"Amazing. And what happened?" Saint Just asked, intrigued.
"And she took the money. Put it in the bank for him—over one hundred bucks! Wouldn't let him touch it. God, was he mad!" She smiled at Tate. "It's one of my happiest childhood memories. Yeah, that's it—money. I have to call Bernie in the morning, pick her brain. She's sneaky enough, and knows enough about finances. She'll come up with something."
"Maggie and Bernie on a Tate hunt. I almost find it in my heart to pity the fellow. But not quite."
"Good, because I'd have to hurt you. Okay, now, who's left on the Kelly hit parade? Oh, right, Maureen. Boy, there's a mess, huh?"
"We have to speak to her again, I'm afraid."
"But not me, Sherlock. It wouldn't get us anywhere. I don't want to look at her, and I doubt she wants to look at me. Not until we both get used to the idea that I know she was bopping Mom's ex-lover. Oh, God, there goes my stomach, turning over again."
"Very well, I'll speak to her tomorrow, while you and Sterling are in the city to see your surgeon."
"Doctor, Alex. Don't say surgeon. If this stupid bone moved, I'll be in surgery on Tuesday. Think miraculous healing, think nifty walking cast. God knows I am. Are you sure you don't want to go back with me?"
"Someone has to remain close to your father, my dear. And, if I'm delicate enough—which I have no doubt I will be—and with his daughter gone for the day, he may just confide in me. We must know where he was from the time he says he left Bodkin in the parking lot of the bowling establishment and the time the police arrived to arrest him. Clearly Cynthia Spade-Whitaker isn't rushing to establish an ironclad alibi for the poor man, put an end to this nonsense. J.P. can't return from her vacation soon enough to please me."
"Agreed. You'll have to tell him that you know about Mom and Maureen and Bodkin. That won't be fun."
"I will have spent more pleasurable hours, I'm sure, yes, but I will persevere." He put his arm around her shoulders. "You're beginning to shiver. Let me carry you upstairs."
"Not yet. I want a cigarette," Maggie said, regarding nothing. "I'd kill for a cigarette, Alex. I've been good, I've been brave, but I don't think I can hold it together much longer, not without outside help. Give me the walker, will you? I'll bet that convenience store down on Ninth is open. I'll get dizzy, the first couple of drags, because I did before, that time I quit for a whole week last year, but I can fight through it."
"Maggie ..."
"Mag-gie," she repeated, dripping sarcasm. "I need the real thing, Alex. It helps me think. It has been medically proven that, only seven seconds after taking a hit, the brain sort of, sort of perks up. If we're going to get Dad out of this mess, I need to be able to think, and on all cylinders. Please?"
"You've been so strong, for so long," he pointed out to her, part of him feeling sympathy for her, the other part knowing that she'd broken her addiction and she would hate herself if she slipped back into it now.
"Yeah, big deal. I made the world happy, I quit smoking. And now New York is after my trans fats. What's next for them, Alex, hmm? What are they going to stand up on their sanctimonious pedestals and condemn next? Because they're not done, not now that they've tasted success. Give the do-gooders a hand, and they take the whole freaking arm."
"Maggie, you're digressing."
"No, I'm not. I'm speaking the truth, Alex. They won't be happy until the rest of the world is miserable, and all marching in lockstep for what they want, what they see as best for everyone else. I see regimented, mandatory exercise in our futures, Alex, no lie. And book burning. And an official national religion. They'll just take, and take, and take. We never should have let them get away with the No Smoking crap. That was the first mistake. They're heady with power now. You'll see, everyone will be sorry when their own personal ox gets gored. They came for my neighbor's Marlboros, and I said nothing. They came for my other neighbor's french fries in saturated fat, and I said nothing. And then they came for me ..."
"Maggie, now you're obsessing."
"Damn straight, I'm obsessing. I have a right to obsess, to go a little nuts. My mother and sister were banging the same guy, and my dad's going to be on trial for killing the bastard. My brother's a worm. Erin bailed out years ago and won't be any help. Maureen? Get real. She's less than worthless right now. It's on me, Alex. It's all on me. And I can't even have a crummy cigarette."
"You've got me. And Sterling. You know you've got us standing at your back. You're not alone in this, Maggie."
"I can help, too, you know."
