Genuine Lies

by Nora Roberts

  Joseph shrugged, more than a little embarrassed to have a physical flaw. “I feel fine.”

  “Still congested. You eat lots of Teresa’s soup. Fluids, Joseph, to wash the poisons out. Your health is everything.”

  “Yes, Godfather.”

  “And stay close, Joseph. Drake may need some incentive.”

  Joseph grinned, nodded, and slipped away.

  In the spacious parlor, Drake sat in a comfy wing chair and drummed his fingers on his knees. When the rhythm failed to soothe him, he cracked his knuckles. He wasn’t sweating yet, or not badly. At his feet was a briefcase containing seven thousand dollars. It was short of the mark, and Drake cursed himself for that. He’d had fifteen after fencing Eve’s goodies. Though he understood he’d been thoroughly ripped off in the exchange of merchandise for cash, it had been enough. That is, until his trip to the track.

  He’d been so sure, so fucking sure that he could finesse the fifteen into thirty, even forty. The pressure would have been off for a while. He’d pored over the racing form, calculating his bets carefully. He’d even had a bottle of Dom Pérignon chilling at home, along with a snazzy little brunette keeping the sheets warm.

  Instead of marching back in triumph, he’d lost half of his investment.

  But it was going to be all right. He cracked his knuckles again. Pop. Pop. Pop. It was going to be just fine. Along with this seven thousand, he had three dubbed tapes in the briefcase.

  It had been so easy, he remembered. Bagging up a few choice items—things Eve wouldn’t miss. The old girl never wandered down to the guest house more than once or twice a year. Besides, she had so much, no one could remember where everything was kept. He figured it had been pretty clever of him to bring the blank tapes along. He’d have gotten more than three copied—but he’d heard someone coming in the back door.

  Drake smiled to himself. That was a little more insurance. He’d been able to hide in the storage closet and watch the person go through the tapes, listen to them. That might come in handy down the road.

  “He’s ready for you,” Joseph said, and led the way to the greenhouse.

  Drake followed, feeling superior. Thugs, he thought derivisely. The old man surrounded himself with thugs. Soft brains and well-defined bodies in Italian suits that wouldn’t show the bulge from a shoulder holster. A smart man could always outwit a goon.

  Oh, Christ, they were going into the greenhouse. Behind Joseph’s back, Drake rolled his eyes. He hated the place, the moist heat, the filtered light, the jungle of flowers he was expected to show interest in. Knowing the drill, he fixed a smile on his face as he entered.

  “I hope I’m not interrupting.”

  “Not at all.” Delrickio checked some soil with his thumb. “Just tending my ladies. I’m pleased to see you, Drake.” He nodded to Joseph, and the other man melted away. “Pleased that you’re prompt.”

  “I appreciate you seeing me on a Saturday.”

  Delrickio waved the thought away. Though his temperature control was the best on the market, he checked one of the six thermometers he had stationed throughout the long room. “You’re always welcome in my home. What have you brought me?”

  Smug, Drake set the case on a work table. After opening it, he stepped back to let Delrickio inspect the contents. “I see.”

  “Ah, I’m a little short on the payment.” He smiled, a young boy confessing to squandering his allowance. “I think the tapes might make up the difference.”

  “Do you?” was all Delrickio said. He didn’t bother to count the money, but moved on to examine a particularly fine example of an Odontoglossum triumphans. “How short?”

  “I have seven thousand.” Drake felt his armpits begin to leak and told himself it was the humidity.

  “So, your opinion is the tapes are worth one thousand apiece?”

  “I—ah … It was difficult to copy them. Risky. But I knew how interested you were.”

  “Interested, yes.” He took his time, moving from plant to plant. “So, after weeks of work, Ms. Summers has only three tapes?”

  “Well, no. Those were all I could copy.”

  Delrickio moved from plant to plant, examining, cooing, scolding his little darlings. “How many more?”

  “I’m not sure.” Drake loosened the knot in his tie and licked his lips. “Maybe six or seven.” He figured it was time to improvise. “She’s been on such a tight schedule, we haven’t had a lot of time to spend together, but we’re—”

  “Six or seven,” Delrickio interrupted. “So many, but you bring me only three, and a partial payment.” Delrickio’s voice was growing softer. A bad sign. “You disappoint me, Drake.”

  “Getting the tapes was dangerous. I was almost caught.”

  “This, of course, is not my problem.” He sighed. “I will give you some points for initiative. However, I will require the rest of the tapes.”

  “You want me to go back, to break in again?”

  “I want the tapes, Drake. The method of getting them is up to you.”

  “But I can’t do it. If I were caught, Eve would have my head on a platter.”

  “I would suggest you not get caught. Don’t disappoint me again. Joseph.”

  The man slid into the doorway, filled it.

  “Joseph will show you out, Drake. I’ll hear from you soon, yes?”

  Drake could only nod, relieved to step out into the breezeway, where the temperature dropped considerably. It took Delrickio only a moment to give his order. He held up a finger, bringing Joseph into the room. “A small lesson,” he said. “Don’t mark his face, I’m fond of him.”

