“You were right.”
“About what?”
“Alejandro.”
“Yeah. I know.” Lucas had been lost in his own thoughts all the way to the subway. “That sonofabitch is going to get himself killed up here one of these days with his goddamn groups and his fucking ideals. I wish he’d get the hell out.”
“Maybe he can’t.”
“Oh yeah?” Lucas was pissed. He was worried about his friend.
“It’s kind of like a war, Luke. You fight yours, he fights his. Neither of you really cares if you get sacrificed in the process. It’s the end result that matters. To both of you. He’s not so different from you. Not in the way he thinks. He’s doing what he has to do.”
Lucas nodded, still looking disgruntled, but he knew she was right. She was very perceptive. It surprised him sometimes. For someone as dumb as she was about her own life, she had a way of putting her finger right on the spot for others.
“You’re wrong about one thing, though.”
“What?”
“He isn’t like me at all.”
“What makes you say that?”
“There isn’t a mean bone in his body.”
“But there is in yours?” A smile started to light in her eyes. Mr. Macho was talking.
“You better believe it, Mama. Lots of them. You don’t live through what I did, six years in the California prison system, if you’re made like him. Someone turns you into a punk, and if you don’t dig it, you die the next day.” Kezia was silent as they started their journey back into the subway.
“He was never in prison then?” She had assumed that he had been, because Luke was.
“Alejandro?” Luke let out a hearty bass laugh. “Nope. All his brothers were, though. He was visiting one of his brothers at Folsom. And I dug him. When I switched to another joint, he got special permission to come and see me. We’ve been brothers since then. But Alejandro’s not on the same trip, never was. He went the other way from the rest of his family. Magna cum laude at Stanford.”
“Christ, he’s so unassuming.”
“That’s why he’s beautiful, babe. And the dude has a heart of pure gold.”
The arriving train swallowed their words, and they rode home in silence. She tugged at his sleeve at the Seventy-seventh Street stop.
“This is us.” He nodded, smiled, and stood up. He was back to himself again, she could see it. The worry for Alejandro had faded from his face. He had other things on his mind now.
“Baby, I love you.” He held her in his arms as the train pulled away, and their lips met and held. And then suddenly he looked at her, worried again. “Is this uncool?”
“Huh?” She didn’t know what he meant, as he pulled away from her looking embarrassed.
“Well, I can dig your not wanting to wind up in the papers. I made you a lot of speeches last night, but I do understand how you feel. Being yourself is one thing, making page one is another.”
“Thank God I never do that. Page five maybe, page four even, but never page one. That’s reserved for homicides, rapes, and stock market disasters.” She laughed up at him again. “It’s okay, Luke. It was ‘cool.” Besides …” there was mischief in her eyes … “remarkably, very few of my friends ride the subway. It’s silly of them, actually. This is such a marvelous way to travel!” There was pure debutante in her voice as she fluttered her eyelashes at him, and he gave her a severe look from the top of his height.
“I’ll be sure to keep that in mind.” He took her hand and swung it as they walked along with matched smiles.
“Want to pick up something to eat?” They were passing a store that sold barbecued chickens.
“No.”
“Aren’t you hungry?” She was suddenly famished. It had been a long day.
“Yes. I’m hungry.”
“Well?” He was hurrying her along the street and she didn’t understand, and then with a look at his face she understood. Perfectly. “Lucas, you’re awful!”
“Tell me that later.” He took her by the hand, and laughing, they ran over the subway grate, and then turned the corner toward home.
“Lucas! The doorman!” They looked like disheveled children, running helter-skelter down the street hand in hand. They came to a screeching halt outside the door to her building. He followed her decorously inside, as they both fought to stifle giggles. They stood in the elevator like altar boys, and then collapsed in laughter in the hallway as Kezia dug for her key.
“Come on, come on!” He ran a hand smoothly under her jacket, and slid it inside her shirt.
“Stop it, Luke!!” She laughed and searched harder for the elusive key.
“If you don’t find the damn thing at the count of ten, I’m going to …”
“No, you’re not!”