Saint Just grabbed onto Maggie's shoulders as she visibly jumped, and they both looked up to see Henry Novack standing on the sidewalk, holding onto the street lamp.
"Well, I can. Nobody knows me here. I can scoot around, asking questions, keeping one ear to the ground. Maybe find out things you two can't. For a price, of course."
"I don't believe this," Maggie said, pulling the walker open and bracing herself against it as she stood. "What are you doing here, Novack? And where are your wheels?"
"Back at the van, around the corner. Gets heavy, lifting it in and out, you know."
Saint Just looked down the street, then at Novack. "You don't need the cart, Mr. Novack? You're not infirm?"
"Hey, watch it. Obesity is an infirmity. You're not blind, sport, you can see what I look like. I'm morbidly obese. Four hundred twenty-seven and a half pounds at my last weigh-in. They weigh me on a fucking meat scale, pardon my French. I got good reason to have that cart. Is it my fault my mother overfed me, pushed food on me twenty-four/seven, huh? Set me up for a miserable life like this?"
"Mothers really can screw you up, can't they, Novack?" Maggie said, hopping toward him. "But you have to acknowledge that, forgive your past, and move on. Take responsibility for your own actions."
Henry Novack looked past Maggie to Saint Just. "Women. Always got an answer, don't they?" He turned back to Maggie. "You want my help or not?"
"Not," Maggie said, turning the walker and heading back to the steps. "Now go away."
"Come on, come on. I'm on Disability. I could use the extra bucks. Under the table, like, you know? Okay, here's the thing. I'll go out hunting tomorrow, give you something for free. I give you something, prove myself, and I'm on the payroll. Is it a deal?"
"Will you go away if I say yes?" Maggie asked as Saint Just coughed into his hand to hide his amusement. They were like children, squabbling. He should probably give one a carton of cigarettes, and the other a joint of beef to gnaw on, before things turned nasty.
"With some money, you know, I could go into one of those treatment centers? One of those fat farms? I'm forty-two. I have a life to live, somewhere inside me. Where the thin person lives. You took my machine, cost me my jackpot, cost me my chance. You killed me, Maggie Kelly. Now you have to save me."
"Oh, for crying out loud. Just what I need, another guilt trip. Alex?" Maggie bleated. "Help me."
Saint Just got to his feet. "You make a convincing argument, Mr. Novack," he told him. "Now, how can we use you, hmm? I know. Tomorrow, why don't you take yourself over to the bowling alley, listen to people talking, and then come back, tell us what they said? I agree, Maggie and I both would be too obvious. And, although it would be impossible to say that you, Mr. Novack, would blend into any crowd, I do think you wouldn't arouse any suspicions, now would you?"
"Not if he hangs out at the snack bar," Maggie grumbled, balancing rather precariously on her good foot. "Can we go upstairs now? I think I've just about had enough for one day."
"When do I meet you?" Novack asked, pushing away from the streetlamp, his enormous face shiny with sweat in the December chill. "Not the Music Pier, but maybe here? Same time, same place, tomorrow night?"
"Yes, that would be fine. But please bring your cart. You don't look well, Mr. Novack."
"I'll look a lot better when the thin guy gets out," he said sincerely.
And then Henry Novack shuffled off down the street, his massive corduroy slacks swush-s
wush-ing together audibly between his thighs, his shape in the fading light reminiscent of one of the balloon characters Sterling had so admired in the recent Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in Manhattan.
"The entire world has problems, Maggie," Saint Just told her as she leaned against him while he folded the walker. "And we all deal with them in our own way. Mr. Novack eats."
"And I smoke. Someone else crawls into a bottle, or hits things, or shops for fancy cars they can't afford. I get it, Alex, you don't have to hammer the nail all the way in. I'll make it through this without the damn nicotine, I promise. He's really something, isn't he?"
Saint Just lifted her up into his arms. "You're going to give him money, aren't you, sweetings? You've always been planning to give him money."
"I took his machine, Alex. You can say I didn't. The people at the casino can say I didn't. But I did. I saw him look at it, and I took it. With malice of forethought, you could say."
"Well, at least now we can pretend that he's earned whatever largesse with which you propose to shower him, hmm?"
"Works for me," Maggie told him, snuggling close. "At least something's working out ..."