  Drake gained confidence with each step. It hadn’t been so bad, really. The old man was a pushover, and he’d find a way to copy the other tapes. Delrickio might even forgive the rest of the debt if he managed it fast enough. When it came down to it, Drake figured he’d been damn clever.

  It surprised him when Joseph took his arm and yanked him off the path into a grove of pear trees. “What the fuck—”

  It was all he got out as a fist the size and weight of a bowling ball rammed into his gut. The air whooshed out of his lungs as he doubled over, his breakfast threatening to follow.

  The beating was passionless, methodical, and effective. Joseph held Drake upright with one beefy hand and used the other to bruise and batter, keeping the area confined to the sensitive internal organs. Kidneys, liver, intestines. In less than two minutes, with only the sound of Drake’s wheezing grunts to punctuate the thud of fist against flesh, he was done and let Drake slide limp to the ground. Knowing words weren’t needed to get the point across, he walked away in silence.

  Drake struggled to breathe as hot tears swam down his face. Breathing was agony. He didn’t understand this kind of pain, the kind that radiated out even to the fingertips. He vomited under the pear blossoms, and only terror that someone would come back to beat him again forced him up on watery legs to lurch to his car.

  Never again would Paul consider parenting a natural function in life. It was incredibly hard, exhausting, and intricate work. He may have been playing substitute daddy for only one evening, but by halftime he felt as though he’d run the Boston marathon on one leg.

  “Can I—”

  Paul merely lifted a brow before Dustin could finish. “Kid, if you eat one more thing, you’ll explode.”

  Dustin slurped at his jumbo Coke and grinned. “We haven’t had popcorn yet.”

  The only thing they’d missed, Paul thought. The boys had to have cast-iron stomachs. He glanced down at Brandon, who was holding his Lakers cap in his hands, studying the autographs he’d gotten on its bill before the game. Looking up, the boy flushed, grinned, and settled the cap back on his head.

  “This is the best night of my whole life.” He said with a simplicity and a certainty than men have briefly, and only in childhood.

  Since when did I get a marshmallow for a heart? Paul wondered. “Come on. We’ll hit the concessions one more time.”

  The
y watched the last half with their fingers greasy and their eyes trained on the action. The score seesawed, causing emotional outbursts from the crowd and the players. A basket missed, a rebound snatched, and the noise level rose like a river. One battle under the hoop resulted in a right cross, and an ejection.

  “He clothes-lined him!” Brandon shouted, scattering popcorn. “Did you see it?” Impassioned, he scrambled to stand on his seat as the boos echoed in the auditorium. “They threw out the wrong guy.”

  Since Paul was having such a good time watching Brandon’s reaction, he missed some of the pushy-shovy on the court. The boy was bouncing on the seat, slicing the Laker pennant through the air like an ax. Sprinkling his face was the sweat of the righteous.

  “Shit,” he said, then caught himself and shot Paul a sheepish look.

  “Hey, don’t expect me to wash your mouth out with soap. I couldn’t have said it better myself.”

  As they settled down to watch the foul shot, Brandon hugged the small victory to himself. He’d said shit, and been treated like a man. He was awfully glad his mother hadn’t been around.

  Julia was working late. Through tapes and transcripts she was back in the postwar forties, when Hollywood had glittered with its brightest stars and Eve had been a blazing comet. Or as Charlotte Miller had stated, a ruthless, ambitious piranha who’d enjoyed devouring the competition.

  No love lost there, Julia mused as she leaned back from the keyboard. Charlotte and Eve had vied for many of the same roles, had been romanced by many of the same men. Twice they had been up for the Oscar at the same time.

  One particularly valiant director had guided them through a movie together, a period piece set in prerevolutionary France. The press had gleefully reported the squabbles over close-ups, dressing rooms, hairdressers, even the amount of cleavage to be shown. The Battle of the Boobs had amused the public for weeks—-and the movie had been a smash.

  The joke around town was that the director had been in therapy ever since. And of course, neither actress spoke to the other, only about the other.

  It was an interesting bit of Hollywood lore, particularly since when pressed, Charlotte wasn’t able to fault Eve’s professional skills. Even more interesting to Julia was Charlotte Miller’s brief involvement with Charlie Gray.

  To refresh her own memory, Julia replayed a portion of Charlotte’s tape.

  “Charlie was a delightful man, full of fun and excitement.” Charlotte’s crisp, almost staccato voice warmed slightly when she spoke of him. Like her beauty, it had hardened a bit with time, but was still distinctive and admirable. “He was a much finer actor than he was ever given credit for. What he lacked was the presence—the leading-man dash the studios and the public demanded in those days. Of course, he wasted himself on Eve.”

  There was a chorus of quick high barks that made Julia smile. Charlotte owned a trio of cranky Pomeranians who had the run of her Bel Air mansion.

  “There are my babies, my sweet babies.” Charlotte cooed and clucked. Julia recalled that she had fed caviar from a Baccarat bowl placed right on the Aubusson rug to the yipping balls of fur.

