“So what do you do, Mr. Beaumont?” she asked.
For whatever reason, I still didn’t want to tell her I was a cop. “I work for the city,” I hedged somewhat lamely.
We were outside near the car by then. “You must be doing all right,” she commented, idly running a finger along the edge of the Porsche’s open sunroof while she waited for me to unlock the door.
“Not bad,” I replied.
It was small-talk time, and I’ve never been good at small talk. Instead, I concentrated on driving. I put the 928 through its paces, cruising down Olive and up Sixth Avenue to Aurora, skimming through traffic lights just as green turned amber.
As we glided effortlessly up the long, steep hill on Aurora, I glanced in Jasmine Day’s direction. Her face was impassive in the intermittent glow of street lights.
“Do you always drive this fast?” she asked.
I eased up slightly on the accelerator. “Not always. Only when I’m nervous.”
She laughed then, a light-hearted, breezy laugh. “So I make you nervous? That’s refreshing for a change. Most men think they’re God’s gift to women.”
I turned off Aurora into the Canlis Restaurant’s covered portico, where valet-parking attendants were eager to assist us. Two young men in white lab coats leaped to open our doors. One relieved me of my keys in exchange for a ticket, while the other gave Jasmine Day a hand getting out of the car. I was fully conscious of the envious looks that followed us through the door.
Once inside, we were shown to a small candlelit table next to a window. A waiter appeared almost as soon as we were seated. Cautioning us that the kitchen would be closing in less than forty-five minutes, he suggested that we order our food at the same time we ordered drinks.
Jasmine opted for straight tonic while I asked for a MacNaughton’s and water. We ordered Canlis salad, prepared at our table, and Hawaiian grilled steaks, medium rare. When the waiter left with our order, Jasmine turned her attention to the window.
“What’s the big black spot down there?”
“Lake union ,” I said, looking out and down at the dark smudge of unlit water with its border of reflected lights. Off to the left we could see the northern tip of the Aurora Bridge, while in the other direction, toward the east, headlights winked across the I-5 span at the far end of the lake.
I played tour guide. “The bridge you see way down there, the tall one, is where the freeway crosses the Montlake Cut. That leads into Lake Washington. Have you ever been in Seattle before? Do you know anything about it?”
She turned away from the window and rested her chin on her hand, regarding me seriously. “I did a concert at the Coliseum once, back in the old days. I opened for The Living Dead. Ever hear of them?”
I shook my head.
“That doesn’t surprise me. The band broke up several years ago after the drummer OD’d and the lead singer got sent up for dealing.”
The waiter returned to place our drinks in front of us. Jasmine Day remained silent until he was well out of earshot. “I guess I’m lucky that I lived long enough to grow up. A lot of the singers and musicians I started out with didn’t make it this far.”
I took a sip of my drink and leaned back in my chair, wondering how old she was. Thirty maybe, if that. “How did you get out of Jasper?” I asked.
She smiled, a quick, amused smile. “I started out singing solos in the First Baptist Church when I was seven years old. I’ve got a whole flock of relatives back in Texas who’d be more than happy to tell you that it’s been all downhill ever since. They’re convinced I’m going to hell in a handbasket.”
“Are you?”
She shrugged. “Maybe. Anyway, Mary Lou Gibbon sang her heart out at weddings and funerals and potluck dinners and saved her money so she could get the hell out of Jasper.”
“And you’re Mary Lou Gibbon, of course,” I said.
“You bet. Little Miss Goody-Two-Shoes. Or at least that’s who I was supposed to be. I sang hymns in church. I taught myself rock out in the garage where nobody could hear me. When I was sixteen, I bought myself a one-way ticket to New York.”
“And the rest is history.
She nodded. “That’s right.”
The waiter returned, pushing a cart with the salad ingredients carefully assembled on it. Next to a large wooden bowl lay a copy of the souvenir program from Jasmine Day’s conceit. The waiter leaned close to her.
“Excuse me, madame,” he said apologetically, “but the woman over there wanted me to ask if you would mind autographing her program. She said they’ve just come from your show and she loved it.”