Sweet Liar

  “Maybe I am, but wouldn’t you be curious if all your life people had told you that you were identical to another person, then someone told you that you weren’t even similar? How are we different?”

  “He’s smaller than you for one thing. And the expression in his eyes is different. You’re…you’re a nicer person than he is. Softer.”

  “Maybe when I look at you my eyes are different.”

  “Maybe.” She turned toward him. “But your eyelashes are definitely longer. And curlier.”

  At that Mike laughed. “Curlier?”

  Embarrassed, she turned away. “I knew I shouldn’t have said anything. You are not like your brother. Not like him at all.” Mike seemed to be satisfied with that as he left the bathroom, which was rapidly resembling a place that should apply for national relief.

  After the boys were bathed and at long last in bed, she and Mike went to bed—together, in his bed. Samantha was very tired and would have thought she could expend no more energy during the day, but she walked out of the bathroom wearing her white nightgown and took one look at Mike’s eyes, and they were on each other ravenously, tearing at clothes and skin, mouths and hands everywhere.

  It was an hour later that they lay side by side, sated, Sam’s head on Mike’s shoulder, his arms around her.

  “This is all so new to me,” Samantha said. “I mean, I’ve done this…Sort of.” She laughed. “Mike, the difference between sex with you and sex with my ex-husband is, as Mark Twain says, the difference between lightning and a lightning bug. I had no idea sex could be enjoyable, fun, and so very…fulfilling.”

  Mike said nothing.

  Idly, she ran her fingers over the hair on his chest. “I guess you’ve done this a thousand times with a thousand different women. I guess this is nothing…unusual for you.”

  “Sam, when I was fourteen my father gave me the first of many talks about using protection during sex. He talked to me about sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies. Since then, every time I’ve gone to bed with a woman I’ve used protection, a thin little membrane that separated me from her. I’ve used it even if she said she was on the Pill or whatever. I’d rather be safe than sorry. Until last night I’d never been, I guess you could say, skin to skin with a woman before. Maybe you could even go so far as to say that I was a virgin until last night.”

  She was hesitant. “Was it better? Without, I mean?”

  “Much better. Much, much, much better. Never experienced anything like it. Had no idea sex could be so good.”

  Holding up his hand, she looked at it, comparing it in size to her own, caressing his fingertips with hers. “So now I guess, well, later, with other women you won’t use any protection. You’ll always want to be…skin to skin.”

  “That’s true.”

  Her fingers laced with his and tightened. She could not let herself think of life without Mike, of Mike being with another woman.

  “But then, Sam,” he said very softly, “I think the buck stops here.”

  She was afraid to ask what he meant, but his words made her heart beat faster. Then, abruptly, she turned toward him. “Michael! If you’re not using any birth control, I could get pregnant!”

  “Really?” He sounded as though he were unconcerned about the possibility of pregnancy, then just slightly, his hand tightened on hers. “Would you mind?”

  She ignored his second question. “I think this is extremely irresponsible of you. You should have used something.”

  “Me? Why not you?”

  “I would have, but that first time you didn’t exactly give me time to think, and besides, I was a little too tipsy to think clearly.”

  He grinned down at her. “Know what the mating call of the southern belle is? Ooooh, I’m soooo drunk.”

  “I’ll get you for that,” she said as she jumped on him, trying to tickle him, her nightgown wrapping around both of them.

  But they were interrupted by two very clean little boys standing by the bed and staring at them. There was no need for the children to say anything because what they were feeling was in their eyes: They were away from home and their dad and they wanted reassurance. Neither Sam or Mike hesitated as they pulled the boys into bed with them. The children snuggled together like the two halves of an egg that they were between Mike and Sam and went to sleep instantly.

  Samantha had an idea that sleeping with children cuddled close was nothing new to Mike, but it was to her, and the feeling called to something deep within her.

  “Mike,” she whispered, “do you make twins?” She tried to make the question sound light, but she couldn’t. She wanted Mike, and she wanted the children he could possibly give her.

