Artur Rabinovitch looked way too slick and important for this hour.Granted it was a Tuesday and Jason’s schedule hadn’t been dictated by alarms for a while, the way Artur’s had.
“Jason,” Artur said.“Good to see you.”
“Hi,” he replied.“Good to see you too.Looking forward to tonight.”
“Yeah,” Artur said with a grin.Before the man’s expression changed.“I have to talk to you.”
He raised an eyebrow; the man was in crisis management, and he’d never seen anybody more able to slide into a conversation and drop bombshells without blinking.“Yes?”
“Walk with me.”
And once again, deciding that simply following the man was the better part of valor, he did.
They walked into a tiny coffee shop, an old-school one that verged on diner territory without stepping in it.It smelled like it had been serving coffee and pastries for at least a century, holding court in the same spot.
Black coffee in old ceramic cups were dropped in front of them; the strong smell of the coffee wafted upwards, mixed with the steam from either the cup or the coffee itself.It was Jason’s idea of coffee paradise, though he’d never seen this place before.“Where has this place been all of my life?I owe you.”
Artur grinned.“Don’t get too comfortable.Although I’m glad I pegged you as the right kind of old-school coffee guy.”
“If they have the right black and whites, I will lose my goddamn mind right here on the spot.”
“Haven’t had the pastries, so I can’t vouch for those.”
Jason smiled.“Well, we’ll see what happens.”
Shortly thereafter, as if he’d been summoned, an older gentleman dropped off a black and white, the likes of which he’d only seen in his dreams.“I…wow.”
“I take it that artifact of New York history meets with your approval?”
Jason nodded.“I think I’ve gone to the height of pastry.”
Artur laughed, which was something Jason hadn’t expected.“Good to hear.”
But Jason wasn’t going to just look at the pastry on his plate; he was going to have some before listening to whatever bombshell Artur dropped on top of his head.Because only a bombshell from this man would bring them to a place like this, a bag of fresh bagels in tow, early in the day on a weekday.“What’s going on?”
“I’ve been running interference.”
And that was interesting.Clearly Artur was performing some kind of verbal keep-away with someone on Jason’s behalf.But what and with whom?
“What kind of interference?”
“With Asher,” the other man replied, as if he’d not been bothered.“Poker night and a few other things.Samuel’s been helping but you know he’s got a very loose sense of privacy.”
Loose sense of privacy.
Right.Loose lips?Sinking ships.And privacy of course.Which was Artur’s way of saying Samuel had zero sense of privacy.
Jason tried not to visibly react to the mental gymnastics routine he’d put himself through to understand the comment.Namely, the interference had been run to hide what he and Naomi were doing to keep the wedding afloat, creating new contracts where Ida’s awful business practices had destroyed everything.
“You here?”
“Yes.Sorry,” he said, trying to figure out an explanation for how long he’d taken before speaking.“Brain got a little dizzy.But thank you.I appreciate it.”
He shook his head.“Not a problem.Are things progressing?”
Jason nodded.“Yeah.We’ve got signed contracts for the sofer, the designer and the photographer.”
“I bet,” Artur continued, after the other man took a long drink of his coffee, “we can convince our dinner host to cater.”