Chapter Fifteen
Socks ran out into the street to assist Maggie from the rental car, helping her hop to the curb and then stepping away from her, bowing to her three times, his arms stretched out in front of him. "All hail, all hail!"
"What the hell do you think you're doing, Socks?" Maggie asked as Sterling brought her the walker from the backseat.
"I'm bowing to brilliance, of course. Maggie Kelly won the big jackpot. Three-point-something mill –ion dollars. Quick, rub my arm. Give me some of your luck."
"You're an idiot," Maggie said, pushing past him. "You have no idea how much trouble that jackpot has caused me." But he took hold of her arm, holding her back.
"I think I do, Maggie. You don't want to go in there. Not until I clean out the place."
"Clean it out of what?" Maggie asked him, eyeing the doorway to the condo building with some trepidation. "And don't tell me someone else mailed me a rat. That joke isn't funny anymore."
Socks looked to his left and right, as if expecting attack from some unknown quarter. "No. Not rats. Leeches."
Maggie grimaced, feeling sick. "That's not funny, Socks. Rats aren't funny. Roaches aren't funny, either, but at least most of them are native New Yorkers and will outlive us all. But leeches aren't funny. Not even a little bit."
"I know. And these are human leeches. They started showing up here the minute the newspapers identified you as the big winner in A.C. I've been keeping them out, keeping them away. But it's cold, you know, and I felt sorry for a couple of them. Such sad stories, Maggie. Every one of them had a sad story, and every one of them thought I needed to hear it. I think they were practicing on me."
Maggie hopped backward, planning a hasty retreat. "You've got people in the lobby now, Socks? That isn't allowed. Damn it, Socks, it's not allowed." That last was, unfortunately, even to her own ears, a bit of a whine.
"Okay, okay, so give me a minute to get rid of them, all right? It's just the guy with the warts all over his chin and Mrs. O'Reilly. She wants a bus ticket to Las Vegas, to visit her grandson—plane fare, if you can see it in your heart to keep an old woman off the bus. Except I don't really think her name is O'Reilly, and I don't think she has a grandson. And I guess I don't have to tell you what the wart guy wants, huh? Money for wart removal. Hey I told you anyway! Sorry."
"Warts all over his—? Never mind, just get rid of him. And the grandma, too. Wait. I'm going to regret asking this—but why don't you think her name is O'Reilly?"
"Because she keeps saying begorra, and blessin's o' the Irish on ye, mate. With a Brooklyn accent you could slice salami with. You stay here, you and Sterling—hi ya, Sterlman—and I'll boost them out of there."
"Your first thought, and still a good one," Maggie said, balancing on the walker and longing to be upstairs, in her own condo, maybe with a hot cup of tea, begorra.
"I'll stand in front of you, Maggie," Sterling offered valiantly. "Block you from sight, and all of that."
"Thank you, Sterling. People are crazy. You know that, Sterling? People are just plain nuts. Do they really believe they can make up some sad story out here, on the street, and I'll reach in my pocket and throw money at them?"
"Saint Just said you're going to pay the man in the go-cart."
"Maybe. Maybe I'm going to pay the guy in the go-cart. But that's different, Sterling. At least he offered to work for the money. It's what people do, you know. They work. Most of them."
"I don't," Sterling said quietly, "and you and Saint Just are going to give me all of the money. That doesn't seem fair. I don't think I'll take it."
"Oh, jeez." Stupid, stupid! She should have seen that one coming. Maggie lowered her head, wishing she felt less harassed, wishing she felt more human, wishing herself out of the cast and her father out of trouble. Maybe then she could speak without putting her remaining good foot in her mouth. "No, Sterling, sweetheart, it isn't the same."
"How isn't it the same, Maggie?" Sterling asked, shielding her as a red-haired woman (clearly a recent, and unfortunate, dye job) and a tall, thin man with what looked to be bits of macaroni glued to his cheeks and chin exited the lobby, Socks prodding from the back.
"I could have made better warts with Silly Putty," Maggie grumbled as Socks herded the people all the way to the corner, and then looked at Sterling once more. "It isn't the same, Sterling, because ... because ... I'm freezing, Sterling, let's go inside while the coast is clear."