“Yes, I am. Right here in the hall.” He smiled and ran his mouth over the top of her head.
“Stop that! Wait … got it!” She pulled the key triumphantly from her bag.
“Nuts. I was beginning to hope you wouldn’t find it.”
“You’re a disgrace.” The door swung open and he lunged for her as they stepped inside, and swept her into his arms to carry her to their bed. “No, Lucas, stop!”
“Are you kidding?”
She arched her neck regally, perched in his arms, looked him in the eye and bristled, but there was mirth in her eyes. “I am not kidding. Put me down. I have to go wee-wee.”
“Wee-wee?” Luke’s face broke into broad lines of laughter. “Wee-wee?”
“Yes, wee-wee.” He put her down and she crossed her legs and giggled again.
“Why didn’t you say so. I mean if I’d known that …” His laughter filled the hall as she disappeared toward the pink bathroom.
She was back in a minute, and tenderness had replaced the spirit of teasing. She had kicked off her shoes on the way, and stood barefoot before him, her long hair framing her face, her eyes large and bright, and something happy in her face that had never been there before.
“You know something? I love you.” He pulled her into his arms and gave her a gentle hug.
“I love you too. You’re something I’ve imagined, but never thought I’d find.”
“Neither did I. I think I’d resigned myself to not finding it, and just going on as I was.”
“And how was that?”
“Lonely.”
“I know that trip too.”
They walked silently into the bedroom and he turned down the bed as she stepped out of her jeans. Even the Porthault sheets no longer embarrassed her, they were lovely for Luke.
Chapter 13
“Lucas?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you all right?” It was a dark in the bedroom and she was sitting up, looking down at him, with a hand on his shoulder. The bed was damp around them.
“I’m fine. What time is it?”
“Quarter to five.”
“Christ.” He rolled over on his back, and looked up at her, groggy. “What are you doing up, babe?”
“I wasn’t. But you had a bad dream.” A very bad dream.
“Don’t worry about it. I’m sorry I woke you.”
He stroked one breast tenderly with his eyes half-closed, and she smiled. “My snoring’s worse, though. You got off lucky.”
But she was worried. The bed was drenched from his thrashings.
“I think I’d rather you snored. You sounded so upset. Frightened, I think.” At the last, he’d been trembling.
“Don’t worry about it, Mama. You’ll get used to it.”
“Do you have dreams like that often?” He shrugged in answer, and reached for his cigarettes.
“Smoke?” She shook her head.
“Do you want a glass of water?”
He laughed as he flicked out the match. “No, Miss Nightingale, I don’t. Cut it out, Kezia. What do you expect? I’ve been a lot of funny places in my life. They leave their mark.”
But like that? She had watched him for almost twenty m
inutes before waking him. He acted as though he were being tortured.
“Is that … is that from when you were in prison?” She hated to ask, but he only shrugged again.
“One thing’s for sure. It isn’t from making love to you. I told you, don’t worry about it.” He propped himself up on one elbow and kissed her. But she could still see terror in his eyes.
“Luke?” Something had just occurred to her.
“What?”
“How long are you staying here?”
“Till tomorrow.” “That’s all?”
“That’s all.” And then, as he saw the look on her face, he stubbed out his cigarette and drew her into his arms. “There’ll be more. This is just the beginning. You don’t think I want to lose you, after it took me all these years to find you, do you?” She smiled in answer, and they lay side by side in the dark, silent, until at last they fell asleep. Even Luke slept peacefully this time, which was rarer than Kezia knew. Lately, since they had started following him again, he had nightmares every night.
“Breakfast?” She was pulling on the white satin robe and smiled at him crookedly as she stretched.
“Just coffee, thanks. Black. I hate to rush through breakfast and I don’t have much time.” He had leaped from the bed and was already pulling on his clothes.
“You don’t?” She remembered again. He was leaving.
“Don’t look like that, Kezia. I told you, there’ll be more. Lots more.” He patted her bottom and she slipped easily into his arms.
