“That was nice, Mike,” I said. I pulled my hand free so I could stroke the back of his neck.
“That’s nice, too,” he said.
I felt so warm and comfortable cuddled against him, I could easily have fallen asleep. Until Mike moved his hand to cup my breast. I was lying over his lap, and I could feel him growing underneath me.
I looked up into his gray eyes and smiled. I said, “She felt the cold, hard steel of his snub-nosed.38 under his belt and whispered into his juglike ear, ‘I love it when you hold me tight, baby, but that rod you’re packing is digging into me.’
Mike laughed. I ain’t packin’ no rod.”
Chapter Seventeen
We were at a most delicious point of love making. I was hardly on this planet, so I don’t know why I noticed the shadow pass across the gape in the broken door. Before we made up the sofa bed, Mike and I had shoved a heavy dresser against the door. It wasn’t tall enough to fill all of the space between the jamb and the edge of the door, and it certainly wasn’t heavy enough to have kept out a determined intruder. All we asked of it was to be sufficient barrier against entry to give Mike time to find his gun on the floor and cover our naked backsides. Trust me, Mike’s backside was definitely worth protecting.
Anyway, a few moments after first seeing the shadow pass, I saw it move across the open space again. Mike was nuzzling at the side of my neck, or I wouldn’t have been facing the door at all. I liked what he was doing under the sheets. I didn’t want to say anything that might interrupt him. Until the shadow made a third pass.
I found Mike’s ear, couldn’t resist nibbling at the lobe a bit before I whispered, “There’s someone lurking outside the apartment.”
He raised himself enough to look. “Just another tenant going to work.”
“Emily has the only apartment at this end of the hall.” Mike sighed. “You want me to go look?”
“I don’t want you to go anywhere.” I ran my hand over his freckled quads. “Tell whoever is there to disappear.”
He raised himself again and cleared his throat. “Who’s there?”
A man’s voice responded from the other side. “Who’s there?”
“No fair, I asked first,” Mike called out. He got up from the bed and pulled on the trousers we’d left lying in a heap on the floor. He was grinning when he leaned over to kiss my knee. “You know who it is, don’t you?”
I nodded. “Uncle Max.”
“Shall we let him in?”
“Yes,” I said, groping around for my own pants. “Once he’s in, we’ll shove the dresser back across the door so he won’t get away again. I haven’t been able to catch up with him for the last twenty-four hours.”
Mike zipped himself up as he clambered over the sofa cushions piled around the bed. I had managed to get a shirt on and to comb my fingers through my hair before Mike had moved the dresser aside far enough for Max to squeeze inside.
“Maggie?” Max said, raising his heavy dark brows at me. He looked from Mike’s bare chest to my bare feet, then to the tangle of sheets on and around the bed. He chuckled. “So, kid, what’s new?”
“It’s too early in the morning for a quick retort. Ask me later,” I said.
In the pale light of morning, and through Max’s proprietary eyes, it was just beginning to hit me what had occurred among the tangled sheets during the night. And with whom. Nothing I hadn’t enjoyed tremendously and probably needed in more ways than one. Just the same, looking at Mike set off some nervous quavers that fell short of remorse but still well within the range of Oh Shit. What, after all, did I know about this man besides freckled quads and good hands? And that, the morning after, all rumpled and bristle-faced, he still looked damn good.
Max was grinning at me evilly.
“Did you happen to bring coffee?” I asked him.
“Nope,” Max said. “But I’ll be happy to go get some. How long would you like me to take?”
“You stay put. We have to talk.” I tossed a cushion aside. “Mike, I’m going to go call Mrs. Lim. If Max makes a move for the door, hog-tie him, okay?”
“Sure thing.” Mike had found his shirt and buttoned it up. He extended his hand to Max. “How’s it going, counselor?” “You tell me,” Max said, leering, cocksure.
I left them while I called Mrs. Lim from the study, to ask her to please bring up some hot coffee. In the few minutes consumed by the phone call, Mike had the sofa bed made. He also had the television on and a tape playing in the VCR. Max was watching Celeste gambol backward with her daisies.
She gave a terrifically dear performance. So dear that I thought I would be physically sick if I had to watch her prance through it one more time. I went over and perched on the arm of the sofa beside Mike.
“Mind if I take a quick shower?” I asked.
“Go ahead,” he said, patting my thigh. “Is Mrs. Lim bringing coffee?”
“Yes,” I said. “Max, take notes. When I get back, there will be a quiz.”
He merely waved me away, never taking his eyes from Celeste. He sighed, “Damn, I forgot how lovely that bitch was.”
I walked out on them. I borrowed clean underwear and a starched Polo shirt from Em and shut myself in the bathroom for no more than twenty minutes. When I rejoined Mike and Max, they were pouring coffee and passing back and forth a basket of croissants.
I sat crosslegged on the floor, facing them across the low table. “Message from Mrs. Lim,” Mike said, handing me a steaming mug.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know. It was delivered in Chinese. I think it had something to do with the way pigs live.”
“I’ll straighten up the place later.” I sipped the coffee grate-fully. We had had maybe four hours of sleep. It was four hours more than I’d had the night before, but I still felt grainy behind the eyes. I drained the mug and refilled it from the pot, took a croissant from the basket, broke it in half and devoured it.
Max’s eyes were riveted on the TV. Mike was watching Uncle Max with similar concentration.
“What do you think, Max?” I asked.
“Tell you what, kid, it hurts.” He glanced over at me. I watch Em and Jaime, and I see what I missed out on. I was in law school through all this, a real grind. Free love, peace, rock and roll – that whole scene just passed me by. I might as well be a Martian looking at these tapes.”
“You lie,” I said. “You know every person on that truck.”
“I met them.” He had his chin down on his starchy white shirtfront. “That’s not quite the same thing as knowing them.”
“I don’t get you,” Mike said.
“I used to spend holidays at my brother’s house. Emily ran the place like a two-bit hotel. I never knew who I’d be sharing my room with; the most bizarre collection of unshaven radicals passed across my sheets,” he said. “It was an old house. There weren’t enough bathrooms. I knew these people because we all spent a lot of time together in the hall, waiting our turn at the loo. Here’s the scoop on the exalted inner circle: Lucas took a shit after breakfast, so you had to get your shower before, or suffer. Emily and Jaime showered together and took three times as long as anyone else. While you waited, Celeste would lay down and spread her legs for you if asked real nice, even though she hated it. I doubt whether Rod Peebles did any of the above, shit, fuck or shower. He wasn’t a loner by choice.”
“Bathroom habits is all you learned?” I said, hoping my mouthful of croissant didn’t mask the skeptical tone I was trying for.
Max grew serious. At least, he knit his brows.
I reached across the table and touched his knee. “So?”
“Private stuff, kid. We should respect the secrets of the heart.”
“Jesus, Max,” I groaned. “So profound.”
“I’m not real big on hearts and flowers, counselor,” Mike said. “Especially when there’s attempted murder involved. Anyway, if you can’t trust your own niece, what’s the point of anything?”