Enticed by the Enemy (Morelli Family #3) - Leighton Greene
Prologue
Angelo
Lightning skittered across the sky at the same moment I pushed open the door to the diner, so that my arrival was announced with a thunderous roar. All eyes swerved towards me but, borne of long habit, I ducked my head. As usual, New Yorkers were not a curious species and went back to their conversations and their privacies.
Only one man kept watching me but, borne of his own long habit, he did it from the side of his eyes.
“Messina,” he greeted me, when I sat next to him at the counter.
Neither of us looked at each other.
“Hanson,” I replied. “Long time.”
“Yee-up,” he sighed, shifting around on his stool. “Sorry about the old man. He didn’t deserve to go out like that.”
I said nothing to that, merely nodding my thanks to the waitress behind the counter as she poured me out a coffee. “You wanna come by more often,” she said to me. “Pretty the place up a bit.”
“You’re doing a fine job of that yourself, Julie,” I told her.
“Usual?” She walked away almost before I could respond.
Hanson, still not looking at me, took another bite out of his pastrami on rye. He was a large man, flesh pushing against his suit and straining the buttons of his stained white shirt. “Sometimes I wonder what my life mighta been if I looked like you,” he sighed. “Easier, I’m betting.” With a muffled grunt, Hanson finally turned on his seat to face me. “Is that how it is, Messina? Little things just come easier to you?”
This was how Hanson always began, tiny stings and barbs as though one day he might provoke a response from me. He meant it affectionately. Or so I figured.
“I heard you’re retiring,” I said, glancing over at him.
His mouth twisted, brows descending over sharp dark eyes, and put down his sandwich. “You did, did you?”
Julie came back and slid a plate over to me, crispy prosciutto on focaccia. “Here you go, Handsome,” she said, and gave me a wink.
“Little things just come easier,” Hanson sighed as we watched her go. “You know I’ve been trying to get that woman’s number the last two decades? Bet you could just smile and she’d slide it right on over.”
“Is that why I’m here, Hanson?” I asked. “You want one last look at my pretty face before you go?”
He guffawed, the straining shirt distorting further. But Hanson was a man whose laugh was infectious, and I found myself smiling along.
“I’ll miss you, you got that right,” he told me through another mouthful. “Whatever else we been these twenty years, I’d like to think there’s been respect on both sides.”
There it was again, those twenty years. Hanson’s retirement was weighing on his mind. “Sure,” I told him. “I respect you and your mustard-stained shirts.”
He brushed at one of the yellow drips on his shirtfront and only succeeded in smearing it. “See, now, if I’d had time for a wife, she coulda kept me presentable. But you know how it is. Women are just a distraction, am I right?”
I took a bite of my own sandwich then. Julie had told the cook to toast it just as I liked it: a mere flicker of heat on the focaccia so that the rosemary scent came through strong, but no crunch, while the prosciutto was crisp enough to shatter. “If I’d known a woman like Julie when I was a young man, I would’ve married her for the sandwiches alone.”
“You’d wanna marry Barney in that case,” Hanson said, nodding at the short-order cook visible in the narrow serving window behind the bar. “More your type, huh?”
I said nothing.
“Still cagey, eh?” Hanson gave another chuckle, but I didn’t laugh with him this time. “Still, must be nice, working for your new Boss.”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
Hanson waved his hand around like he could physically batter away my lies. “Come on, Messina. Assuage my curiosity. Just this once.”
“That’s a big word for you, Hanson. Assuage. But I don’t think I will.”
“Last request?”
I only smiled at him, and he grunted in discontent.
“Suit yourself,” he said, and went back to his food.
“Well?” I prompted. “Why did you want to meet?”
He chewed while he ruminated. “Guess it’s just for old times’ sake. And I wondered how things were going for you now you’ve moved up in the world. Funny, ain’t it? Me getting kicked out while you get a promotion.”
So there we had it, finally. The truth. Retirement wasn’t his choice. “They gave you the golden handshake?”