“I’ll miss you so much when you go.”
“And I’ll miss you too. Mr. Hallam, you’re a very beautiful woman.”
“Oh, shut up.” She laughed, but it embarrassed her when he reminded her of the column. “What time’s your plane?”
“Eleven.”
“Shit.” He laughed at her, and ambled slowly down the hall, his large frame rolling easily in his own special gait. She watched him silently, leaning in the bedroom doorway, reflecting that it seemed as if they had been together forever—teasing, laughing, riding subways, talking late into the night, watching each other sleep and wake, and sharing a cigarette and early morning thoughts before coffee.
“Lucas! Coffee!” She set a steaming cup down on the sink for him, and tapped his shoulder through the shower curtain. It all felt so natural, so familiar, so good.
He reached around the curtain for the cup, leaned his head out and took a sip. “Good coffee. Are you coming in?”
She shook her head. “No, thanks. I’m a bath person myself.”
Given her choice, she always preferred bathing. It was less of a shock first thing in the morning. It was all part of a ritual. Dior Bath Oil, the perfumed water just warm enough and just high enough to cover her chest in the deep pink marble tub, then emerging into warm towels and her cozy white satin dressing gown, and favorite satin slippers with the ostrich plumes and the pink velvet heels. Luke grinned at her as she stood watching him, and extended an arm to invite her to join him.
“Come on in.”
“No, Luke. Really. I’ll wait.” She was still in a slow, sleepy mood.
“Nope. You won’t wait.” And then with an unexpected, swift, one-handed motion he slipped the robe from her shoulders, and before she could protest, he had lifted her from her feet in the crook of his arm, and deposited her in the cascade of water beside him.
“I was missing you, babe.” He grinned broadly as she spluttered and pulled the strands of wet hair from her eyes. She was naked, save for the ostrich-plumed slippers.
“Oh! You … you … bastard!” She pulled the slippers from her feet, tossed them out of the tub, and hit him in the shoulder with the flat of her hand. But she was fighting laughter too, and he knew it. He silenced her with a kiss and her arms went around him as he leaned down to kiss her. He shielded her from the sheets of steaming water, and she found her hands traveling down from his waist to his thighs.
“I knew you’d like it once you got in.” His eyes were bright and teasing.
“You’re a miserable, rotten, oversized bully, Lucas Johns, that’s what you are.” But the tone did not match the words.
“But I love you.” He oozed male arrogance and a sort of animal sensuality, mixed with a tenderness all his own.
“I love you too,” and as he closed his eyes to kiss her, she ducked him and directed the shower head full in his face, ducking down to nip playfully at one thigh.
“Hey, Mama, watch that! Next time you might miss!” But where he feared she would bite him, she kissed him, as the shower rippled through her hair and down her back, warming them both. He pulled her up slowly, his hands traveling over her body, and their lips met as he pulled her high into his arms and settled her with legs wrapped around his waist.
“Kezia, you’re crazy.”
“Why?” They were comfortably ensconced in a rented limousine, and she looked totally at ease.
“This isn’t the way most people travel, you know.”
“Yeah. I know.” She smiled sheepishly at him, and nibbled his ear. “But admit it, it’s fun.”
“It certainly is. But it gives me one hell of a guilt complex.”
“Why?”
“Because this isn’t my style. I don’t know, it’s hard to explain.”
“Then just shut up and enjoy it.” She giggled, but she knew what he meant. She had seen other worlds too. “You know, Luke, I’ve spent half of my life trying to deny this way of life, and the other half giving in to it and hating it, or hating myself for being self-indulgent. But all of a sudden, it doesn’t bother me, I don’t hate it, it doesn’t even own me anymore. It just seems like a hell of a funny thing to do, and why not?”
“In that light, it isn’t so bad. You surprise me, Kezia. You’re spoiled and you’re not. You take this stuff for granted, and then again you laugh at it like a little kid. I dig it like this. You make it fun.” He looked pleased as he lit a cigar. She had armed him with a box of Romanoff Cubans.