They made it to the elevator before Socks trotted back into the lobby. "Maggie? I read in the paper that you don't get the whole three million right away, that they divvy it up over a bunch of years. Maybe twenty? Is that true?"
"I think that's right, Socks," Maggie told him, the look on the doorman's face warning her that another shoe was ready to drop. As it stood now, she had enough footwear falling on her head to open her own shoe store. "Why?"
"Oh, nothing. So, after the Feds take their share, and the rest is split up over that many years—you didn't really win much, did you?"
Maggie grinned at him. "Why, Socks, I didn't know you were from the glass-half-empty school of thought. I think I still get pretty much. I mean, it's better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, right?"
"She's giving it to me," Sterling told him, his expression pained. "For doing nothing."
"Not for doing nothing, Sterling. I already have money. Alex has his own money now that he's modeling for Fragrances by Pierre, not to mention the money he gets from his Streetcorner Orators and Players—not that I ever like mentioning that because I still can't believe the profit he's pulling in with that deal. Anyway, it's only fair, since you're here, that you have some money of your own, too."
"Since I'm here?"
Maggie looked at Socks, and then rolled her eyes at Sterling warningly. "Later, okay?"
"Since I just happened to come along, Maggie? I didn't ask to come along, you know. I only thought Saint Just might need me. I didn't know I was such a burden to you both."
Socks looked from Maggie to Sterling. "Guess I'll ... I'll go see if anyone wants a taxi, huh?"
"Yeah. Why don't you do that, Socks. We'll talk later." Maggie hopped onto the elevator when the doors mercifully opened. "Sterling? Come on, honey. Come upstairs with me."
"If I'm wanted," he said, showing Maggie a heretofore unknown dramatic bent.
The doors closed on them and she turned on him. "What's going on, Sterling? You don't pout. You don't sulk. You're the happiest man I know. And you were happy when Alex and I said we wanted to give our share of the jackpot to you. You already had one third of it, remember?"
"I don't know what's wrong with me, Maggie," Sterling said as he held open the elevator doors when the car reached their floor. "I'm being ungrateful, aren't I? Yes, that's what I'm feeling. Put out. Ungrateful. Snarky? What an uncomfortable feeling. My goo
dness, how do you people stand it?"
Maggie extracted her keys from her pocket and opened the door to her condo. "Let's go inside, Sterling. Talk about this some more," she said, looking over her shoulder at him, as he was about to open the door to the condo he shared with Alex, and leave her. "Please?"
"I should check on Henry."
"Henry will be fine for another five minutes. Oh, cripes, and here comes the thundering herd," she said as Wellington and Napoleon charged out of the kitchen, to tangle themselves around the legs of the walker. "I'd think you loved me, you fuzzy little rug rats, but I'm guessing this just means you're sick of the self-feeder dry stuff and want a can of the smelly stuff, right?"
The Persians, tails lifted straight in the air, turned as one and padded back toward the kitchen, just as though Maggie would naturally follow, eager to please them. Which she would do. But not until she and Sterling had a small talk.
"Your mail, Maggie," Sterling said, picking up a fairly thick stack of mail that included the familiar red stripe-edged white envelope from Toland Books.
"Probably Christmas cards from people I forgot to send to," she said, sighing. "And that big one? That's fan mail forwarded from Toland Books. It can all wait, Sterling. Come on, sit down. Let's talk about this."
"Must we? I'm feeling quite the ape now, thank you. I'd much rather take myself off to be by myself for a while, attempt to understand what's happening to me that I'm so upset with you and Saint Just for—well, for being you and Saint Just. I only want to apologize for looking a gift horse in the face."
"Mouth. But I know what you mean, Sterling. We love you, you know that. You're most certainly not anything like those two people downstairs, or even Henry Novack. You never ask for anything. That's why it's so terrific to be able to give you everything. Okay? We're okay now?"
"We're fine now, thank you," Sterling told her, but his smile was strained, and Maggie watched him leave, his steps slow and dragging, and fought the urge to call him back.
Because something was really strange here.
Sterling wasn't being Sterling. Well, who else could he be, for crying out loud? She made him as Sterling, hadn't she? He'd popped into her mind all those years ago, and then popped out of it, and into her living room a few months ago, as Sterling Balder. Sweet, lovable, naive, trusting, never angry, never petty, always kind Sterling Balder.
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