  Mike knew what she was asking: She wanted to know if the two of them could have kids together, and Mike knew that an affirmative answer from him was a lifetime commitment. But then he’d made a commitment the first night they’d made love and he’d used no birth control, which had been a very conscious decision on his part. “Probably,” he said at last. “Want a couple?”

  “I rather would, yes,” she answered as though it were not the most important answer she’d ever given in her life.

  Above the heads of the sleeping children, their fingers entwined, holding to each other tightly.

  27

  Mike woke when he heard the soft sound of a key turning in the front door lock. Since the attempt on Sam’s life, he never seemed to sleep soundly; he always had one ear alert and listening. Now he knew that the person coming in the front door had to be his brother Kane because, for all his brother’s act of nonchalance, the truth was, Kane was mad about his two boys and could hardly bear them to be out of his sight.

  Easing out of bed and tiptoeing from the room, Mike was still pulling on his trousers when Kane entered the town house. “I see the place is still intact,” he said. “Did my brats give your lady nightmares or did she do the sensible thing and leave you?”

  Without a word, Mike put his finger to his lips and motioned for his brother to follow him. Silently, he opened the door to the bedroom he shared with Sam and allowed him to look inside. Samantha was on her back, and in the crook of each arm was one of Kane’s sons, one on his stomach, his face pressed into Sam’s arm, while the other boy was on his side, half on her, half off.

  “It’s been so long since I’ve seen them clean I’m not sure I would have recognized them.” As Mike started to close the door, Kane looked at his brother and what he felt was in his eyes. “God, how I envy you!”

  Mike smiled but with a touch of sadness at the memory of the death of his brother’s wife. His sadness was soon erased by the cry of “Daddy!” and the hurtling through the air of one small body then another. Catching one then the other of the heavy, sleep-warmed children, Kane started for the living room.

  “Sammy!” one of the boys yelled, putting out his arms for Sam to come with them, but Mike put his hand over the door as a barrier.

  “Oh, no, monster, you’ve had her long enough. She’s mine now.” At that he shut the door, locked it, turned to Samantha, who was just waking up, and stroked a pretend mustache. “And now, my beauty…”

  “Mike,” Samantha said, sitting up in the bed. “You can’t…I mean, there are people out there.”

  “A common occurrence in my family,” he said as he made a leap onto the bed and grabbed her about the waist, pulling her to him.

  “Mike, really, you can’t. Your brother—”

  “He knows all about the birds and the bees.” He was fumbling for the edge of her nightgown, but fumbling in an expert way as she made halfhearted attempts to push his hand away. Halfhearted because what if she won?

  When Samantha finally left the bedroom, she found Kane in the breakfast room buried behind The Wall Street Journal and the twins sitting on the floor eating.

  “What are they eating?” she asked, although she could very well see what they had been given to eat, but she wanted Kane to admit it. She was having a difficult time liking this man. br />
  When Kane spoke, he didn’t seem very concerned, for he didn’t even look around his paper. “Cookies. Diet cola.”

  Without asking their father’s permission, Samantha took the paper towels laden with cookies from in front of the children along with their cans of cola.

  Kane looked around his paper at her. It wasn’t that what she was doing was so unusual, heaven knew that every female in his family had tried to get his sons to eat properly, all without success. What surprised him was that Samantha had taken away the boys’ food and they weren’t screaming in protest.

  Kane watched as she put pillows on chairs at the table—his boys did not eat at tables—towels over the pillows to protect them, then lifted the boys to seat them on the pillows.

  Giving up any pretense at pretending to read the paper, Kane saw his rambunctious boys sit quietly while Samantha scrambled two eggs, toasted whole wheat bread, and poured two glasses of milk. Kane was now fascinated because to his knowledge, his sons had not eaten anything except grasshopper legs and rose thorns and sugar for years. Twice he managed to catch the eye of one of his boys, raising an eyebrow in question, but his son merely gave him an angelic smile, as though their eating eggs and toast and sitting at a table without spilling anything was what they did every day.