“I dig it like this, too. Like this, my love, it’s a whole other trip.”
They held hands in the back of the limousine and JFK Airport appeared much too soon. The glass window had been up between them and the chauffeur, and Kezia pressed the button to lower the window, to remind him which terminal they wanted. Then she buzzed the window back into place.
“Sweetheart, you’re a bitch.”
“That’s a nice contradiction.”
“You know what I mean.” He looked briefly at the window.
“Yeah. I do.”
They exchanged the supercilious smile of people born to command, one by her heritage, the other by his soul. They rode the rest of the way in silence, holding hands. But something inside Kezia quivered at the thought of his leaving. What if she never saw him again? What if it had all been a fling? She had bared her soul to this stranger, and left her heart unguarded, and now he was going.
But in his own silence, Luke had the same fears. And those weren’t his only fears. He had felt it in his gut. Cop cars were all the same, pale blue, drab green, dark tan, with a tall shuddering antenna on the back He could always feel them, and he had felt this one. And now it was tailing them at a discreet distance. He wondered how they had known he was at Kezia’s. It made him wonder if they had followed him that night from Washington, if even on the late-night walk to her apartment, he had been tailed. They were doing that more and more lately. It wasn’t just near the prisons. It was getting to be everywhere now. The bastards.
The chauffeur checked Luke’s bags in for him, while Kezia waited in the car. It was only a few moments before Luke stuck his head back in the car.
“You coming to the gate with me, babe?”
“Is this like the shower or do I have a choice?” They grinned at each other with the memory of the morning.
“I’ll let you use your judgment on this one. I trust mine in the shower.”
“So do I.”
He looked at his watch and her smile disappeared.
&
nbsp; “Maybe you’d better stay here, and just go back in to the city. It would be stupid for you to get into a lot of hassles.” He shared her concern. He knew what it would do to her to have a fuss made in the papers, in case someone saw them. And he was no Whitney Hayworth III. He was Lucas Johns, and newsworthy in his own right, but not in a way that would have been easy for Kezia. And what if the cops in the blue car approached him? It could ruin everything with her, might scare her off.
She held her arms out to kiss him, and he leaned toward her.
“I’m going to miss you, Lucas.”
“I’ll miss you too.” He pressed his mouth down hard on hers, and she stroked the hair on the back of his head. His mouth tasted of toothpaste and Cuban cigars; it was a combination that pleased her. Clean and powerful, like Luke.
Straightforward, and alive.
“God, I hate to see you go.” Tears crept close to her eyes, and suddenly he withdrew.
“None of that. I’ll call you tonight.” And in a flash, he was gone. The door thumped discreetly shut, and she watched his back as he strode away. He never turned back to look, as silent tears slid down her cheeks.
She left the window to the chauffeur as it had been. Closed. She had nothing to say to him. The drive back to the city was bleak. She wanted to be alone with the cigar smoke, and her thoughts of the day and two nights before. Her thoughts rambled back to the present. Why hadn’t she gone to the gate with him? What was she afraid of? Was she ashamed of him? Why hadn’t she had the balls to …
The window sped down abruptly and the driver looked in the rearview mirror in surprise.
“I want to go back.”
“Excuse me, miss?”
“I want to go back to the airport. The gentleman forgot something in the car.” She pulled an envelope from her handbag and clutched it importantly in her lap. A flimsy excuse, the guy had to think she was nuts, but she didn’t give a damn. She just wanted to get back there in time. A time for courage had come. There was no turning back now, and Luke had to know that. Right at the start.
“I’ll take the next exit, miss, and double back as soon as I can.”
She sat tensely in the back seat, wondering if they would get there too late. But it was hard to argue with the chauffeur’s driving, as he weaved in and out of lanes, passing trucks at terrifying speeds, all but flying. They pulled up outside the terminal twenty minutes after they had left it, and she was out the door almost before the driver had brought the car to a full stop at the curb. She darted through traveling executives, old women with poodles, young women with wigs, and tearful farewells, and breathlessly she looked up to check the gate number for the flight to Chicago.
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