Free The Ethical Assassin: A Novel by David Liss Page A

boy with his thin frame, his face a little too round for his body, his tousled brown hair and strangely brilliant brown eyes. The boy was trying to tell him something, that he was ready for mentoring, whatever mentoring B.B. might wish to pursue, and the air at the table was electric.
    Chuck finished his glass of wine, and B.B. poured him another. Then the boy bit into the breadstick with a ferocious clamp of his jaws. Crumbs sprayed out across the table, and the sound of it echoed halfway across the restaurant. Chuck looked up at his mentor, alarm preparing to settle on his face, but he saw B.B.’s amused smile, and he let out a little laugh. They both laughed. Several of the retirement zombies looked over with disapproving scowls. B.B. made eye contact with all of them, dared them to say anything.
    When the black man approached their table, at first B.B. thought it might be the manager there to complain. Maybe one of the retirees had convinced them to initiate an effective-immediately no children policy. But the black man didn’t work for the restaurant. It was the darkness that kept B.B. from recognizing him right away. Otto Rose.
    He wore a blue suit, and even in the dark B.B. could tell it was just a nudge short of electric blue, but the rest of the outfit was conservative and businesslike: richly polished oxfords, a white shirt, a rep tie crafted into a massive and artful four-in-hand. Otto hovered over the table with that imperial grace he loved to exude. He looked something like a cross between an actor and a third world dictator. Though barely thirty, which was irritating enough, he appeared hardly more than twenty, even with his head shaved. B.B. had been watching his hair thin with each year, maybe even each month, but Otto shaved his head and looked good doing it. The slick of his skin glowed from the candles of the surrounding tables.
    The sudden and inexplicable appearance of Otto Rose was, by any standards B.B. could think of, bad news. Bad news because no one but Desiree was supposed to know where B.B. was. Bad news because Otto Rose was standing there, watching him mentor, watching him dine with an eleven-year-old boy in an expensive steakhouse, a bottle of Saint-Estèphe opened and two glasses, one for an underage boy. Bad news because Otto might be a business friend, but he was the kind of friend B.B. would love to shed. Bad news because there was no reason in the world why Rose should want to find him unless it was bad news.
    “Hello, young man,” Rose said to Chuck. His West Indian accent came out thick and chunky, full of island hospitality and humor, the way it always did when he cranked up the charm. He set his hand on the bottle of Bordeaux. “Can I pour you some more wine, or has Mr. Gunn been taking care of you?”
    Chuck held on to his breadstick and looked up at Rose, not quite making eye contact, but he didn’t say anything. B.B. expected as much. South Florida might be diverse—there were Cubans and Jews and regular white people and Haitians and West Indians and regular black people and all sorts of South Americans and Orientals and who the hell knew what else—but the fact was none of them wanted anything to do with any of the others. White kids clammed up around black people. Black kids clammed up around white people. B.B. had seen it a million times when mentoring, and if you were going to mentor, you had to understand these things.
    Rose, however, was undeterred. “I am Otto Rose. What is your name, young sir?” He stuck out his hand for shaking.
    Chuck appeared to know he was trapped, and being trapped, he chose to forge ahead. “I’m Chuck,” he said in a steady voice. The handshake looked firm and unafraid.
    “And Mr. Gunn is your friend? He is a fine man to have for a friend.”
    “He’s my mentor,” Chuck said. “He’s been very nice to me.”
    “And this is a fine restaurant for mentoring,” Rose said, the humor percolating just under the surface of his voice.