  After the meal Kane watched Samantha wash their hands and faces—another first—then kneel and hold up two cookies.

  “What do I get for these?” Samantha asked.

  “Kisses,” the boys chorused, sounding like something out of a 1950s model-child training film.

  Smiling, the boys each kissed one of Samantha’s lovely cheeks, then held theirs up to be kissed by her. When the boys went scampering into the garden, Samantha called after them that if they got dirty she’d have to bathe them again and rewash everything.

  “Genitalia, too?” one of the boys asked.

  Samantha turned to Kane, her eyes wide in shock.

  “He means toes,” Kane said, shrugging. “He heard the word on ‘The Simpsons’ and I told him it meant toes.”

  “Yes, you darling child,” Samantha said. “I’ll wash your toes too and further, if you get dirty, I’ll trade all your Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle bandages for boring grown-up ones. How’s that for punishment?”

  Giggling, the boys ran into the garden.

  Kane’s mouth was hanging open as he looked at Samantha as she cleaned up the breakfast dishes.

  Turning to him, her face stern and judgmental, she said, “You really shouldn’t let them eat cookies for breakfast, and diet cola is all chemicals. And their hygiene leaves a great deal to be desired.”

  Picking up his paper, Kane put it back in front of his face. “You can’t have them, Sam. They’re mine. Get Mike to make you some of your own.”

  Samantha didn’t answer him. When she went to the kitchen, she was blushing, for the thought that Kane, who she knew was a widower, might possibly leave the boys with her until he found a mother for them had indeed been uppermost in her mind.

  28

  “You want to tell me about you and Nelson?”

  “Nelson?” Samantha asked vaguely, for her mind was on the twins, the dear boys Kane had taken away immediately after breakfast. It was almost as though he were afraid that if he left the boys with her any longer, she might succeed in taking them away from him.

  “The guy in the bar. You remember him? You met him when you paraded yourself before half of New York while wearing practically nothing.”

  Samantha laughed. “Ah, yes that Nelson. Mike, do you think I have the qualifications to be one of those five-hundred-dollar-a-night call girls?”

  Mike grunted in answer. “Are you planning to tell me what Nelson wrote on that piece of paper he gave you or not? Of course, I could be like you and snoop through all your possessions to find it, but I have more ethics than that.”

  As she picked up his dirty lunch plate, she kissed the tip of his nose. “Couldn’t find it, could you?”

  For a moment, Mike looked away, not meeting her eyes, then he left the table to follow her into the kitchen. “Samantha,” he said, “what are you up to?”

  “The paper had a name on it, Walden, and a telephone number.”

  As he watched her load dishes into the washer, he realized that she was avoiding his eyes. Putting his hands on her shoulders, he turned her to face him. “And what have you done about this name and number?”

  “I called the number and it seems that Mr. Walden is an attorney and I have an appointment to see him today at three.”

  “Were you planning to go alone? Maybe you were planning to tell me that you wanted to do a little shopping, then sneak away to the appointment?”

  “Mike, it’s not as though I was planning to secretly meet somebody like Doc by myself. This man is an attorney, and he’s young, at least he’s younger than most of the people who know anything about Maxie are, so he couldn’t have been too involved with what happened in 1928. Mr. Walden is only fifty-five.”

  “And how do you know that?”

  “I, well, asked his secretary. I told her I thought he was a man I’d met at a singles’ bar and described him as about twenty-six, blond, and tall. She informed me that Mr. Walden was fifty-five years old, married with four grown children, and five feet six and had gray hair and a potbelly. If he’s that young, what can he know about my grandmother? Do you think he handled some legal work for her or do you think he does actually know something?”

  “I guess there’s only one way to find out, isn’t there? Get dressed and we’ll go see him.”

  “Mike, you don’t have to go. I can meet him, then come back here and tell you what he had to say.”

