Chapter 30

I shot a glance at him, wondering if I was overplaying my hand, but no, he seemed to be buying it.

“Where?”

“There’s a little bar on Mass. Ave. The Six Nine.” I made it a point never to hit bars—when your old lady was a lush, you tended to avoid what made her that way—but on those occasions when I was in town, and when The Boss wasn’t ordering me to the Madison Arms to see what the CIA was up to, I’d gone there to ring in the New Year.

“The Club Sixty-Nine?” In spite of his best efforts to conceal it, I had succeeded in impressing Shaw.

“Yes. If that’s not suitable,” I rushed to tell him, “we could go somewhere else, your choice.”

Triumphant color flooded his cheeks, and his eyes gleamed. “Oh, no. That’s…that would be fine.”

I sighed with faked relief. “Thank you. I’ll meet you there after work, okay?”

“Yes, that’ll be fine. Um…uh…can you give me directions?”