  “Don’t be greedy, Lulu. Let your sisters have their share. What a sweet girl. What a good girl. Mommy’s baby. Now, where was I?”

  “You were telling me about Charlie and Eve.” Julia heard the suppressed laughter in her taped voice. Luckily, Charlotte hadn’t noticed.

  “Yes, of course. Well, he completely lost his head over her. Dear Charlie had poor judgment when it came to women, and Eve was unscrupulous. She used him to get a screen test, kept him dangling until she’d landed that part in Desperate Lives with Michael Torrent. If you recall, she was cast as a slut for the film, and the casting was superb.” She’d given a sniff as she’d fed her greedy dogs bits of salmon. “He was completely devastated when she and Michael became lovers.”

  “Isn’t that when your name began to be linked with his?”

  “We were friends,” Charlotte said primly. “I’m happy to say I gave Charlie a shoulder to cry on, and by attending certain functions and parties with him, helped him save face. That’s not to say Charlie wasn’t a little bit in love with me, but I’m afraid he believed Eve and I were of a kind. Which we most certain were not and are not. I enjoyed him. Consoled him. He was also having trouble around that time, financial trouble due to one of his ex-wives. There was a child, you see, and the ex-wife insisted that Charlie pay through the nose so the baby could be raised in high style. Charlie, being Charlie, paid.”

  “Do you know what happened to the child?”

  “I can’t say that I do. In any case, I did what I could for Charlie, but when Eve married Michael, he went over the edge.” There was a long pause, then a sigh. “Even in death, Charlie boosted Eve’s career. The fact that he had killed himself for love of her made headlines, and created a legend. Eve, the woman men would kill themselves for.”

  The legend, Julia mused. The mystique. The star. Yet the book wasn’t about those things. It was personal, intimate, honest. She picked up a pen and scrawled on a legal pad.

  EVE THE WOMAN

  And there, Julia thought, was her title.

  She began to type, and was soon lost in a story that as yet had no end. Over an hour passed before she stopped, reaching for a watered-down Pepsi with one hand and opening her drawer with another. Wanting to check a minor detail from the pages she’d already drafted, she leafed through them. When a small square of paper fell out and landed on her lap, she could only stare at it.

  As fate would have it, the sheet had fallen faceup. The boldly printed words leered at her.

  BETTER SAFE THAN SORRY

  Julia sat very still, ordering herself not to give in to a quick clutch of fear. They were ridiculous, even laughable, these clichéd aphorisms. It was someone’s poor idea of a joke.

  But whose? And she’d looked through those pages just the other day, after the break-in. Hadn’t she?

  Straining for calm, she closed her eyes and rubbed the glass, damp with condensation, against her cheek. She hadn’t found it then—that was the only explanation. Whoever had gone through the tapes had planted it there.

  She didn’t want to believe, couldn’t bear to believe that someone had come back after the security had been tightened. After she’d started locking the doors and windows whenever she left the house.

  No. Julia picked up the note and crumpled it in her hand. It had been there for days, waiting for her to find it. The very fact that she had shown no reaction was bound to discourage the author.

  Yet she found it impossible to stand inside, alone in the quiet house with darkness pressing on the windows. Without giving herself time to think, she ran upstairs and changed into her bathing suit. The pool was heated, she reminded herself. She’d take a quick swim, stretch her muscles, relax her mind. She tossed her frayed terry robe over her shoulders, and a towel around her neck.

  Steam was rising out of that deep blue water when she shucked her robe. She shivered once, sucked in her breath, dove. She cut through the water, swam deep, imagining all her tension floating up on the surface to become as insubstantial as the steam climbing into the air.

  Fifteen minutes later, she rose up in the shallow end, hissing through her teeth as the chill air hit her wet skin. And she felt wonderful. Laughing to herself, rubbing her arms, she started to haul herself from the water, starting when a towel landed on her head.

  “Dry off,” Eve suggested. She was sitting at the round table on the tiled apron. A bottle and two glasses stood in front of her. In her hand was a fat white geranium she’d plucked from her own beds. “And let’s have a drink.”

  Automatically Julia scrubbed the towel over her hair. “I didn’t hear you come out.”

  “You were busy shooting for the Olympic record.” She passed the geranium under her nose before laying it aside. “Haven’t you ever heard of a leisurely swim?”

  With a grin, Julia straightened up and reached for her robe. “I was on the swim te
am in high school. I always did the last leg of the relays. And I always won.”

  “Ah, competitive.” Eve’s eyes glittered approval as she poured two glasses of champagne. “Let’s drink to the victor.”

  Julia sat, accepted the glass. “Do we have one yet?”

  This brought a rich burst of laughter. “Oh, I like you, Julia.”

  Mellowed, Julia touched her glass to Eve’s. “I like you too.”

  There was a pause while Eve lit a cigarette. “So, tell me.” She blew out smoke that vanished into the dark. “What brings you out for a not so leisurely swim?”

  Julia thought about the note, then dismissed it. The mood here was much too easy to spoil. And, if she were honest, it hadn’t been only the note that had sent her out. It had been loneliness, the crushing weight of an empty house.