Lisa Scottoline - Dead Ringer

“So what?”

“I don’t want to practice class-action law.”

“Who cares? If you’re right, Linette doesn’t want you to, either. Be a consultant. Show up and say hi. Put your name on the papers.”

“That’s not lawyering.”

“So quit after a respectable time period and go lawyer somewhere else. With that kind of money, you can start another firm.” Sam’s eyes flared with urgency as a waiter came over with their lunch entrées. The waiter’s pristine white jacket read Westley and he was an older man, and balding. With an efficient air, he set a salmon filet in front of Sam and a strip steak in front of Bennie.

“Thank you,” Bennie said. She faced the waiter, arranging her face into a casual mask for Sam’s benefit. “Westley, you didn’t happen to work last night, did you?”

“No, miss,” the waiter answered matter-of-factly. “Yesterday was my day off.”

“Thank you,” Bennie repeated, watching the waiter remove her butter knife with some ceremony and replace it with a wooden-handled steak knife with a sharp serrated edge. Was this the kind of knife that had killed Robert? The thought nauseated her, but she made herself pick up the knife and turn it over. It was why she had ordered the steak, after all.

“Is anything the matter, miss?” the waiter asked, and Bennie shook her head.

“No, thanks. Everything’s fine. I was just curious, is this the knife you give with every steak?”

“Yes.”

“There aren’t bigger ones?”

“No, I’m sure this will be fine for your purposes. We use it for the prime rib and the filet mignon. Though if you wish another, perhaps I could ask around in the kitchen.”

“No. No, thanks.” The waiter left, and Sam eyed her warily.

“Don’t tell me, lemme guess. St. Amien ate here last night, before he was knifed to death.”

Ouch . “I’m just curious, okay?”

“Stay out of it, Bennie.”

“I am. I will. I was just asking.”

“Right. Sure.” Sam picked up his fork and separated an end flake of his salmon, encrusted with dill and coarse pink peppercorn. “I’ll eat while you go over and depose the maitre d’.”

It made Bennie laugh, which was a good thing, because she was already hating the heft of the knife in her hand. The blade was about six inches, and she would have described it as a common knife. Without the autopsy report, she had no way of knowing whether the blade matched the depth of the wounds, and right now she didn’t want to think about it.

“I know you care about your client, your friend, but you are too busy to get involved. You have a business to sell.” Sam ate a forkful of moist salmon. “Besides, you have Alice to worry about. I was thinking you should call a security agency. I’ll spring for it. I want you to hire a bodyguard.”

“Don’t need one.” Bennie took the knife in hand and, when Sam wasn’t looking, slipped it inside her purse, which was sitting on the seat beside her. She couldn’t bring herself to eat the steak anyway. Her appetite had vanished. “You know why I don’t need one?”

“Because you think you’re invincible and you’re stubborn as a mule?”

“No, because I have one already.”

“You’re kidding.” Sam stopped chasing skinny string beans with his fork. “How’d you pay for a bodyguard?”

“I didn’t. He’s free.”

“Oh, please.” Sam zeroed in on a string bean, annoyed. “Stop lying.”

“It’s true. Look.” Bennie lowered her voice, not that anyone was listening to them in the noisy restaurant, and pointed discreetly out the window with her soda glass. A white SEPTA bus blocked their view, and she waited for it to pass. Then it did, revealing a noontime Broad Street bustling with traffic and businesspeople. But across the street, leaning against the sign for the subway stop, stood a very tall SEAL in sort of a disguise. “See that tall guy across the street, in the baseball cap with the Sixers logo?”

“No.” Sam squinted. “Everybody out there has on a Sixers cap. It isn’t a Ralph Lauren kind of town.”

“The real tall man, near the subway stop. He’s reading a paper.”

Sam’s eyes found David, Bennie could see it. They actually lit up. “Oh my God, is he big and hot or what? I thought he was a good-looking tree.”

“That’s David, my undercover bodyguard.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“I shit you not.” Bennie caught herself. “And that’s my last curse.”

Sam couldn’t tear his eyes from David. “What’s his name? David what?”

“Holland.”

“I like it. Holland. Mrs. Sam Holland. How’s it sound? Wow, I’m a country!” Sam was getting carried away. “I hear Vermont is very nice this time of year. Does he like lawyers?”

“No.”

“Who does? I’ll quit. Who needs it anyway? I’ll work for Ben and Jerry’s. I can be his Chubby Hubby.”

“Sam, relax. He’s kind of macho.”

“Macho works for me. I can be macho. I have a cowboy hat I got in Steamboat. It has a silver medallion in the front and a feather in the hatband. Turquoise, with a hint of sienna.”

Bennie laughed. “You’re not macho. You like Looney Tunes. You have stuffed animals on your windowsill.”

“I’ll douse them with lighter fluid and set them afire. Isn’t that macho?” Sam turned away from the window momentarily. “So how’d you find him, and more important, will he come over to the dark side?”

“You mean is he gay?” Bennie smiled. “I doubt it.”

“He doesn’t have to be gay. He could just have gay potential. Can he spell ‘gay’? We’ll bend the rules in his case. We need to recruit men like him. Manly men.” Sam grunted, and Bennie laughed.

“He’s a SEAL.”

“I can swim. I can bark, too. Tell me about him. Everything. Tell me, tell me, tell me .” Sam leaned over in high-dish mode, and Bennie filled him in on last night, going easy on the part about her almost drowning in the river. But the happiness evaporated from Sam’s expression like champagne from a flute. “Bennie, this is terrible! Alice is a freak!”

“I know, that’s why I need David,” she said as the waiter came over. He scanned their plates with tacit disapproval. Sam had stopped eating, and she had never started. Bennie looked up. “Can you wrap these up for us to take home? I have a golden with caviar taste.”

“No problem,” answered the waiter, clearing the plates and arranging them miraculously along the length of his arm. If he noticed that she’d purloined the steak knife, he’d been taught not to say so. “Coffee?”

“Sure,” Bennie answered for both of them, but Sam was grim.

“You don’t really know who David is, and he follows you everywhere.”

“Sure I know who he is. I told you what I know.”

“That’s not very much. He’s just a random guy, and you’re supposed to tell him everything you do. Why did he quit the SEALs?”

“He didn’t quit, he-”

“What did he do before that? When did he graduate from the Naval Academy? And above all, why would he do this for you? Are you sleeping with him?”

“No!” Bennie blushed.

“But you’re thinking about it.”

“So are you,” Bennie shot back, and they both laughed. “He’s safe, Sam. He’s fine. He’s just a nice guy.”

“You’re letting a stranger protect you.”

“He saved Bear’s life, and he risked his own to do it. He’s a Good Samaritan.” Bennie tried to explain it, because truth to tell, she wondered about it too. “Sam, did you ever think that maybe we’ve been lawyers too long? Maybe we’ve become so inherently suspicious of everything and everyone, always questioning their motives, always imagining what will go wrong in the end, that we just can’t recognize it when somebody does a selflessly good thing. Isn’t that possible?”