Free Havana Run by Les Standiford Page B

tried to kill him nearly killing her instead, not once but twice.
    How do you begin to make up for something like that? he wondered. Just how?
    He picked up the fresh drink the barmaid had brought and turned to Angie. “Do you visit him?”
    “I’ve been up a couple of times,” she said, glancing absently around the bar top as if she’d misplaced something. She turned back after a moment, offering a rueful smile. “You ever smoke? I quit like a year ago, but it’s like sometimes I forget I don’t anymore.”
    “My mother smoked a lot before she died,” he said. “It sent me off the habit.”
    “Lucky for you, I guess,” she said. “Anyways, it’s not exactly a pretty picture, up there. Ray Bob could be tough to get along with even when he was walking around free…” She trailed off, then turned back to meet Deal’s gaze.
    “I write, end of every week, let him know what’s going on with the business, which isn’t all that much, tell him how his brokerage account is doing, things like that. It’s more like a business report.” She took some of her drink and gave her hair a toss.
    “I’d like to think he’d do the same for me, even though he probably wouldn’t,” she added, a thoughtful look on her features. “Whatever we had is gone, that’s for sure. But I haven’t had the heart to come right out and say so, him sitting behind bars and all.”
    “Given what you say about Ray Bob, that might be the safest time to tell him,” Deal said.
    She smiled. “You’re probably right,” she said. She sucked the ice of her drink dry and signaled to the barmaid for a refill. The piano player had finished with “Fly Me to the Moon,” and was now belting out a by-the-numbers rendition of “Cabaret.” Two of the well turned-out couples had begun to fox-trot on the small dance floor.
    “How about you?” Angie asked, turning to him. “What happens in your life when you’re not being a construction mogul? Is there a Mrs. Deal somewhere? Some little Deal juniors running around?”
    “There is a Mrs. Deal, in fact,” he told her.
    “I should have guessed,” she said.
    “And I have a daughter, Isabel, who’s ten.”
    “Wonderful,” Angie said. “Where are they, at the beach or something?”
    “Isabel’s mother and I are separated,” Deal said. “The two of them are out at a spa in New Mexico as we speak.”
    “That sounds nice,” Angie said, examining a nail. “Just how separated are you?”
    “It’s been awhile now,” Deal said. “Several years, in fact.”
    Angie considered what he’d told her. “Did she want it that way, or was it you?”
    When Deal hesitated, she held up a hand. “Never mind, I already know.”
    He glanced at her. “Am I that obvious?”
    “Don’t ever play poker,” she told him, rolling her eyes.
    The piano player segued from “Cabaret” into “New York, New York,” and more couples were up to dance. “Is that guy the worst or what?” Angie said.
    Deal glanced at the piano player. “He’s better than the last one they had.”
    “The guy with the bad hairpiece?”
    “That’s the one,” Deal said, his gaze drifting into the distance. He wasn’t going to mention the singer who’d been paired up with the guy. He hoped Angie Marsh didn’t bring her up either.
    “Can I ask you something?” Angie said.
    He turned. “Are you feeling shy all of a sudden?”
    “I just wondered if you had eaten yet.”
    “I haven’t,” he found himself admitting.
    “And this guy you’re waiting for, is he coming or what?”
    Deal glanced at his watch, shaking his head. He’d given up on Russell Straight an hour ago, to be honest, even before Angie had turned up at the bar. A balmy summer evening, a guy who looked like Russell alone in Key West…well, Deal would get a play-by-play in the morning—if he allowed it, that is.
    “So why don’t I take you for dinner?” Angie was saying.
    Deal thought about it briefly, imagining Ray Bob listening in on this