly up to his gray eyes. They glimmered under thick and absurdly long white lashes. Over the pupil of his left eye, the lashes were black. I couldn’t keep from looking at it. A cool, trembling sensation opened in the pit of my stomach and travelled down.
His voice was deep and quiet, but with a force that you would hear from a long way off if he wanted you to. It was a voice he could load and aim with ease and deadly accuracy.
His eyes danced as he looked down at me. “Did you order the world’s first, last, and only salt beef sandwich on rye?” An eyebrow twitched, like he was working at keeping his mocking to a daytime minimum.
“No,” I swallowed hard, “It seems you did that.”
In the Manhattan lunch crush he towered like a Renaissance statue, like a dancer on a subway platform in the 42nd Street rush. One who just came down from a mountain. He was like a breath of air. In the crowd, everyone else seemed small and drab and irritable. He was luminous and gorgeous. And huge.
“Mustard?” he asked me.
“English.”
“Mm.” He said, “Pickles?”
“Sweet.”
“Man,” his head turned slowly from side to side and his too-big Adam’s apple bounced like a yo-yo. “You’ve got good taste in a sandwich.” He had was a smile that made you want to climb aboard, showing strong, white teeth
“This is all very touching, but your New York minute is up,” the man behind the counter interrupted, “I don’t have total recall for who ordered what ands exactly when, so would you please come to a decision so my life can resume?”
“No,” I said, “I think he probably did order before me.” The Renaissance mountain man’s playfully wicked grin sparked up thoughts of things that were inappropriate and also unhelpful in the middle of a busy work day.
“What can I say?” The mountain man took the wrapped sandwich and held it out to me. “It’s yours. I’ll wait.” Dimples crinkled the bottoms of his cheeks and his voice was like a panther’s purr.
He was definitely nothing like my usual type. He had a nice body, though.
The man behind the counter was still holding the perfectly wrapped sandwich. From the look on his face, his mood didn’t appear to be improving. With a graceful smile, the mountain man took the sandwich and his head dipped a little lower as he handed it to me.
“Tell you what,” he said, “wait with me and the only other salt beef on rye in the world and we can take them to the park up the street.”
“Sorry, soldier, I’m lunching al desko.” I didn’t work at a desk, and he knew that was a lie.
“What I mean is, I’m taking my lunch back to work with me. It’s not actually at a desk.” His head tilted as I spoke, like he was tuning in to my voice.
“You working outdoors? Maybe I could join you.” Was he kidding? Maybe not. I held up a hand. I wanted to show some authority. His grin stretched wider and he raised an eyebrow.
“What we do,” I said, “it isn’t performance art.”
“What do you do?”
“I’m a Special Agent. FBI.”
“I thought so,” he lifted his chin. “That’s funny, you being in enforcement. Me too.”
“Oh?” I looked him up and down. I took my time, though. He was easy on the eye. “What branch?”
“I freelance. Contract work mainly, but I get jobs for a group you may have heard of,” his thin smile was pant meltingly mischievous. “They’re called the Mafia.”
The look in his eye. The ‘mafia’ crack, well I could have been derelict in my duty if I didn’t follow it up. I asked him, “Why did you say, ‘I thought so’ just now? What made you think that I was an officer in enforcement?”
His voice was directed to me like a laser. None of the other people jostling around us in the lunch-time order contest would have heard a word that he said. His eyes sparkled, “What, are you supposed to be in deep cover?” it was just loud enough for me to hear. I pulled my lips between my teeth and narrowed my eyes. The sound of his voice was like warm honey, slipping over a thick velvet cord. It made me breathe in. My chest swelled while my stomach back flipped and swan-dived.
All innocence as his tongue slid over his lips, he said, “You mean what gave you away, other than the long-barreled piece you have under your jacket?”
The holster is pretty well designed and I had it custom fitted. When I arrived in New York to join the anti-corruption unit, the Special Agent in Charge asked if I needed to meet with the armorer. He hadn’t spotted the weapon.
This guy had. Whatever else, he was way out of the ordinary, I had to give him that, and in more ways than one. Under those craggy features, his grin may have been slathered in oil of sarcasm, but it was still pleasing to behold and it all went along with the mocking sparkle in his eye.
“Anyway,” he said, “It’s been fun being interrogated. Enjoy your sandwich. And your stake out. Or whatever Special thing you Special Agents are Specializing today.”
My pulse quickened and before I’d thought it through I said, “Perhaps you’d make yourself available for questioning over a drink later.”
He was smoking hot. There were muscles on his muscles and he had twinkles in his dimples. You could cut glass on his cheekbones and bust open a vault with his chin. The way he smirks while he looks at you, you’ve got to do something to stop your clothing catching fire. And the barely concealed weapon in the front of his pants was going to haunt me all afternoon.
It would have been wrong of me not to at least explore the possibility of developing him as a potential source, especially after what he said. Whatever it was that he said.
I made the operational choice to cultivate him as a possible asset. In a location where he would be relaxed and off his guard. Where he would find the atmosphere relaxing and comfortable, somewhere he would be at ease.A basement bar downtown, for instance. And, if other things happened along with the whole source-development thing, well, there’s no law against it. Not exactly.
His crooked smile stayed in my mind, and the slow blink of his deep, hooded eyelids. His ridiculously long, pale eyelashes with the dark patch, they stayed in my head, too. The dark patch over his left eye that batted slowly as his eyes crinkled. I wondered why it was that the baddest guys always seemed to get the memorable looks.