for sure. Where do you want me to be when?” Jasmine asked.
“He will call for you at your apartment. Please, make sure your friend is not there when he arrives.”
“What time?”
“Eight o’clock tonight.”
“Thank you, Natasha. I will be ready.”
“Wear something very pretty.” Natasha didn’t mean pretty. She meant sexy.
“I will. Thank you. Thank you!”
“My pleasure. Tomorrow morning you will come back in here.”
“Yes, Natasha.” Jasmine hung up. Jorge was staring at her. “My first date.”
“I was afraid of this.”
“She doesn’t want you hanging around when my date comes for me.”
“Like hell!”
“It’s Jacob—Marensky.”
“Oh.” Jorge breathed a sigh of relief.
“I’m just a little worried,” Jasmine said.
“About Jacob?”
Jasmine laughed. “Not on that account—I’m not sure he’s particularly fond of me.”
“You were acting badly.”
“I was not—”
“You were.”
“Never mind. I’m just wondering what good it’s going to do if we just wind up watching one another.”
“Trust me. That man has a plan in mind.”
“I hope you’re right. I’m so worried.”
“Jasmine, we just went undercover. You know as well as I do that often cops and agents have to lead a double life for months to get what they’re after. Years.”
“This can’t take that long,” she said softly. She didn’t add the rest of what she was thinking.
If it did...they might well end up dead themselves.
Jacob arrived at Jasmine’s apartment at precisely 8:00 p.m. She was ready, dressed in a halter dress and wickedly high heels. The assessment he gave her was coolly objective. And his words were even more so.
“You know how to play the part.”
“Hey, I’m just a naive young model willing to let a rich guy take me out for an expensive dinner,” she told him.
“Jorge?”
“They told me not to have him here.”
“What is he doing tonight?”
“Catching up on his favorite cable show,” Jasmine said. “Playing it all low.”
“At his studio?”
Jasmine nodded and turned away.
Her captain had gone along with this at her say-so. But the FBI seemed to know way more than the police. She was certain that Jacob Wolff knew all about her fake dossier and Jorge’s fake dossier, and she felt woefully late to the party.
“Hey.” To her surprise, he caught her by the shoulders and spun her around. “This isn’t a jurisdictional pissing match, you know. The FBI started planning the minute we heard from Smirnoff. You didn’t know because we didn’t inform the cops until it was absolutely necessary they knew we were in town. We had no idea you were in the middle of an undercover operation—we’ve had an eye on these guys for a while. Smirnoff coming in was the opening we needed.”
He was right; they’d both had separate operations going on. And she’d wanted this case. She’d talked her captain into it being important. The bodies in the oil drums had proved she was right. Provided they could link them back to the Deco Gang.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured.
“I worked something like this in New York not that long ago,” he told her. “The Bureau crew I wound up working with hadn’t known about me. It’s always like that. A need-to-know basis. Fewer people to say things that might get you killed.”
“Yes, but now—”
“Now, we’re in it together. And now we need to head out. Where would you like to have dinner?”
“Wherever.”
He grinned. “I’m supposed to be a very rich guy, you know. Oh, and with the power to push ahead at any given restaurant.”
“How rude!”
“Yes, absolutely. But we’re playing parts. And we need to play those parts well.”
“How have your people gotten to so many restaurants?” Jasmine asked.
“They haven’t,” he said. “No one will say it, but everyone is afraid of the Deco Gang.”
“Ah,” Jasmine said. “Well, then, we’re in the middle of stone crab season. I say we go for the most popular.”
“Sure.”
As they left her apartment, he slipped his arm through hers. Jasmine stiffened.
“Play along,” he murmured.
“You think they’re watching?”
“I think they could be at any given time.”
She didn’t argue that.
“I didn’t bring a car. Taxi or an Uber?” he asked.
“I’m fine walking.”
“In those shoes?”
She shrugged. “Not my favorite, but we’re going about seven blocks. Over a mile in these? I’d say taxi or Uber!”
They walked past T-shirt shops and other restaurants with tables that spilled out on the sidewalk. It was a beautiful night. Balmy. It had to be in the midseventies. Jasmine could smell the salt on the air, and, over the music that escaped from many an establishment, she could hear the water—or at least she could imagine she heard the waves crashing softly up on the shore. Here where they walked, the sand and water were across busy Collins Avenue; the traffic was almost always bumper-to-bumper. She knew young people often came just to cruise the streets, showing off their souped-up cars.
She didn’t get it; never had cared for fancy cars.
People in all styles of dress thronged the sidewalks. Some were decked out to the hilt, planning to visit one of the clubs or see a show. Others were casual, out just to shop or dine in a more casual fashion. While the South Beach neighborhood of Miami Beach was trendy and filled with great deco places, boutiques and more, heading farther north, one crossed Lincoln Road, a pedestrian mall and beyond that, a lot of the more staid grande dame hotels from the heyday era when Al Capone and his mobsters had ruled, and later the fabled Rat Pack had entertained, along with other greats.
The beach was like a chameleon, ready to change for every new decade.
At an old and ever-popular restaurant, known for its stone crabs while in season, they did find they were welcomed by a hostess and discreetly—but far too quickly—shown to a table. Jacob had managed, even with the lines outside wrapping around the building, to get them a private table in a little alcove.
Jacob made a pretense of studying the wine menu. He had known, she was certain, exactly what he wanted from the beginning. He wound up ordering champagne—and club soda, as well. She knew as the evening progressed, the champagne would disappear into leftover club soda.
The waitress was gone—they had both ordered the stone crab claws—and