Last to Know by Elizabeth Adler Page B

probation orders and time for drugs, and who seemed to have skipped town, he needed a burger and a beer. Besides, Mal was on his mind. He wondered what she was doing. Alone. In Paris.
    Ruby’s was jammed. The plate-glass windows with their looped-back red-checked curtains gave a view of the cold and still-busy street, making inside seem even cozier. The Formica tables were the same ones that had been there since Ruby’s opened and the matronly waitresses might have been from the same decade. Doris, Harry’s favorite, came over as he sat down. Without asking she placed a cold bottle of Miller in front of him, took the iPad from the pocket of her white apron, and looked expectantly at him.
    “Not that I need it,” she said, putting the iPad back into her pocket. “It’ll be the same old same. So, where’s the Eyetalian tonight, then?”
    Harry sighed. “Come on, Doris, you can’t go on calling Rossetti that.”
    “Takes one to know one.” Doris’s dark eyes crinkled in a grin. “Only an Italian can call another Italian an Eyetalian. So? Is it the usual?”
    Harry nodded. Pulling off his old black leather bomber jacket, he checked the room. He’d sometimes brought Mal here. She had never liked it, and nor, he thought now, had Doris liked her, though both had been scrupulously polite. Mal had complained about the smell of fried food and chicken gravy that somehow always hung around the place, and Doris had decided the fiancée felt she was slumming.
    Harry took a long cold gulp of the beer, closed his eyes, and tried to think good thoughts. He heard Squeeze give a warning growl and looked up.
    A young woman was sliding into his booth. She sat down opposite him, not smiling, just looking, brows raised in a question. Then, “Hi,” she said.
    Even sitting he could tell she was tall. Late twenties. Fire-red bangs over pale eyes, and a short swinging red bob. Roundish face but nice cheekbones; definitely not skinny but neither was she plump. She looked, Harry thought, like a woman who might enjoy the occasional french fry without too much guilt.
    She held out her hand to him. Her short nails were polished shiny black and she wore a thin gold band on the third finger—right hand, though, not left. She had on a black leather bomber jacket, not unlike Harry’s own, with a white T-shirt under and though he could not see her feet because they were already under his table, Harry would bet she was wearing towering heels and a short skirt. She was just that kind of woman. Young, confident, and very much of today. And Harry very much did not have time for her.
    “You’ll excuse me,” he said, icily polite, “I’m about to eat my dinner.”
    “No trouble, I’ll join you.” She gave him a wide smile of such dazzling confidence Harry almost succumbed to his curiosity.
    Squeeze emerged from under the table. Harry put a hand on the dog’s collar.
    “Jeez,” the girl said, amazed, “I didn’t even see him. Is he supposed to be in here?”
    “Special dispensation,” he said.
    She took away the hand she had offered Harry and which was still unshaken, and instead offered it to the dog who sniffed it curiously then settled back down under the table.
    “Such wonderful blue eyes,” she said. “I’ve never seen a dog like that.”
    It was a direct line to Harry’s heart: love me, love my dog. “Squeeze is part malamute,” he said. “Arctic dogs, sort of like Huskies.”
    “Must be useful in the Boston snow,” she said.
    “So, to what do I owe the pleasure?” he asked, thawing a little.
    “Ah … well … it’s kind of complicated…”
    “I thought it would be.” He met her wide gaze across the table, just as Doris arrived bearing a foaming glass of Miller Lite for the girl.
    Harry glanced suspiciously from Doris to the woman and then back again. She had not ordered the beer, yet Doris had known what to bring her. He said, “Why do I get the feeling this is a setup?”
    “Because you’re right,” Doris