  It half enraged Mike and half pleased him that she was trying to protect him, for he knew that’s exactly what she was trying to do. He’d made it clear that he wanted her to stop sticking her nose into the mystery of what happened to cause Maxie to leave her family. Now she was continuing to search but was trying to keep her searching from him.

  He kissed her softly. “Do you realize that it’s after two o’clock now? If you plan to get into one of those suits of yours and spray your hair with that epoxy stuff and paint your face and—” Samantha was already running toward the bathroom.

  At three-fifteen, Samantha and Mike were ushered into Mr. Walden’s office by his thin, pinched-looked secretary. Through a process that Samantha found infuriating (Mike had sent Samantha off to the restroom while he sat on the desk of a very pretty receptionist, looked at her through lowered lashes, and asked her questions about Mr. Walden) they had found out that Walden was a criminal defense attorney; he took on the cases of the most reprehensible men and kept them out of jail. The receptionist had shuddered prettily as she described some of the underworld characters who sometimes came into the office. She said that Mr. Walden didn’t seem to mind the fact that his brilliant defenses kept the most awful people on the street.

  “Underworld connections,” Mike said. “No wonder Nelson knows him. What’s wrong with you?”

  Samantha was walking beside him so stiffly that her legs hardly bent. “Absolutely nothing is wrong with me. Why should anything be wrong with me? Just because you were looking down that woman’s blouse is no reason for anything to be wrong with me.”

  Smiling, Mike took her arm and wouldn’t let her move away. “She had a nice pair of—”

  “If you like cows!” Samantha said through clenched teeth, jerking her arm away and walking ahead of him.

  When they were ushered into Walden’s office, Samantha was angry and Mike was chuckling. Mr. Walden, who was exactly as he’d been described, took one look at the two of them as they sat down and said, “I don’t handle divorce cases.”

  With a laugh, Mike reached for Sam’s hand resting on the arm of the chair in front of Mr. Walden’s desk, but she snatched it away. “Actually, we’ve come here on another matter. Your name was given to us indirectly through Jubilee Johnson.”

  For just a second the expression of jo
viality on Walden’s face changed. It was odd to think of this man as a defender of criminals, because put a white wig and beard on him and a red suit and he’d be every child’s picture of Santa Claus. “Ah, yes, Jubilee. I hope he’s well and his family is doing all right.”

  It was at that moment that Samantha saw Walden’s left hand. When she’d entered the room, she’d been so upset with Mike that she hadn’t really looked at Mr. Walden or noticed much of anything about him except that he was such a pleasant-looking man that she immediately thought that he could know nothing about Maxie.

  Now she was staring at his left hand. His hand had been tattooed a solid black from his wrist upward, covering his smallest finger and the one next to it, and those two fingernails were polished with black enamel.

  “Half Hand,” she whispered, because at first glance his hand looked as though half of it were missing. “Half Hand,” she said louder, interrupting whatever Mike and the man were saying.

  Stepping around the desk, Walden smiled at her, then held out his hand, palm down, and she took it in her own, looking at it. Releasing his hand, she looked up at him. “Who are you and what do you know about Maxie?”

  Mr. Walden chuckled, sounding like the man he resembled. “I was born with the name of Joseph Elmer Gruenwald 3d. Since my father was called Joe, I was called Elmer. Ugly name. It’s difficult to get ahead in this world with a name like that because you spend a lot of your life hearing jokes about Elmer Fudd. To counteract the name I think I spent a lot of time thinking about my gangster grandfather.”

  It was Mike’s turn to speak. “Half Hand.”

  “Yes,” Mr. Walden said. “Half Hand Joe was my grandfather. My father was nine when Half Hand was killed and I think he glorified him. Rather than facing the facts that his father was nothing more than a hired killer, my father tried to make him into a hero, so I grew up hearing about how great Half Hand was.” He hesitated. “When Half Hand died, my father was given some money, but my grandmother went through it within six months.”