They turned down a brightly lit block that had several restaurants and a couple of dance clubs. As they passed the first dance club, they could hear a band playing a seventies song, they stopped by the door to listen, they knew the song instantly, but it was being sung in Italian. The second one down a little further had a Jazz band playing. They stopped at the door and listened for a moment there as well. She turned to John. "Would it be okay if I looked inside, maybe they'll have the name of the band listed. Michael loves this kind of music. He listens to it all the time. It'd be nice if I could tell him who was playing here, he might even know them."
John nodded his head. "Of course, let's go in." They both walked inside. The place was very dark, much darker than the street had been. It took them a moment for their eyes to adjust to the dimly lit interior. Just about the only light came from small candles that were lit on each table and most of the tables were full with two to four people. A few people were out dancing on the dance floor. The club was filled with so much cigarette smoke that it gave the place an almost dreamlike blue hazy quality.
John leaned over to Jennifer and spoke in her ear. "If you don't mind, I'm going to use the restroom, I'll be right back." She said she would wait by the door. John headed toward the restroom at the opposite end of the club. As he was walking toward the rest room he noticed a man sitting a few tables away passionately kissing a very beautiful Italian girl, the man's back toward him. When they stopped kissing the man leaned back in his chair then he saw the girls face, suddenly John recognized the girl. She was Vittoria, the daughter of the President of the manufacturing company they were here to do business with. He had met her the first day. Michael and she had hit it off immediately at the first meeting, which he thought at the time was a benefit because she would handle all of the contract issues with our company in the future. John was positive that this was her. But it was the guy sitting with her that shocked him because from the back it really reminded him of Michael. Impossible as it was because Michael was out of town on a business trip tonight.
The guy got up, picked up his lit cigarette from the ashtray and after taking a puff or two turned, said something to Vittoria kissed her on the forehead and then turned and headed the same direction that John was headed for. If he hadn't side stepped out of the way, Michael might have bumped into him. It was Michael alright, he was sure of it now, but he had never seen Michael smoke before. Michael was having trouble walking a straight line toward the restroom and looked very drunk and luckily hadn't noticed him. Michael entered the restroom. John where he was, he didn't know what to do.